Similar to the "digital revolution" of the last century, the colonial and early national periods were a time of improved print technologies, exploding information, faster communications, and a fundamental reinventing of publishing and media processes. Between the early 1700s, when periodical publications struggled, and the late 1790s, when print media surged ahead, print culture was radically transformed by a liberal market economy, innovative printing and papermaking techniques, improved distribution processes, and higher literacy rates, meaning that information, particularly in the form of newspapers and magazines, was available more quickly and widely to people than ever before. These changes generated new literary genres and new relationships between authors and their audiences. The study of periodical literature and print culture in the eighteenth century has provided a more intimate view into the lives and tastes of early Americans, as well as enabled researchers to further investigate a plethora of subjects and discourses having to do with the Atlantic world and the formation of an American republic. Periodical Literature in Eighteenth-Century America is a collection of essays that delves into many of these unique magazines and newspapers and their intersections as print media, as well as into what these publications reveal about the cultural, ideological, and literary issues of the period; the resulting research is interdisciplinary, combining the fields of history, literature, and cultural studies. The essays explore many evolving issues in an emerging America: scientific inquiry, race, ethnicity, gender, and religious belief all found voice in various early periodicals. The differences between the pre- and post-Revolutionary periodicals and performativity are discussed, as are vital immigration, class, and settlement issues. Political topics, such as the emergence of democratic institutions and dissent, the formation of early parties, and the development of regional, national, and transnational cultural identities are also covered. Using digital databases and recent poststructural and cultural theories, this book returns us to the periodicals archive and regenerates the ideological and discursive landscape of early American literature in provocative ways; it will be of value to anyone interested in the crosscurrents of early American history, book history, and cultural studies. Mark L. Kamrath is associate professor of English at the University of Central Florida. Sharon M. Harris is Lorraine Sherley Professor of Literature at Texas Christian University.
From the colonial era to the onset of the Civil War, Magazines and the Making of America looks at how magazines and the individuals, organizations, and circumstances they connected ushered America into the modern age. How did a magazine industry emerge in the United States, where there were once only amateur authors, clumsy technologies for production and distribution, and sparse reader demand? What legitimated magazines as they competed with other media, such as newspapers, books, and letters? And what role did magazines play in the integration or division of American society? From their first appearance in 1741, magazines brought together like-minded people, wherever they were located and whatever interests they shared. As America became socially differentiated, magazines engaged and empowered diverse communities of faith, purpose, and practice. Religious groups could distinguish themselves from others and demarcate their identities. Social-reform movements could energize activists across the country to push for change. People in specialized occupations could meet and learn from one another to improve their practices. Magazines built translocal communities—collections of people with common interests who were geographically dispersed and could not easily meet face-to-face. By supporting communities that crossed various axes of social structure, magazines also fostered pluralistic integration. Looking at the important role that magazines had in mediating and sustaining critical debates and diverse groups of people, Magazines and the Making of America considers how these print publications helped construct a distinctly American society.
This book provides an account of the early periodical as a literary genre. Tracing the development of journalism from the 1690s to the 1760s, it covers a range of publications by well-known writers and obscure hacks.
Before 1660, English readers and theatergoers had never heard of a "coquette"; by the early 1700s, they could hardly watch a play, read a poem, or peruse a newspaper without encountering one. Why does British literature of this period pay so much attention to vain and flirtatious young women? Our Coquettes examines the ubiquity of the coquette in the eighteenth century to show how this figure enables authors to comment upon a series of significant social and economic developments—including the growth of consumer culture, widespread new wealth, increased travel and global trade, and changes in the perception and practice of marriage. The book surveys stage comedies, periodical essays, satirical poems, popular songs, and didactic novels to show that the early coquette is a figure of capacious desire: she finds pleasure in a wide range of choices, refusing to narrow any field of possibilities (admirers, luxury goods, friends, pets, public gatherings) down to a single option. Whereas scholars of the period have generally read the coquette as a simple and self-evident type, Our Coquettes emphasizes what is strange and surprising about this figure, revealing the coquette to be a touchstone in developing discourses about sexuality, consumerism, empire, and modernity itself. Winner of the Walker Cowen Memorial Prize for an outstanding work of scholarship in eighteenth-century studies
