The dictionary included no biographies of the living, and some period of residence in the United States was required for inclusion.

Noticeable omissions included, among others, Sojourner Truth, Martha Washington, Scott Joplin, Charles Guiteau, and Joe Hill.

[5] By terms of an agreement signed in 1990, Macmillan was allowed to produce the final two supplements, covering people who had died through 1980, without the council's participation.

Macmillan insisted that the terms of the 1927 licensing agreement with Scribner's gave it the right to publish the dictionary "in all forms."

In May 1996 the American Council of Learned Societies sued Macmillan in Federal District Court in Manhattan to try to block it from publishing the D.A.B.

"Our client has taken the position that we want the original work preserved in its pristine form," said Lawrence S. Robbins, a lawyer representing the council.