Course Description
Course Length: 6 hours Format: Online This course will explore the history of the antebellum American book by looking at three important events in the history of publishing in the United States: the first national book fair in 1802, the first book trade sale in 1824, and the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852. Each of these moments signals a major development in how books were produced, published, and distributed during the antebellum period. Each day of class will be spent on one of these events as a lens that brings into focus our understanding of the ways that the American book trade developed and grew before the Civil War. The course is designed for scholars, librarians, book collectors, and booksellers who have an interest in the antebellum period. Applicants, in their personal statements, should be specific in explaining their interest in the course and are encouraged to share relevant current research projects. Click here to view the course description for the in-person version of this course, “The History of the Book in Antebellum America.”Faculty
James N. Green
James Green is Librarian Emeritus of the Library Company of Philadelphia, where he has worked for more than 30 years. He contributed three long essays on American printing and publishing …
Michael Winship
Michael Winship is Iris Howard Regents Professor of English II (emeritus) at the University of Texas at Austin and edited the final three volumes of the nine-volume Bibliography of American …
Advance Reading List
Required Reading
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.
Course Evaluations
Course History
- 2021
James N. Green and Michael Winship co-teach this virtual course, H-135v “Key Moments in the History of the Book in the Antebellum United States” (6 hours).
- 2018-
James N. Green & Michael Winship co-teach the in-person version of this course, “The History of the Book in Antebellum America.”