A thorough examination of the role which David Hume''s writings played upon the founders of the United States.This book explores the reception of David Hume''s political thought in eighteenth-century America. It presents a challenge to standard interpretations that assume Hume''s thought had little influence in early America. Eighteenth-century Americans are often supposed to have ignored Hume''s philosophical writings and to have rejected entirely Hume''s "Tory" History of England. James Madison, if he used Hume''s ideas in Federalist No. 10, it is commonly argued, thought best to do so silently -- open allegiance to Hume was a liability. Despite renewed debate about the impact of Hume''s political ideas in America, existing scholarship is often narrow and highly speculative. Were Hume''s works available in eighteenth-century America? If so, which works? Where? When? Who read Hume? To what avail? To answer questions of that sort, this books draws upon a wide assortment of evidence. Early American book catalogues, periodical publications, and the writings of lesser-light thinkers are used to describe Hume''s impact on the social history of ideas, an essential context for understanding Hume''s influence on many of the classic texts of early American political thought. Hume''s Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects, was readily available, earlier, and more widely, than scholars have supposed. The History of England was read most frequentlyof all, however, and often in distinctive ways. Hume''s History, which presented the British constitution as a patch-work product of chance historical developments, informed the origins of the American Revolution and Hume''ssubsequent reception through the late eighteenth century. The 326 subscribers to the first American edition of Hume''s History (published in Philadelphia in 1795-96) are more representative of the History''s friendlyreception in enlightened America than are its few critics. Thomas Jefferson''s latter-day rejection of Hume''s political thought foreshadowed Hume''s falling reputation in nineteenth-century America. MARK G. SPENCER is Associate Professor of History at Brock University where he holds a Chancellor''s Chair for Research Excellence. His books include Hume''s Reception in Early America (2002), Utilitarians and Their Critics in America, 1789-1914 (2005),and Ulster Presbyterians in the Atlantic World (2006). periodical publications, and the writings of lesser-light thinkers are used to describe Hume''s impact on the social history of ideas, an essential context for understanding Hume''s influence on many of the classic texts of early American political thought. Hume''s Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects, was readily available, earlier, and more widely, than scholars have supposed. The History of England was read most frequentlyof all, however, and often in distinctive ways. Hume''s History, which presented the British constitution as a patch-work product of chance historical developments, informed the origins of the American Revolution and Hume''ssubsequent reception through the late eighteenth century. The 326 subscribers to the first American edition of Hume''s History (published in Philadelphia in 1795-96) are more representative of the History''s friendlyreception in enlightened America than are its few critics. Thomas Jefferson''s latter-day rejection of Hume''s political thought foreshadowed Hume''s falling reputation in nineteenth-century America. MARK G. SPENCER is Associate Professor of History at Brock University where he holds a Chancellor''s Chair for Research Excellence. His books include Hume''s Reception in Early America (2002), Utilitarians and Their Critics in America, 1789-1914 (2005),and Ulster Presbyterians in the Atlantic World (2006).eputation in nineteenth-century America. MARK G. SPENCER is Associate Professor of History at Brock University where he holds a Chancellor''s Chair for Research Excellence. His books include Hume''s Reception in Early America (2002), Utilitarians and Their Critics in America, 1789-1914 (2005),and Ulster Presbyterians in the Atlantic World (2006). periodical publications, and the writings of lesser-light thinkers are used to describe Hume''s impact on the social history of ideas, an essential context for understanding Hume''s influence on many of the classic texts of early American political thought. Hume''s Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects, was readily available, earlier, and more widely, than scholars have supposed. The History of England was read most frequentlyof all, however, and often in distinctive ways. Hume''s History, which presented the British constitution as a patch-work product of chance historical developments, informed the origins of the American Revolution and Hume''ssubsequent reception through the late eighteenth century. The 326 subscribers to the first American edition of Hume''s History (published in Philadelphia in 1795-96) are more representative of the History''s friendlyreception in enlightened America than are its few critics. Thomas Jefferson''s latter-day rejection of Hume''s political thought foreshadowed Hume''s falling reputation in nineteenth-century America. MARK G. SPENCER is Associate Professor of History at Brock University where he holds a Chancellor''s Chair for Research Excellence. His books include Hume''s Reception in Early America (2002), Utilitarians and Their Critics in America, 1789-1914 (2005),and Ulster Presbyterians in the Atlantic World (2006). periodical publications, and the writings of lesser-light thinkers are used to describe Hume''s impact on the social history of ideas, an essential context for understanding Hume''s influence on many of the classic texts of early American political thought. Hume''s Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects, was readily available, earlier, and more widely, than scholars have supposed. The History of England was read most frequentlyof all, however, and often in distinctive ways. Hume''s History, which presented the British constitution as a patch-work product of chance historical developments, informed the origins of the American Revolution and Hume''ssubsequent reception through the late eighteenth century. The 326 subscribers to the first American edition of Hume''s History (published in Philadelphia in 1795-96) are more