The History of the Book in Antebellum America

Course Description

This course will focus on the emergence of a national trade publishing system in the United States by examining the production, distribution, and reception of books and other printed materials during the years from 1800 to 1860, with particular emphasis on the crucial transition period of 1819 to 1837. Among the themes that will be explored are how the publishing and book trades established and developed themselves over this period; the introduction of new production and distribution technologies; changes in the economics of publishing and how they affected the price of books and the practice of discounting; the development of different markets for books and the various ways books reached readers as the nation expanded westward. Students will have an opportunity to study many examples that illustrate important features of the history of the American antebellum book. Using digital copies of manuscript sources they will also study the business practices of printers and publishers, and material practices of authorship and reading. Students will examine copies of scarce or rare material, including works by African Americans and cheap print aimed at urban and working-class readers. Students will also be introduced to important reference works and other resources for the study of American book history. The class will be run as a seminar, so students will be encouraged to discuss their own interests and research projects with the group as a whole. This course is aimed at scholars, librarians, collectors, and others who are already familiar with the broad outlines of American book history but who wish to focus on what is specific to the book culture of the antebellum period. While there are no prerequisites, the course is designed to complement James N. Green’s History of the Book in America, c.1700–1830 (H-70) and Michael Winship’s The American Book in the Industrial Era, 1820–1940 (H-50) by focusing specifically on the shift from the colonial to the industrial book; the course supplements at a more advanced level the broad overview of the introductory course The History of the Book in America: A Survey from Colonial to Modern (H-15). In their personal statement, applicants are requested to summarize briefly their background in the field, current research projects, and topics or issues that they would particularly like the course to address. Click here to view the course description for the virtual version of this course, “Key Moments in the History of the Book in the Antebellum United States.”

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Advance Reading List

Required

Gross, Robert A. & Mary Kelley, eds. A History of the Book in America, Volume 2: An Extensive Republic: Print, Culture, and Society in the New Nation. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010. Especially chapter 2 (pp. 75-171).

Casper, Scott E., Jeffrey D. Groves, Stephen W. Nissenbaum, & Michael Winship. A History of the Book in America, Volume 3: The Industrial Book, 1840–1880. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007. Especially the chapters 1 (pp. 40–69) & 4 (pp. 117–57).

These are two volumes from the standard modern scholarly history of the book in America, and students are encouraged to browse these and other volumes in the series for further additional reading. Ambitious students are also encouraged to read one or more of the suggested works.

Suggested

Students who wish to delve deeper into the book trade of the antebellum period may wish to peruse one or more of the following works:

Barnes, James J. Authors, Publishers and Politicians: The Quest for an Anglo-American Copyright Agreement, 1815–1854.  Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1974.

Charvat, William. Literary Publishing in America, 1790–1850. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1959; reprinted Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993.

Exman, Eugene. The Brothers Harper. New York: Harper & Row, 1965.

Greenspan, Ezra. George Palmer Putnam: Representative American Publisher. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000.

Kaser, David. Messrs. Carey & Lea of Philadelphia: A Study in the History of the Booktrade. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1957.

Remer, Rosalind. Printers and Men of Capital: Philadelphia Book Publishers and the New Republic. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996.

Silver, Rollo G. The American Printer, 1787–1825. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1967.

Sutton, Walter. The Western Book Trade: Cincinnati as a Nineteenth-Century Publishing and Book-Trade Center.  Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1961.

Tryon, Warren S. Parnassus Corner: A Life of James T. Fields, Publisher to the Victorians. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1963.

Winship, Michael. American Literary Publishing in the Mid-Nineteenth Century: The Business of Ticknor and Fields. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

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Course Evaluations

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Course History