Function Follows Forme

Commonplace Books and Identity: A Brief Example from Alexander MacCallum Scott’s Reading

Posted on May 7, 2013 by davidjgary

As David Allan, Earle Havens, and Stephen Colclough have argued, commonplace books offer examples of active reading where meaning is appropriated, personal identity built, and complicated responses to problems developed. These notebooks contain extracts from texts, sometimes exactly copied and sometimes paraphrased, that were stored for future use in rhetoric, formal composition, or witty conversation. Each extract was given a heading, or a tag, that would help the reader remember the passage when he or she needed it. Self-constructed identity becomes apparent through the choices an individual makes when copying these passages during reading. If we can understand the filter the used in their selection process, then we can get a better sense of who they were.

I came across an excellent example of this interpretation during spring break this past March. I had the fantastic opportunity to travel to the University of Glasgow to co-teach a week long seminar on the history of the book to students in a variety of fields. During one of my sessions on the history of reading, I taught commonplace books and the special collections librarian was kind enough to pull some excellent examples of the genre for the students to view. One of the most striking was the late 1890s student commonplace book of Alexander MacCallum Scott, who would become a the Liberal MP for the Bridgeton constituency of Glasgow from 1910-1922. From 1917-1919 he was parliamentary private secretary of Winston Churchill and at the Ministry of Munitions, and later joined his boss at the War Office.

Throughout his career he was a strong anti-suffragist, a political movement begun in the late 19th century to campaign against women’s right to vote. This viewpoint is reflected in the passage recorded below:

“Women

197) The new movement is for the civilization of women. She has remained a barbarian. At heart she is non-sociable. The home has been her place of retirement, & it was only occasionally that she came in contact with the world & then under such artificial circumstances as the drawing room & ball room afford. Unhealthy girls schools have fostered a spirit of meanness. The mixed schools foster a spirit of healthy generosity.”

While it is unclear where Scott plucked this passage from, his views would ultimately lose out when women in the United Kingdom gained the right to vote in 1918. Women in the US would have to wait until 1920.

Posted in Book History | Tagged Alexander MacCallum Scott, anti-suffragist, commonplace book, Glasgow, women | Leave a comment

Review of Janice Radway’s “Reading the Romance”

Posted on April 3, 2013 by davidjgary

Janice A. Radway, _Reading the Romance_ (1984)

This week I assigned my students Janice Radway’s classic Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature (University of North Carolina Press, 1984; repr. 1991) as the text for our discussion of the history of reading and the history of book use. As an American Studies scholar, Radway wanted to expose the culture of patriarchy that pervades modern life in America. The hope being that if the public is alerted to a problem in cultural life, they will use this knowledge to advocate resistance and social change. The political goals behind this argument are of less interest to me than the example of active readership she demonstrates throughout the book.

Reading the Romance is an ethnographic study of a group of 42 romance novel readers. These readers, almost all of whom are white, middle class, married women, live in a commuter suburb of a Midwestern city – called Smithton. The group is led by Dorothy Evans, a bookstore clerk who recommends romance novels to a batch of loyal customers. She also writes a newsletter on the novels and has strong opinions about the value of romance reading for women. Radway records several group discussions, interviews 16 particularly articulate readers, watches Evans in her work environment, and collects an extensive questionnaire. Throughout the text, Radway is very clear that this is not a typical group of readers and consistently qualifies her conclusions. That being said, she does make some large interpretations based on her findings, and she hopes that others will follow up with more research.

In the book, Radway challenges the literary critics of the 1970s and early 1980s, who focus on the text instead of the reader. Literary critics posited that the mass produced text exerted immense control over the reader and that understanding its conventions would allow us to understand the power of these commodities over society. Radway does not deny that there are certain controls and conventions built into a text, but she says that the reader has the ability to appropriate, poach, and interpret on his or her own. People use books for a variety of reasons beyond what literary critics say is important and Radway demonstrates the diversity of readings the Smithton women bring to the much maligned romance novel.

