A major goal of the Program in the History of the Book in American Culture was the publication of a five-volume, collaborative scholarly work, A History of the Book in America, which examined American printing and publishing in its full cultural, social, commercial, and political contexts, from the early seventeenth century to our own times. An editorial board of distinguished scholars, chaired by David D. Hall, oversaw the series, which was published by the University of North Carolina Press. Many essays from the five volumes have since become canonical treatments of their subjects and are widely cited.
In 2010, the Library of Congress’s Center for the Book held a symposium that celebrated the completion of A History of the Book in America, with presentations by general editor David D. Hall and volume editors Mary Kelley, Scott Casper, and Joan Rubin. The program is archived on the Library of Congress YouTube page.
Volume 1: The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World.
Edited by Hugh Amory and David D. Hall, was published in 2000, and reissued in April 2007.
The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World carries the interrelated stories of publishing, writing, and reading from the beginning of the colonial period in America up to 1790. Three major themes run through the volume: the persisting connections between the book trade in the Old World and the New, evidenced in modes of intellectual and cultural exchange and the dominance of imported, chiefly English books; the gradual emergence of a competitive book trade in which newspapers were the largest form of production; and the institution of a "culture of the Word," organized around an essentially theological understanding of print, authorship, and reading, complemented by other frameworks of meaning that included the culture of republicanism. The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World also traces the histories of literary and learned culture, censorship and "freedom of the press," and literacy and orality.
Contributors:
- Hugh Amory
- Ross W. Beales, The College of the Holy Cross
- John Bidwell, Princeton University Library
- Richard D. Brown, University of Connecticut
- Charles E. Clark, University of New Hampshire
- James N. Green, Library Company of Philadelphia
- David D. Hall, Harvard Divinity School
- Russell L. Martin, Southern Methodist University
- E. Jennifer Monaghan, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York
- James Raven, University of Essex
- Elizabeth Carroll Reilly, Hardwick, Massachusetts
- A. Gregg Roeber, Pennsylvania State University
- David S. Shields, University of South Carolina
- Calhoun Winton, University of Maryland
Volume 2: An Extensive Republic: Print, Culture, and Society in the New Nation, 1790-1840.
Edited by Mary Kelley and Robert A. Gross, was published in July 2010.
Between 1790 and 1840 printing and publishing expanded, and literate publics provided a ready market for novels, almanacs, newspapers, tracts, and periodicals. Government, business, and reform drove the dissemination of print. Through laws and subsidies, state and federal authorities promoted an informed citizenry. Entrepreneurs responded to rising demand by investing in new technologies and altering the conduct of publishing. Voluntary societies launched libraries, lyceums, and schools, and relied on print to spread religion, redeem morals, and advance benevolent goals. Out of all this ferment emerged new and diverse communities of citizens linked together in a decentralized print culture where citizenship meant literacy and print meant power. Yet in a diverse and far-flung nation, regional differences persisted, and older forms of oral and handwritten communication offered alternatives to print. The early republic was a world of mixed media.
Contributors:
- Elizabeth Barnes, College of William and Mary
- Georgia B. Barnhill, American Antiquarian Society
- John L. Brooke, The Ohio State University
- Dona Brown, University of Vermont
- Richard D. Brown, University of Connecticut
- Kenneth E. Carpenter, Harvard University Libraries
- Scott E. Casper, University of Nevada, Reno
- Mary Kupiec Cayton, Miami University
- Joanne Dobson, Brewster, New York
- James N. Green, Library Company of Philadelphia
- Dean Grodzins, Massachusetts Historical Society
- Robert A. Gross, University of Connecticut
- Grey Gundaker, College of William and Mary
- Leon Jackson, University of South Carolina
- Richard R. John, Columbia University
- Mary Kelley, University of Michigan
- Jack Larkin, Clark University
- David Leverenz, University of Florida
- Meredith L. McGill, Rutgers University
- Charles Monaghan, Charlottesville, Virginia
- E. Jennifer Monaghan, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York
- Gerald F. Moran, University of Michigan-Dearborn
- Karen Nipps, Harvard University
- David Paul Nord, Indiana University
- Barry O'Connell, Amherst College
- Jeffrey L. Pasley, University of Missouri-Columbia
- William S. Pretzer, Central Michigan University
- A. Gregg Roeber, Pennsylvania State University
- David S. Shields, University of South Carolina
- Andie Tucher, Columbia University
- Maris A. Vinovskis, University of Michigan
- Sandra A. Zagarell, Oberlin College
Volume 3, The Industrial Book, 1840-1880.
Edited by Scott E. Casper, Jeffrey D. Groves, Stephen W. Nissenbaum, and Michael Winship, was published in August 2007.
The Industrial Book, 1840-1880 narrates the emergence of a national book trade in the nineteenth century, as changes in manufacturing, distribution, and publishing conditioned, and were conditioned by, the evolving practices of authors and readers. Chapters trace the ascent of the “industrial book”--a manufactured product arising from the gradual adoption of new printing, binding, and illustration technologies and encompassing the profusion of nineteenth-century printed materials--which relied on nationwide networks of financing, transportation, and communication. In tandem with increasing educational opportunities and rising literacy rates, the industrial book encouraged new sites of reading; gave voice to diverse communities of interest through periodicals, broadsides, pamphlets, and other printed forms; and played a vital role in the development of American culture.
Contributors:
- Susan Belasco, University of Nebraska
- Candy Gunther Brown, Indiana University
- Kenneth E. Carpenter, Newton Center, Massachusetts
- Scott E. Casper, University of Nevada, Reno
- Jeannine Marie DeLombard, University of Toronto
- Ann Fabian, Rutgers University
- Jeffrey D. Groves, Harvey Mudd College
- Paul C. Gutjahr, Indiana University
- David D. Hall, Harvard Divinity School
- David M. Henkin, University of California, Berkeley
- Bruce Laurie, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
- Eric Lupfer, Humanities Texas
- Meredith L. McGill, Rutgers University
- John Nerone, University of Illinois
- Stephen W. Nissenbaum, University of Massachusetts
- Lloyd Pratt, Michigan State University
- Barbara Sicherman, Trinity College
- Louise Stevenson, Franklin & Marshall College
- Amy M. Thomas, Montana State University
- Tamara Plakins Thornton, State University of New York, Buffalo
- Susan S. Williams, Ohio State University
- Michael Winship, University of Texas at Austin
Volume 4, Print in Motion: The Expansion of Publishing and Reading in the United States, 1880-1940.
Edited by Carl F. Kaestle and Janice A. Radway, was published in January 2009.
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
- Nicolás 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
Volume 5, The Enduring Book: Print Culture in Postwar America.
Edited by Joan Shelley Rubin, David Paul Nord and Michael Schudson, was published in September 2009.
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 (1954-2006)
- 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
Substantial funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities provided major support for the editorial work that inaugurated this important project.