⁸ "Webster's blue-back spelling-book" was written by the same Noah Webster who compiled the first U.S. dictionary. His spellers and readers were widely used in the first half of the 19th century. During the second half of the century, McGuffey's "Readers" were more popular. It can be inferred that since these books were being used in the 1880's, they were castasides from other more affluent schools or, even more likely, texts brought down from the north after the Civil War by the Yankee schoolmistresses who first brought schooling to the freed slaves.