Taking the Smithton women and the genre seriously, Radway discovers their reasons for reading romances are quite complex. While the genre is formulaic, they have very strong opinions about certain novels and authors. Some novels are very good at offering the emotional sustenance they crave, and others fail. The Smithton women read voraciously in order to escape the burdens and loneliness of housework and childcare, carve out their own space and time in a culture that demands they nurture others and deny themselves, and to find hope and confidence that the men in their lives can be loving even when they do not always show such emotion.

Radway uses this starting point to expand her interpretation further. She brings psychoanalytical interpretations to bear, suggesting that women are willing to accept rape in romance novels (under very specific circumstances) in order to understand and cope with the fear of potential male violence. Also, she notes that daughters grow up with a nurturing bond with their mother that they are trying to reestablish this with their husbands. They require examples of heroines in romance novels who tame a strong, masculine hero and demonstrate the value loving and caring for her. As a result, reading is not just for the basic needs of escapism and relaxation; there is a core mythology that alleviates deep-seated psychological burdens as well. She shows this by examining the texts and formulas of novels the Smithton women both like and hate.

At times she makes large interpretive leaps with her material, but that is a common situation required of all reading historians. Sometimes she succeeds, and other time she does not. For example, her argument that the formulas in romance novels function as myths for a community of women who are isolated from one another resonates, but her argument that reading romance novels gives women strategies to cope with a pervasive patriarchy sometimes falls flat (p. 75). It is hard to imagine the Smithton women as “subversive” as well (p. 118). All in all, the book is very unique in its evidence of reading – most studies rely on marginalia, notes, or police files – but she has oral history interviews. While it is impossible to replicate such a methodology for pre-20th century reading history, her findings show that historians and critics must understand the reader as active and not passive. That activity can and must be captured to write a full history of any era.

Posted in American History, Book History, Book Review, Print Culture | Tagged active reading, appropriation, book use, Janice Radway, patriarchy, reading history, romance, women | 5 Comments

Review of Galbraith and Smith’s “Rare Book Librarianship”

Posted on March 20, 2013 by davidjgary

Galbraith and Smith, _Rare Book Librarianship_ (2012)

Galbraith and Smith, Rare Book Librarianship: An Introduction and a Guide (2012)

This excellent introductory text into rare book librarianship by Steven K. Galbraith (Curator at RIT) and Geoffrey D. Smith (Head of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at the Ohio State University) is a perfect book to assign for students new to the field. It might be a good refresher for more seasoned rare book librarians, although I suspect it will mainly be used as a teaching tool. Coming in at a little over 180 pages, it is not an onerous read, although some sections, especially the chapter on digitization, are simplistic. That being said, Galbraith and Smith have done a great service for fellow teachers and rare book librarians, especially since the text turned to before this one was Roderick Cave’s Rare Book Librarianship, last updated in 1982. Galbraith and Smith’s work will be on my syllabus for some time.

The forward by the newly-named director of the Lilly Library, Joel Silver, sets the tone for the book by relating to that rare book librarianship has moved from a model that emphasized collection development to one that stresses access and public engagement. With library collections becoming homogenous due to increased sharing through inter-library loans and the growth of databases, Silver rightfully stresses that special collections and rare books provide the distinctive materials that set one institution apart from another. With this being the case, it is one of the most exciting times to enter the field, if one can find a position in today’s tough job market. But if special collections and rare book libraries are to stay viable, librarians need to demystify their space and attempt to remove the connotations of elitism surrounding them. Today, a rare book librarian has to be pro-active, all the authors say, and go to where the patrons are. That is why the longest section of this book has to do with outreach. If more constituencies are not brought into the rare book room, these materials will not receive the resources they need. In the end, they argue that there is a golden opportunity for rare book librarians, but they must take advantage of it. This assessment is accurate.

The book begins with short introductions into the history of rare book libraries in the United States and bibliography. They make the insight that most rare book librarians often have a deeper bibliographic knowledge of the hand press era, but that machine press era bibliography might be more important for most institutions because many land grant colleges were founded in the late 19th century and public universities did not enter into this field until after World War Two. It is a point that deserves stressing. I felt these chapters would be a good assignment for a class that only has one or two days to spend on bibliography. It covers all the ground nicely.

