Communications. Shes undergraduate degree and her masters from the university of illinois. As a former magazine writer and editor, her Research Interests include 19th century culture culture. Womens magazines of the. And the radical alternative press. And before we begin the program, i would like to send a special welcome to anyone who will be joining the virtual the first time. If youre not familiar with the Historical Society, when the first Historical Society in america. Ill be expecting preserving and sharing the histories in 1791. Withhold amazing collection. Including the papers of the first president of the United States. Im sorry. The first six president s of the United States. I misspoke that. We are continuing to collect today. And if you are interested in, we are currently collecting material related to that covid19 experience. The special initiative designed to listen to peoples experiences during the unusual times and preserving this information for future generations. In this age of social distancing, we are hosting virtual programs and we have Online Events plan every week from now until the end of july. And also into the beginning of august. Next week or hosting a top finance another new publication, and you can find more information on a website. Before we begin, we have a few housekeeping details here. So first of all, if you have a question comment or concern about the program or other programs, you can contact me or sarah our Public Programs coordinator and chemo programs or you can reach us on website. As i mentioned, we are producing this information during the covid19. Of course we are a nonprofit. So without further ado, our speaker today we will be hearing from donna harrington. If you would like to unmute yourself will get started. It is great to see you. [inaudible] switch it okay thank you. Thank you also much. Thank you for coming for a thank you for gavin and sara for making this possible. Now before we began, i want to acknowledge, these are such difficult times. With so much at stake and so much on our minds. As i work on this lecture and presentation, last week i must admit i found myself thinking is this really the time to be talking about summer. [inaudible] or about 19th century publishing. But the last quarter of the century, it was not without its challenges. At the beginning of the period, in 1877, federal troops were sent in with a worker strike. And again the United States founded spanishamerican war. In between the countries struggled with the failure of reconstruction and rapid industrialization. So is economic, social and political upheaval so with those challenges in mind, i would like to have one of the prominent argument of the. And i would extend that to Summer Reading. In a short period of time away from the impressions of 19th century life, it gave people the wherewithal to engage with the work once again on their return. And i thought tonights talk might work in the same way for you. Okay. Summer reading could really begin anywhere in the 19th century but i would like to start today talking boston or more specifically in dorchester with Alice Stone Blackwell, the daughter of lucy stone and henry blackwell. Prominent 19th century abolitionist and womens rights advocate. We can see it kind of a family portrait, family photo over here on the left of the three of them. In the early 1870s, alice was a teenager and she was a voracious reader. Especially in the summertime when her reading term varied dramatically to stories of adventure and sensation. So if you read her journals during this period, its filled with entries of accounts of rushing to boston by train or streetcar. Its the latest issue of the popular ledger of the popular weekly story paper. Or she talks about stopping at the Boston Public Library or the fort stacks of books she devours in one week and then returns the next. A quote hear from her journals , change my books and got out in time for dinner, she wrote on july 1872. Ive got a very good set of books this time for though ive read them all before. And among the titles that she mentions in this journal, she mentions gothic mystery called the thief in the night which she. [inaudible] Thomas Hughes and tom brown oxford when she describes as a favorite. But alice took part in a far different kind of Summer Reading as well. Thats the picture on the right is going to come in. This is a family home in dorchester. Throughout the summer, the blackwell household engaged in shared family reading. This was a very common practice in the 19th century. But in the summer, they did so on the walk you can see it high atop the annalys dorchester home to take advantage of the cool breezes from the nearby bay. And there, alice reports sir Walter Scotts answer query and zacharys vanity fair. That is long novel of talks over the course of many summer evening. And delight in the shared reading was absolutely apparent heres another quote from her journal. The answer query was read up on the roof in july of 1872. In a chaste pop about to tickle his toes. Strange informal given to action and adventure. Allison Summer Reading choices and her practices still resonate with us today. Every year we are familiar with this. Every year, sometimes around memorial day rican the Summer Reading season begins. I picks for the best Summer Reading but so does the New York Times, National Public radio, the wall street journal , and a host of other media outlets. Summer is the time where we are advised to turn to light weight paperbacks we can step into a beach bag or read without worry by the poolside. It is a