This study interprets the history of book collecting in America from the point of view of the collectors of the late 19th and early 20th century, the 'Golden Age' of collecting. It examines how, what, and most importantly why they collected, and how they read and interacted with their collectibles. It also incorporates an analysis with larger cultural occurrences related to the decline of Victorianism, modernization, the reaction by the American gentry, and rise of mass, consumer culture.
The Annual Bibliography of the History of the Printed Book and Libraries aims at recording articles of scholarly value which relate to the history of the printed book, to the history of arts, crafts, techniques and equipment, and of the economic social and cultural environment, involved in its production, distribution, conservation and description.
The fifth volume of A History of the Book in America addresses the economic, social, and cultural shifts affecting print culture from World War II to the present. During this period factors such as the expansion of government, the growth of higher education, the climate of the Cold War, globalization, and the development of multimedia and digital technologies influenced the patterns of consolidation and diversification established earlier. The thirty-three contributors to the volume explore the evolution of the publishing industry and the business of bookselling. The histories of government publishing, law and policy, the periodical press, literary criticism, and reading--in settings such as schools, libraries, book clubs, self-help programs, and collectors' societies--receive imaginative scrutiny as well. The Enduring Book demonstrates that the corporate consolidations of the last half-century have left space for the independent publisher, that multiplicity continues to define American print culture, and that even in the digital age, the book endures. Contributors: David Abrahamson, Northwestern University James L. Baughman, University of Wisconsin-Madison Kenneth Cmiel (d. 2006) James Danky, University of Wisconsin-Madison Robert DeMaria Jr., Vassar College Donald A. Downs, University of Wisconsin-Madison Robert W. Frase (d. 2003) Paul C. Gutjahr, Indiana University David D. Hall, Harvard Divinity School John B. Hench, American Antiquarian Society Patrick Henry, New York City College of Technology Dan Lacy (d. 2001) Marshall Leaffer, Indiana University Bruce Lewenstein, Cornell University Elizabeth Long, Rice University Beth Luey, Arizona State University Tom McCarthy, Beirut, Lebanon Laura J. Miller, Brandeis University Priscilla Coit Murphy, Chapel Hill, N.C. David Paul Nord, Indiana University Carol Polsgrove, Indiana University David Reinking, Clemson University Jane Rhodes, Macalester College John V. Richardson Jr., University of California, Los Angeles Joan Shelley Rubin, University of Rochester Michael Schudson, University of California, San Diego, and Columbia University Linda Scott, University of Oxford Dan Simon, Seven Stories Press Ilan Stavans, Amherst College Harvey M. Teres, Syracuse University John B. Thompson, University of Cambridge Trysh Travis, University of Florida Jonathan Zimmerman, New York University
In American Little Magazines of the Fin de Siecle, Kirsten MacLeod examines the rise of a new print media form – the little magazine – and its relationship to the transformation of American cultural life at the turn of the twentieth century. Though the little magazine has long been regarded as the preserve of modernist avant-gardes and elite artistic coteries, for whom it served as a form of resistance to mass media, MacLeod’s detailed study of its origins paints a different picture. Combining cultural, textual, literary, and media studies criticism, MacLeod demonstrates how the little magazine was deeply connected to the artistic, social, political, and cultural interests of a rising professional-managerial class. She offers a richly contextualized analysis of the little magazine’s position in the broader media landscape: namely, its relationship to old and new media, including pre-industrial print forms, newspapers, mass-market magazines, fine press books, and posters. MacLeod’s study challenges conventional understandings of the little magazine as a genre and emphasizes the power of “little” media in a mass-market context.
This book contains a complete list of children's works by over 200 collectable authors and illustrators, and provides help in identifying the collectable editions of all the works listed. It also includes a guide to the value of every first edition.
Coda: Remaking Poetic Modernism after a Culture of Mass Print -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y
"In the pivotal decades around the turn of the century, American domestic life underwent dramatic alteration. From backstairs to front stairs, spaces and the activities within them were radically affected by shifts in the larger social and material environments. This volume, while taking account of architecture and decoration, moves us beyond the study of buildings to the study of behaviors, particularly the behaviors of those who peopled the middle-class, single-family, detached American home between 1880 and 1930." "The book's contributors study transformations in services (such as home utilities of power, heat, light, water, and waste removal) in servicing (for example, the impact of home appliances such as gas and electric ranges, washing machines, and refrigerators), and in serving (changes in domestic servants' duties, hours of work, racial and ethnic backgrounds)." "In blending intellectual and home history, these essays both examine and exemplify the perennial American enthusiasm for, as well as anxiety about, the meaning of modernity."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
The first biography of Henry and Emily Folger, who acquired the largest and finest collection of Shakespeare in the world. In Collecting Shakespeare, Stephen H. Grant recounts the American success story of Henry and Emily Folger of Brooklyn, a couple who were devoted to each other, in love with Shakespeare, and bitten by the collecting bug. Shortly after marrying in 1885, the Folgers started buying, cataloging, and storing all manner of items about Shakespeare and his era. Emily earned a master's degree in Shakespeare studies. The frugal couple worked passionately as a tight-knit team during the Gilded Age, financing their hobby with the fortune Henry earned as president of Standard Oil Company of New York, where he was a trusted associate of John D. Rockefeller Sr. While a number of American universities offered to house the collection, the Folgers wanted to give it to the American people. Afraid the price of antiquarian books would soar if their names were revealed, they secretly acquired prime real estate on Capitol Hill near the Library of Congress. They commissioned the design and construction of an elegant building with a reading room, public exhibition hall, and the Elizabethan Theatre. The Folger Shakespeare Library was dedicated on the Bard's birthday, April 23, 1932. The library houses 82 First Folios, 275,000 books, and 60,000 manuscripts. It welcomes more than 100,000 visitors a year and provides professors, scholars, graduate students, and researchers from around the world with access to the collections. It is also a vibrant center in Washington, D.C., for cultural programs, including theater, concerts, lectures, and poetry readings. The library provided Grant with unprecedented access to the primary sources within the Folger vault. He draws on interviews with surviving Folger relatives and visits to 35 related archives in the United States and in Britain to create a portrait of the remarkable couple who ensured that Shakespeare would have a beautiful home in America.
After World War I, the US was flooded with newspapers, magazines, radio stations and movies. Many feared serious books would disappear altogether. The concern caused a boom in fine editions, valued for beauty, craftsmanship or rarity, rather than content, and this is their story.