They then delve into the day-to-day operations and activities of a rare book library. They note that librarians need to understand their collections (especially the provenance of interesting volumes), know basic conservation techniques (avoid white gloves, keep temperature and humidity constant, provide proper housing for weakened items, etc.), and have security and disaster procedures in place.

Galbraith and Smith argue strenuously that rare book librarians need to be personable negotiators who can network with booksellers, donors, and administrators. To be good negotiators, they have to understand their collection strengths and know how they want to build on them. Having a clear mission and a plan for the future will help resolve many conflicts, they say. In fact, avoiding conflict is a theme Galbraith and Smith stress throughout their book. Navigating diverse constituencies and managing institutional politics are essential skills to develop for the rare book librarian.

I found some interesting material in the copyright chapter, namely that rare book librarians not only preserve their materials by having researchers digitally photograph items, but also eliminate the legal burden that making photocopies could place on a library. The chapter on outreach has a long list of ideas for librarians, although most of them will be second-nature to anyone with an interest in how libraries work.

In conclusion, people interested in library science should keep this on their radar screen, especially if they are teaching or making suggestions for interns or volunteers thinking of entering the field. It is a serviceable text that filled a need.

Update, 4/3/13: I used this textbook in my book history course and some surprises emerged. I convened a panel of librarians to discuss their daily work and the problems and pleasures they encounter in the rare book room. The book proved a useful starting for discussion, but it emerged that daily routines made much of what the book prescribed difficult to implement. For example, the librarians all talked about being understaffed. This meant the backlog was immense and that even a small number of researchers could dominate a day. Galbraith and Smith advocate more outreach, but the librarians on the panel said that would be difficult for them. Without more staff and funding, they could not handle a large influx of people to their libraries. But then the counter-point emerged — if we don’t get more people into the library we will never get more funding. Resolving this Catch-22 was something we could not do in a two-hour discussion, but it is worth considering. Also, while digital skills are important, it is difficult to find the time to delve into that aspect of 21st century librarianship. What I took away from the discussion was that a textbook can describe to you how things should be in a perfect world, but that the day-to-day life of the rare book room often makes it hard to make that vision a reality.

Posted in Book History, Book Review | Tagged access, Galbraith, libraries, outreach, rare book librarianship, rare books, Silver, Smith | 5 Comments

The Library of William H. Seward

Posted on March 18, 2013 by davidjgary

Seward statue in Seward Park in Auburn, NY. The house museum is in the background.

This past weekend I went to Auburn, New York to visit the historic house museum of William H. Seward. I had heard of the large library that was in the house and I made the trip to see if it would be a viable reading history project. The house is quite large at thirty rooms and almost all of its contents belonged to the Seward family, most of it connected to William himself. Built by Judge Elijah Miller in 1816, Seward moved into the house in 1824 after his marriage to Frances Adeline Miller Seward. Judge Miller lived with the couple until his death in 1851. Seward died in the house in 1872.

I had heard that the library in the house had around 7,000 volumes and was hopeful that some of it would contain marginalia. Once I arrived, the staff told me the count was closer to 5,500 volumes and that perhaps a little over half belonged to Seward himself. It is always tough to make those types of estimates, as the library was clearly a family collection. Books owned by Elijah Miller remained in the home after his death and various family members had book in the house while Seward was alive. How many Seward himself used will require further research. In addition to the volumes in the house, some books might still be with descendants of Seward, many of whom live around Auburn.

Seward bookplate in front pastedown of his copy of _The Works of Edmund Burke_, Vol. 1 (Boston, 1839).

I made arrangements with the staff to look at books cited in his “higher law” speech of 1850 as well as other legal and historical volumes. In all I looked at two dozen volumes in the four hours I had there, and found substantial marginalia in six of those volumes. That percentage gives me hope that a thorough examination of the books could yield enough material to write several articles or a book.