representative of the History''s friendlyreception in enlightened America than are its few critics. Thomas Jefferson''s latter-day rejection of Hume''s political thought foreshadowed Hume''s falling reputation in nineteenth-century America. MARK G. SPENCER is Associate Professor of History at Brock University where he holds a Chancellor''s Chair for Research Excellence. His books include Hume''s Reception in Early America (2002), Utilitarians and Their Critics in America, 1789-1914 (2005),and Ulster Presbyterians in the Atlantic World (2006).eputation in nineteenth-century America. MARK G. SPENCER is Associate Professor of History at Brock University where he holds a Chancellor''s Chair for Research Excellence. His books include Hume''s Reception in Early America (2002), Utilitarians and Their Critics in America, 1789-1914 (2005),and Ulster Presbyterians in the Atlantic World (2006).eputation in nineteenth-century America. MARK G. SPENCER is Associate Professor of History at Brock University where he holds a Chancellor''s Chair for Research Excellence. His books include Hume''s Reception in Early America (2002), Utilitarians and Their Critics in America, 1789-1914 (2005),and Ulster Presbyterians in the Atlantic World (2006). periodical publications, and the writings of lesser-light thinkers are used to describe Hume''s impact on the social history of ideas, an essential context for understanding Hume''s influence on many of the classic texts of early American political thought. Hume''s Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects, was readily available, earlier, and more widely, than scholars have supposed. The History of England was read most frequentlyof all, however, and often in distinctive ways. Hume''s History, which presented the British constitution as a patch-work product of chance historical developments, informed the origins of the American Revolution and Hume''ssubsequent reception through the late eighteenth century. The 326 subscribers to the first American edition of Hume''s History (published in Philadelphia in 1795-96) are more representative of the History''s friendlyreception in enlightened America than are its few critics. Thomas Jefferson''s latter-day rejection of Hume''s political thought foreshadowed Hume''s falling reputation in nineteenth-century America. MARK G. SPENCER is Associate Professor of History at Brock University where he holds a Chancellor''s Chair for Research Excellence. His books include Hume''s Reception in Early America (2002), Utilitarians and Their Critics in America, 1789-1914 (2005),and Ulster Presbyterians in the Atlantic World (2006).eputation in nineteenth-century America. MARK G. SPENCER is Associate Professor of History at Brock University where he holds a Chancellor''s Chair for Research Excellence. His books include Hume''s Reception in Early America (2002), Utilitarians and Their Critics in America, 1789-1914 (2005),and Ulster Presbyterians in the Atlantic World (2006).rough the late eighteenth century. The 326 subscribers to the first American edition of Hume''s History (published in Philadelphia in 1795-96) are more representative of the History''s friendlyreception in enlightened America than are its few critics. Thomas Jefferson''s latter-day rejection of Hume''s political thought foreshadowed Hume''s falling reputation in nineteenth-century America. MARK G. SPENCER is Associate Professor of History at Brock University where he holds a Chancellor''s Chair for Research Excellence. His books include Hume''s Reception in Early America (2002), Utilitarians and Their Critics in America, 1789-1914 (2005),and Ulster Presbyterians in
"The five volumes of A History of American Magazines constitute a unique cultural history of America, viewed through the pages and pictures of her periodicals from the publication of the first monthly magazine in 1741 through the golden age of magazines in the twentieth century"--Page 4 of cover.
Inspired by the reading and writing habits of citizens leading up to the French Revolution, The Writing Public is a compelling addition to the long-running debate about the link between the Enlightenment and the political struggle that followed. Elizabeth Andrews Bond scoured France's local newspapers spanning the two decades prior to the Revolution as well as its first three years, shining a light on the letters to the editor. A form of early social media, these letters constituted a lively and ongoing conversation among readers. Bond takes us beyond the glamorous salons of the intelligentsia into the everyday worlds of the craftsmen, clergy, farmers, and women who composed these letters. As a result, we get a fascinating glimpse into who participated in public discourse, what they most wanted to discuss, and how they shaped a climate of opinion. The Writing Public offers a novel examination of how French citizens used the information press to form norms of civic discourse and shape the experience of revolution. The result is a nuanced analysis of knowledge production during the Enlightenment. Thanks to generous funding from The Ohio State University Libraries and its participation in TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem), the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access (OA) volumes, available on the Cornell University Press website and other Open Access repositories.
This monograph explores transatlantic literary culture by tracing the proliferation of ‘new media,’ such as the anthology, the literary history and the magazine, in the period between 1750 and 1850. The fast-paced media landscape out of which these publishing genres developed produced the need of a ‘memory of literature’ and a concomitant rhetoric of remembering strikingly similar to what today is called a cultural memory debate. Thus, rather than depicting the emergence of an American national literature, The Rise of New Media(1750–1850) combines impulses from media history, the history of print, the sociology of literature and canon theory to uncover nascent forms and genres of literary self-reflectivity and early stirrings of a canon debate in the Atlantic World.
