H-15. The History of the Book in America: A Survey from Colonial to Modern - Advance Reading List

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  • Required Readings

    Note: Students admitted to this course will receive further instructions for accessing these readings.

    Readings are listed in the order that they will be discussed during the seminar.  Throughout, the abbreviation “HBA” refers to the five-volume A History of the Book in America series. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Worcester: American Antiquarian Society, 2000; Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007–2009).

    Robert Darnton, excerpt from “What Is the History of Books?,” The Kiss of Lamourette: Reflections on Cultural History (1990), pp. 107–13 + notes p. 358.

    Joan Shelley Rubin, “What Is the History of the History of Books?,” Journal of American History 90 (September 2003), pp. 555–75.

    Scott Casper and Joan Shelley Rubin, “The History of the Book in America,” Oxford Companion to the Book vol. 1 (2010), pp. 425–42.

    Jonathan Sencheyne, “Under Pressure: Reading Material Textuality in the Recovery of Early African American Print Work,” Arizona Quarterly 75 (Fall 2019), pp. 109–32.

    Joseph M. Adelman, “The Business and Economic World of the Late Colonial Printing Trade,” Revolutionary Networks: The Business and Politics of Printing the News, 1763–1789 (2019), pp. 19–50 + notes pp. 208–15.

    David D. Hall, “The World of Print and Collective Mentality in Seventeenth-Century New England,” Cultures of Print(1996), pp. 79–96.

    Ross W. Beales and E. Jennifer Monaghan, “Literacy and Schoolbooks,” HBA  vol. 1 (2000), pp. 380–87 + notes pp. 594–600.

    Ross W. Beales and James N. Greene, “Libraries and Their Users,” HBA  vol. 1 (2000), pp. 399–404 + notes pp. 594–600.

    E. Jennifer Monaghan, “Reading for the Enslaved, Writing for the Free: Reflections on Liberty and Literacy,” Proceedings of the AAS 108 (1998), pp. 309–41.

    Phillip H. Round, “Being and Becoming Literate in the Eighteenth–Century Native Northeast,” Removable Type: Histories of the Book in Indian Country, 1663–1880 (2010), pp. 46–72 + notes pp. 236–39.

    Rosalind Remer, “New Modes of Publishing in the Early Republic,” Printers and Men of Capital (1996), pp. 69–99 + notes pp. 175–80.

    Jacob Abbott, chapters 4 through 17 of The Harper Establishment: How the Story Books Are Made (1855). Available at https://archive.org/details/harperestablishm00abbo.

    Jeffrey D. Groves, “Trade Communication,” HBA vol. 3 (2007), pp. 130–39 + notes pp. 440–41.

    Amy Sopcak-Joseph, “Reconstructing and Gendering the Distribution Networks of Godey’s Lady’s Book in the Nineteenth Century,” Book History 22 (2019), pp. 161–95.

    Scott E. Casper, “Other Variations on the Trade,” HBA vol. 3 (2007), pp. 203–223 + notes pp. 450–454.

    Sally M. Miller, “Distinctive Media: The European Ethnic Press in the United States,” HBA vol. 4 (2009), pp. 299–311 + notes pp. 584–86.

    Nicolas Kanellos, “Exiles, Immigrants, and Natives: Hispanic Print Culture in What Became the Mainland of the United States,” HBA vol. 4 (2009), pp. 312–38 + notes pp. 586–89.

    James P. Danky, “Reading, Writing, and Resisting: African American Print Culture,” HBA vol. 4 (2009), pp. 339–58 + notes pp. 589–93.

    Michael Winship, “The Rise of a National Book Trade System in the United States,” HBA vol. 4 (2009), pp. 56–77 + notes pp. 544–46.

    Kristin L. Matthews, “Making Reading Popular: Cold War Literacy and Classics Illustrated,” Book History vol. 22 (2019), pp. 320–41.

    The Underground Press Syndicate, “How to Publish Your Very Own Underground Newspaper” (1971).

    E. James West, “’The Books You’ve Waited For’: Ebony Magazine, the Johnson Book Division, and Black History in Print,” Against a Sharp White Background: Infrastructures of African American Print (2019), pp. 62–81.

    Laura J. Miller, “From Dry Goods Merchant to Internet Mogul: Bookselling through American History,” Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption (2006), pp. 23–54 + notes pp. 241–51.

    David Finkelstein and Alistair McCleery, “The Future of the Book,” An Introduction to Book History (2005), pp. 118–32.

    Rachel Noorda and Stevie Marsden, “Twenty-First Century Books Studies: The State of the Discipline,” Book History vol. 22 (2019), pp. 370–97.