Any project involving a biographical reading history requires a deeper archive and luckily most of Seward’s papers are at the University of Rochester. In fact, history professor Thomas Slaughter has collaborated with the university’s librarians and archivists to teach a class using the Seward papers, which will lead to the digitization of the papers in the near future. The archive in Rochester contains several library catalogs and the house museum has a catalog made by William Henry Seward, Jr., who lived in the house after his father’s death. In addition, the first director and curator of the museum, Betty Lewis, who was hired in 1951 and worked at the house for four decades, cataloged all the books in the house. That card catalog is in the house museum’s collection. The museum undertook another cataloging of the books in 2008. What is even more exciting is that the family and museum staff has kept the books in Seward’s shelf order, allowing scholars to get a sense of Seward’s categorization. The abundance of reference materials would make this type of project much easier.

One wall of Seward’s library in Auburn, NY. The bust is a paper mache model used for the metal bust at his birth place in Florida, NY.

Books are all over the house, with most of them in a small office Seward built toward the end of his life, the library, and the drawing room, and some in bedrooms upstairs. In the library, Seward set aside a separate set of shelves for his daughter Fanny’s library. Fanny died in 1866 at the age of 21, and the books were left as a monument to her.

Most of the marginalia I saw was underlining and vertical lines in the margins. But two examples were particularly striking. Seward made at least two dozen notations next to various passages in Oeuvres Complètes De N. Machiavelli, Volume 1 (Paris, 1837). He closely read the French text of the Florentine Histories and made marginal comments in English. The other interesting example comes from Seward’s copy of The Works of Francis Bacon, Vol. 1 (London, 1841). On page 745 of this volume, Seward wrote “Tyler / Texas / Treaty” in the margin of Bacon’s History of King Henry VII. The marginalia was in comment to Bacon’s line, “yet he did not consider

Page 745 of Seward’s copy of _The Works of Francis Bacon_, Vol. 1 (London, 1841).

that Charles [the King of France] was not guided by any of the principal of the blood or nobility, but by mean men, who would make it their master-piece of credit and favour, to give venturous counsels, which no great or wise man durst or would.” This is a reference to the treaty of annexation that President John Tyler’s administration negotiated and the Senate scuttled in June 1844.

Lastly, I’ll share an interesting inscription from the Unitarian minister, one-term Massachusetts Congressman, and historian John G. Palfrey. He sent Seward a copy of his History of New England (Boston, 1859). On the front flyleaf he wrote:

Front flyleaf of Seward’s copy of John G. Palfrey’s _History of New England_ (Boston, 1859).

John G. Palfrey,

as a small token of his profound respect for the Honble. William H. Seward, begs Mr. Seward to accept this copy of a History of men who owned, revered, obeyed, uphold, & were upheld by, The Higher Law.

Cambridge, Mass.;

1860, Sept. 1.

I’ll be posting other findings I made while I was in Auburn, NY in future posts. But hopefully further research can help us understand not only what Seward read, but also how and why.

Posted in American History, Book History, Early American Republic, Print Culture | Tagged Auburn, Elijah Miller, library, marginalia, Seward museum, William H. Seward | Leave a comment

Rufus King’s Granddaughter Survives the Sinking of the “Pulaski” in 1838

Posted on March 7, 2013 by davidjgary

While I was working on a post about a printed subscription proposal for Benjamin F. Thompson’s planned 2 volume octavo edition of the History of Long Island (link to second volume here), which I found in the John Alsop King Papers at the New-York Historical Society, I discovered an earlier printed circular Thompson sent to King requesting interesting information that would help him write the book. The item was dated August 7, 1838 and began by noting that, “[t]he last edition of ‘A Sketch of the first settlement of the several towns of Long Island,’ by the Hon Silas Wood, being exhausted, the undersigned has been solicited to prepare a more enlarged History of Long Island.” The print continued for a long paragraph, after which Thompson attached a note to his friend:

Benjamin F. Thompson to John Alsop King, 7 August 1838, John Alsop King Papers, Box 1834-1856, Folder 1824-1839, N-YHS.

“I know(?) the terrible [illegible] which your feelings and that of your amiable family, must have experienced by the sad catastrophe of the Pulaski – and you may be assured no one more than myself deeply sympathised with you on the occasion. You have had ample evidence of the strong and anxious public feeling which was felt by the whole community & especially by those of your county and neighborhood –

I have therefore foreborne to trouble [you] on the subject of my former communication till now – I have therefore to solicit from you a statement or memorandum of whatever in your examinations (if any you have made) may have occurred to you, as important & worthy of a place in my projected History of Long Island.”