time we are told to reach for the popular novel or the action packed bestseller and clive barnes the critic of the New York Times are in the papers summer book issue for 1968, he says Summer Reading like the statue of liberty and motherhood is always with us. And that is still true today. The list of the best summer it reads continues in this very, very fraught season. I have taken sams green graph sprayed the first one, two, three of them came from the weekend of the memorial day weekend. And the one on the bottom is just from today. See the top one in the New York Times the beach may be close but these books are worth opening for the next one down refinery 29 a fight of millennial young women for the 25 books you will want to read this summer. On the left is from a 28 of the best beach reads of the summer 2020 and then there is a another list this one took the boston globe online. The best books to read this summer. And i might know here about the boston globe. Have a chance to go quickly through it and see what they were recommending. And i was really struck. At one point the New York Times was criticized, one season they refused to having reached peak capacity with their choices. And the best books to resist summer on the boston globe are incredibly varied and diverse. Okay, but where this idea formal reading come from . Summer reading is a specific practice. Howd it come to be an established part, not only of literary commerce, but of American Culture as well . Those are some of the questions i began to explore. So im a book historian parts i practice in a field that looks at the intersection of authorship, reading, and publishing. Book histories the field that concerns as a material object. First, but also with the Cultural Practices that surround books. How books are produced, how they are circulated. How they are received. And one summer, is returning for print culture culture and note under nova scotias in the airport bookstore looking for some into reader the flight home. I came across the ubiquitous glossy brochure that was announcing the best summer reads for that season. And i found myself as a result thinking about my own Summer Reading rituals. And the ways in which the Publishing Industry may have shaped and sustain those. So that led me to the library at sean university i worked for a megson called the book fire. It is a magazine of nerd city publisher ill talk about a little bit later in this talk is well for the very rich text for live advertisements from other publishers talk about with the book trade was like, what people were reading. And from there i moved on. In i moved outward to the 19th century magazines magazines and newspapers across the United States. I didnt want to just read in new england. I included the africanamerican. As well as a member of alternative process. After that, it was onto publishing archives at harvard and princeton in columbia. On two letters and journals into a long, long list of novels set in summer resorts. Many of them written by some of the periods most absently famous authors. Statement crane, william howell, louisa may alcock, sara on jewett, they all practice in the tradition of the summer novel at some point in their career. So what i found as a result of this, my thumbs are now not so idle. What i found this a very interesting chapter in history of publishing. Summer reading to be sure in the 19th century is very much a commercial construction. The idea from Summer Reading is a product was part of the Publishing Industrys really effort to redefine a slow season. And to capitalize on a really dramatic rise in travel, tourism, and summer at leisure in victorian america gilded age. But 19th century Summer Reading involved commerce as well. And the last 19th century, it also became a wall established Cultural Practice of performanc performance. Many of those characteristics remain with us today. Overall then an interesting chapter both in the history of the book and the history of summer leisure. Now, my book itself covers a lot of ground. Ive just briefly reproduce the table of context here to give you just a little bit of a flavor of the larger argument as well. I look at the dramatic rise of travel tourism and summer leisure in the period. The period where its changing from an elite culture practice to one that is embraced by middleclass, increasingly as a marker of gentility. I would be remiss in not noting here, the professional authors of the. All indulgent summer leisure. I also look at a variety of books that were advertised as best summer reads. And i look especially at the development of what i called the american summer novel. The novel that specifically set at a summer resort. And finally, i looked at the ways in which authorships intersected and kind of exploited the new genre. And at the ways in which physical spaces shape Summer Reading practices. Everything from resort libraries in Saratoga Springs, two chairs or advertise for portside reading that had bookshelves that were built into off of a very, very wide arm. Today though i want to focus on one part of the books argument. And that is the role of the 19th century magazine culture played in reframing Summer Reading into a genteel practice. I was especially interested in the socalled peacemaking publications. And ive reproduce some covers of these here. These are the three most prominent sprayed the Atlantic Monthly which was published in boston. Harpers new monthly magazine arrival in new york city, and century illustrated monthly. Theyre very significant. These were publications that had significant degree