Charles Ezra Sprague

Charles Ezra Sprague (October 9, 1842 – March 21, 1912) was an American accountant, born in Nassau, Rensselaer County, New York. He was a proponent of the constructed language Volapük, for which he authored the first major textbook in English, Handbook of Volapük (1888), as well as an early organizer of the accounting profession.

During the American Civil War, Sprague served in the 44th New York Infantry, seeing action at the Battle of Gettysburg, where his unit was instrumental in helping repulse attacks on Little Round Top. The New York State Archives stores a lengthy article Sprague wrote on his military service.

He was president of both the New York Institute of Accounts and the Union Dime Savings Bank (which later became the Dime Savings Bank). Later in life, he was involved in the movement for reform of English spelling as part of the Simplified Spelling Board, of which he was the first treasurer.[1]

He was heavily involved in the development of the first state certification of accountants in the United States.[2]

In 1953 he was inducted into Ohio State University's Accounting Hall of Fame.

Sprague was the maternal grandfather of science fiction author L. Sprague de Camp.[3]

Notes

gollark: For example, space travel.
gollark: It doesn't need to be temporary. It's highly power-dense and therefore good for a lot of things.
gollark: Anyway, GTech™ runs several petawatts of nuclear reactor capacity tens of kilometres deep in the crust, and nobody has complained yet!
gollark: I cannot actually remember much of it.
gollark: As a young child, I read the entire Wikipedia article or something, on a laptop I had borrowed somehow.

References

  • Miranti, Paul J. "Birth of a Profession". The CPA Journal. (1996). On-line version retrieved on 4 January 2008.
  • Rogers, Rodney K. "Sprague, Charles Ezra [1842-1912". History of Accounting: An International Encyclopedia. New York: Garland, 1996. pp. 548–550. On-line version retrieved on 20 July 2011.
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