This was a reference to the harrowing ordeal of John’s daughter Mary King Nightingale (b. 28 October 1810) on the steamship Pulaski, which sunk off the coast of North Carolina after a boiler explosion on June 13-14, 1838. On board was Mary, traveling with her seven-month-old daughter Laura Greene Nightingale. Laura’s father was the grandson of Revolutionary War General Nathanael Greene, Phineas Miller Nightingale (b. 1803) of Cumberland Island, Georgia. Mary and Phineas married at what is now the Rufus King Manor House in Jamaica, Long Island on 16 November 1836 and moved to Georgia. It seems that Mary was taking Laura north to visit her relatives. The Pulaski left Savannah, Georgia with a crew of 37 and 90 passenger. It stopped at Charleston, South Carolina where it took on another 65. Over 100 of them would die.

The Pulaski Disaster, June 1838

A description of Nightingale’s traumatic trip can be found in S.A. Howland, Steamboat Disasters and Railroad Accidents in the United States. To Which is Appended Accounts of Recent Shipwrecks, Fires at Sea, Thrilling Incidents, &c, 2nd ed. (Worcester, MA: Published by Door, Howland & Co., 1840), 48-51. Howland took this description verbatim from newspaper accounts of the time.

“There were four boats belonging to the Pulaski; two being swung to the sides, and two placed on the top of the promenade deck. The side boats were both lowered down, within five minutes after the explosion. In that on the starboard side the first mate, Mr. Hibbert, Mr. Swift, and one other person had placed themselves;—in that on the larboard side were Mr. J. H. [James Hamilton] Couper [who owned a 4,500 acre plantation in Glynn County, Georgia], with Mrs. Nightingale and child, and Mrs. Frazer and her son, who were under his charge. Capt. R. W. Pooler and son, and Mr. William Robertson, all of Georgia, Barney and Solomon belonging to the crew, and two colored women. By direction of the mate two of the crew launched one of the deck boats and got into her; but as, from her long exposure to the sun, her seams were all open, she immediately filled, and Mr. Hibbert removed the men to his boat. The boats met, when those in the second proposed to Mr. Hibbert to strike for the land, as it had on board as many as it could safely carry; this he declined to do, as he said he was determined to stay by the wreck until daylight, and had yet room for more persons. Both boats then continued to row about the wreck until the mate’s boat had picked up as many as she could carry, when Mr. Hibbert yielded to the propriety of consulting the safety of those in the boats, by going to the land, as their further stay would endanger them, without affording any aid to their suffering friends, and they left the wreck at 3 P. M. The boats took a N. W. course, being favored by a heavy sea and strong breeze from S. E.

At 12 o’clock they made the land, and at 3 P. M. were near the beach. Mr. Hibbert then waited until. the second boat came up, and informed them that those who were in his boat refused to row any farther and insisted on landing;—Mr. Couper united with him in protesting against this measure, as, from the heavy breakers which were dashing on the beach, as far as the eye could reach, it was obviously one of great peril. Being overruled, they submitted to make the attempt. The mate, who had previously taken the two colored women from the second boat, then proposed to lead the way, and requested Mr. Couper to lie off, until he had effected a landing and was prepared to aid the ladies and children. The first boat then entered the surf, .and disappeared for several minutes from those in the other boat, having been instantly filled with water. Six of the persons in her, viz.:—Mr. Hibbert, Mr. Swift. Mr. Tappan, Mr. Leuchtenburg, and West and Brown of the crew landed in safety. An old gentleman supposed to be Judge Rochester, formerly of Buffalo, N. Y., but recently of Pensacola, Mr. Bird of Georgia, the two colored women, and a boat hand, whose name is unknown, were drowned. The other boat continued to keep off until about §unset, when, finding the night approaching, and there being no appearance of aid, or change in the wind, which was blowing freshly in to the land, and the persons in the boat having previously refused to attempt to row any farther, Mr. Couper reluctantly consented to attempt the landing.

