Print in motion : the expansion of publishing and reading in the United States, 1880-1940

In a period characterized by expanding markets, national consolidation, and social upheaval, print culture picked up momentum as the nineteenth century turned into the twentieth. Books, magazines, and newspapers were produced more quickly and more cheaply, reaching ever-increasing numbers of readers. Volume 4 of A History of the Book in America traces the complex, even contradictory consequences of these changes in the production, circulation, and use of print.



Contributors to this volume explain that although mass production encouraged consolidation and standardization, readers increasingly adapted print to serve their own purposes, allowing for increased diversity in the midst of concentration and integration. Considering the book in larger social and cultural networks, essays address the rise of consumer culture, the extension of literacy and reading through schooling, the expansion of secondary and postsecondary education and the growth of the textbook industry, the growing influence of the professions and their dependence on print culture, and the history of relevant technology. As the essays here attest, the expansion of print culture between 1880 and 1940 enabled it to become part of Americans' everyday business, social, political, and religious lives.



Contributors:

Megan Benton, Pacific Lutheran University

Paul S. Boyer, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Una M. Cadegan, University of Dayton

Phyllis Dain, Columbia University

James P. Danky, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Ellen Gruber Garvey, New Jersey City University

Peter Jaszi, American University

Carl F. Kaestle, Brown University

Nicolas Kanellos, University of Houston

Richard L. Kaplan, ABC-Clio Publishing

Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette, Washington, D.C.

Elizabeth Long, Rice University

Elizabeth McHenry, New York University

Sally M. Miller, University of the Pacific

Richard Ohmann, Wesleyan University

Janice A. Radway, Duke University

Joan Shelley Rubin, University of Rochester

Jonathan D. Sarna, Brandeis University

Charles A. Seavey, University of Missouri, Columbia

Michael Schudson, University of California, San Diego

William Vance Trollinger Jr., University of Dayton

Richard L. Venezky (1938-2004)

James L. W. West III, Pennsylvania State University

Wayne A. Wiegand, Florida State University

Michael Winship, University of Texas at Austin

Martha Woodmansee, Case Western Reserve University

A framework for the history of publishing and reading in the United States, 1880-1940 / Carl F. Kaestle and Janice A. Radway -- Seeing the sites : readers, publishers, and local print cultures in 1880 / Carl F. Kaestle -- The rise of a national book trade system in the United States / Michael Winship -- The expansion of the national book trade system / James L.W. West III -- Copyright in transition / Peter Jaszi and Martha Woodmansee -- Diverging paths : books and magazines in the transition to corporate capitalism / Richard Ohmann -- From partisanship to professionalism : the transformation of the daily press / Richard L. Kaplan -- Persistence of vision : partisan journalism in the mainstream press / Michael Schudson -- Unruly servants : machines, modernity, and the printed page / Megan Benton -- Ambivalent advertising : books, prestige, and the circulation of publicity / Ellen Gruber Garvey -- Learned and literary print cultures in an age of professionalization and diversification / Janice A. Radway -- Crafting a communications infrastructure : scientific and technical publishing in the United States / Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette -- The government as publisher / Charles A. Seavey with Caroline F. Sloat -- Gilded-age consensus, repressive campaigns, and gradual liberalization : the shifting rhythms of book censorship / Paul S. Boyer -- Distinctive media : the European ethnic press in the United States / Sally M. Miller -- Exiles, immigrants, and natives : Hispanic print culture in what became the mainland of the United States / Nicolás Kanellos -- Reading, writing, and resisting : African American print culture / James P. Danky -- An outpouring of "faithful" words : Protestant publishing in the United States / William Vance Trollinger Jr. -- Two ambitious goals : American Jewish publishing in the United States / Jonathan D. Sarna -- Running the ancient ark by steam : Catholic publishing / Una M. Cadegan -- From McGuffey to Dick and Jane : reading textbooks / Richard L. Venezky with Carl F. Kaestle -- The American public library : construction of a community reading institution / Wayne A. Wiegand -- The great libraries / Phyllis Dain -- Aflame with culture : reading and social mission in the nineteenth-century white women's literary club movement / Elizabeth Long -- Reading and race pride : the literary activism of Black clubwomen / Elizabeth McHenry -- Making meaning : analysis and affect in the study and practice of reading / Joan Shelley Rubin.