of cultural authority. Its described with the atlantic for example of yankee humanism. In the type of copy that it featured. In this age of the magazine, these publications and others, become the primary vehicle for what James Thompson calls the machinery of publishing and reviewing. That is the machinery that presents readers a certain way. That flames the text, establishes a context for. Prepares us as readers to reddit in a certain weight with a certain timeframe in mind. So together, these and other publications, these and other magazines of this. Shape the discourse on Summer Reading through their tax and visual. And that is what i would like to explore. Let me just say, to give you an idea of where i want to go to this as we move ahead. Is tied up in three parts. And finally, i want to look at the efforts to reframe and reclaim Summer Reading as something well see how that develops. Okay. So the first part, the very early discourse i have some images here, paintings from the. We took this from england and europe Domestic Tourism in the United States. Developed in the late 1700s around places like the anger falls, seen here at the top. The catskills over here on the left, and tourism develops around there. By the 1820s and 1830s, there visiting the White Mountains. Shows the painting of the side of mount washington. They were in Mount Desert Island in maine, Mineral Springs in the south. And a host of other sites. Excuse me, it is allergy season get to magazines here to give you the tenor of how the discourse begins. On the left, 1835 with the magazine. You can see here the opening story of Young Goodman brown. Began with the philosopher and his advice to live there less experienced travelers, with advice they need to use their time to cultivate. Heres a quote. Walk slow, talk slow, think slo slow, b, light, dress, undressed, and short live with the study in exquisite deliberation. And that deliberation, you need to extend to whatever reading matter the traveler chose. The travel for example was to avoid reading anything having to do with politics as well as anything for egotism. The best authors the article advise charles lamb especially lamps acacia. Here is another quote read the review of a quote lamps acacia or quote to the glass of hot, to the customer after dinner nap with visuals in the garden. To the jazzmen, and good girls under. Young man who follows this advice is very specific about the gender of the summer reader would last until october. Over here on the right, putnam in the 1850 and 1853 putnams in the review of a poetry collection a book or the seaside from the boston firm of the collection of poetry featuring the works of shelley, tennessee, longfellow and others. Patton was very keen on it. Said it was going to be not just a good summer read but a permanent value. Later in the 1850s, it would also recommend the work of Washington Irving for Summer Reading for it was described as an happen to be one of putnams authors as a genial and beautiful genius. It also noted that irvings work was a convenient and classic series it would be quote delightful for Summer Reading. So here is our first glimpse of a discourse taking place, explains it as a masculine, explains it as very, very distinctive. And what it was designed to accomplish. Mid century that change. That discourse is gone really Interesting Development with the field and that is the wave of cheap paperback fiction flooded the marketplace after the civil war. Popular culture that challenge tickled variety of forms. I will go way of cheap fiction. First, in this. Before the passage of the copyright act, this wave of cheap fiction included additions of european fiction said George Eliots march, alice in wonderland, Sir Walter Scott the talisman, charles dickens, all of these works were not protected by copyright. Pirate publishers in the United States quickly pick them up and publish them in very cheap paper covered edition. Optative libraries sometimes multiple releases a week. Cost about ten to 20 cents a volume. There readers probably were not finding some book stores these cheap paperback sprayed said they find them at newsstands, were weight kiosks, and even on bory trains. Theyve go up and down selling snacks the paper bound books. If any that all would have encountered the book from one of the popular cheap libraries. Cheap fiction took another form as well against stories from the socalled fiction factories. These were stories that were quickly produced of questionable quality. They were on murder and rescue and melodrama. Very, very heavily formulated in a in industrial commodity that flooded the market. Now one other part of this mix of cheap fiction needs to be mentioned. And that is the questionable and perceived very immoral novel people talk about this throughout the period in one of the critics is not just being sinful, so all of these are in the mix. You can kinda see three of the covers that will give you the flavor of this wave of cheap fiction pretzel on the left, western stories were incredibly popular in the middle library that was particularly aggressive about the absence of a copyrigh copyright. And then on the right, one of the most popular writers of the period, wildly author and paper covers, now, what is the relationship with summer readin reading . Light Summer Reading becomes part of associated with this wave of cheap fiction. And indeed a number of publishers in the period tried to exploit that connection. They want to take advantage of it. So this is one of them. Sin incredibly successful series called the Seaside Library. It does