Before making the attempt, it was thought necessary, to prevent the infant of Mrs. Nightingale, which was only seven months old, from being lost; to lash. it to her person, which was done. Just as the sun was setting, the bow of the boat was turned to the shore, and Mr. Couper sculling, and two men at the oars, she was pulled into the breakers—she rose without difficulty upon the first breaker, but the second, coming out with great violence, struck the oar from the hand of one of the rowers. The boat was thus thrown-into the trough of the sea, and the succeeding breaker striking her broadside, turned her bottom upwards. Upon regaining the surface, Mr. Couper laid hold of the boat, and soon discovered that the rest of the party, with the exception of Mrs. Nightingale., were making for the shore ;—of her, for a few moments, he saw nothing, but, presently, feeling something like the dress of a female touching his foot, he again dived down, and was fortunate enough to grasp her by the hair. The surf continued to break over them with great violence, but, after a struggle, in which was spent the last efforts of their strength, they reached the shore, utterly worn out with fatigue, watching, hunger, thirst, and the most intense and overwhelming excitement. Besides this, the ladies and children were suffering severely from the cold. The party proceeded a short distance from the shore,, where the ladies laid down upon the side of a sand hill, and their protectors covered them, and their children with sand, to prevent them from perishing. Meantime, some of the party went in quest of aid, and about 10 o’clock the whole of them found a kind and hospitable reception, shelter, food, and clothing, under the roof of Siglee Redd, of Onslow county.

Mrs. Nightingale is the daughter of John A. King, Esq. of New York, and a grand-daughter of the late distinguished Rufus King. During the whole of the perils through which they passed, she and Mrs. Fraser displayed the highest qualities of fortitude and heroism. They owe the preservation of their own and their children’s lives, under Providence, to the coolness, intrepidity, and firmness of Mr. Couper and his assistants, and to the steadiness with which they seconded the wise and humane efforts of that gentleman in their behalf.

On Monday they reached Wilmington, where they found a deep sympathy for their misfortune pervading the whole city, and generous emulation among its inhabitants to render them’ every possible assistance.”

26 others who clung to a makeshift lifeboat made from the bow of the ship and other floating debris were picked up four days later by a passing ship. Mary and Laura made their way north and eventually arrived at Jamaica, Long Island. The Long Island Farmer of 28 June 1838 noted they “arrived in this village yesterday afternoon.”

Posted in American History, Early American Republic | Tagged disaster, Greene, John Alsop King, Mary King Nightingale, steamboat | Leave a comment

Review of David D. Hall’s “Cultures of Print”

Posted on March 5, 2013 by davidjgary

Historian David D. Hall, who is based at the Harvard Divinity School, has produced a large literature on colonial era religion and the history of the book and he was a driving force behind the the magisterial five-volume A History of the Book in America series. Only one of the essays in Cultures of Print was new in 1996, but that should not keep anyone from reading this book. Hall’s work in the 1980s was foundational to the American history of the book and this volume provides a good understanding of the field’s early concerns and findings. Some of the material in the essays of the Cultures of Print: Essays in the History of the Book is included in the first volume he co-edited with Hugh Amory, making them highly relevant to the field today.

Hall’s introduction notes that there are several themes that unify these essays: colonial Americans were highly literate and took part in a shared vernacular Protestant tradition, the fracture of culture between a local and metropolitan core, and the overlap between high and low culture. While trying to navigate this culture, people often tried to transgress imperatives and boundaries with the help of intermediates like printers and booksellers.

He was working against the older historiographic tradition of social history that viewed the common man of the Massachusetts colonies as separate from the clergy and elites. This tradition isolated the intellectual history, as exemplified by Perry Miller and Samuel Eliot Morison, but Hall reinvigorated it by turning to book history. He sought out the mentalités of both upper and lower classes and found they both drew upon a set of stories and values that were common across class divides and could be manipulated in a middle ground. Hall’s history of the book in the colonial era is one of negotiations between groups and appropriations of texts, and he unifies it all through his goal to find “a social history of culture” (1).

Hall usefully reminds us that most books were imported into the colonies, that scribal culture was just as important (if not more important in certain times and places) than print culture, and that reading history is the essential tool to understanding the mindset of the period. Printers, booksellers, authors, and elites all intervened to try to shape the meaning of texts, but ultimately, “readers could find a mixture of meanings” (10).

Hall’s essays then try to sort through these issues. He begins with an essay describing the older idea of print history, which focused on examples of the earliest printing in the colonies and the fine products of the period, and comparing it to the new cultural history of the book he was promoting. The former was descriptive while Hall argued for the interpretive role of the book in culture. The essay provides a good cheat sheet for early American print history from the 19th and early 20th centuries.

His next essay focuses on the uses of books in New England. Literacy was not an issue there, as most could read, but he wanted to know how people used the books that came their way. The books people in New England used were the older steady-sellers, which would remain popular until the 1830s, including the works of Isaac Watts, Robert Russell, and Philip Doddridge. In addition, all classes shared in print culture of almanacs, chapbooks, ballads, primers, Psalters, hymnals, and, of course, the Bible.

Hall then offers an essay that later developed into the Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England (1990). Here, he notes that culture was everywhere in New England, particularly because almost everyone could read, and that peasants could pick up the debris of high culture while elites also read about folk beliefs involving magic and irrationality. By using this approach, he found a middle ground of negotiation and appropriation that expanded intellectual history at a time when it was being attacked.

The longest essay of this volume examines the Chesapeake region’s interaction with print. Several hundred miles south of New England, a very different world developed. Handwritten texts and oral proclamations dominated here in a way that they did not in New England. This was a culture that was focused on reading for practical purposes, not deep religious reflection. Ultimately, only 20,000 books made their way to the Chesapeake region by the end of the 17th century and printing barely existed in the colony.

Next, Hall describes the changing culture of the 18th century, which split into genteel and popular aspects. By the 1720s, gentlemen libraries developed, book clubs existed (which did much of its reading and writing in manuscript form), and the Pennsylvania Gazette emerged. Despite this, there was still a strong vernacular Protestant tradition amongst lower classes. Hall says this culture was more widespread and influential than genteel elites of the time gave credit to. Ultimately, the two cultures combine and provide the momentum for the Revolution to occur.

Lastly, Hall discusses the history of reading in America, which was emerging when he wrote in the 1990s. It is a wide-ranging field that lacks definition, he argued. He defined six aspects of the field though: as intellectual history that describes books and traces patterns of thought, as popular culture that examines literacy and cheap print, as literary history that focuses on authorial intention and the rules of each genre, as gender history that often devolves into ideological criticism and studies of resistance, as appropriation history where reader remake texts through their own individual wants and abilities, and as a study of reading revolution that examines the switch from scarcity to abundance and intensive reading to extensive reading.

Overall, this books covers a massive amount of ground in a small number of pages. It is a great teaching text for this reason, even though it must be supplemented with materials from other sources. There are some gaps in coverage with the lower South and Pennsylvania (I kept wanting more Benjamin Franklin), but this is made for with all the work Hall does describing the origins of the field for new readers.

Posted in American History, Book History, Book Review, Print Culture | Tagged Book History, Chesapeake, colonial history, David D. Hall, New England, reading history | 8 Comments

Web Sites of Interest for Early Print Culture

Posted on February 27, 2013 by davidjgary

I asked my class to play the roll of librarian and answer a reference question:

“I need to find a good Web site on early printed books, where should I go?”

Here are the results:

Universal Short Title Catalog – offers easy linking to many other sites, often with images of the item selected.

Incunabula Site from University of Tennessee-Martin – offers links to many aspects of early print history. A good general portal.

Consortium of European Research Libraries

Incunabula Collections at the British Library

University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne Rare Books and Special Collections Exhibit on Florentine Printing of the Fifteenth Century.

A Heavenly Craft: The Woodcut in Early Printed Books – Exhibit from Library of Congress

Posted in Book History, Print Culture | Tagged Book History, early print culture, early printed books, Florence, incunabula, print culture, woodcuts | 3 Comments