In the decades before the Civil War, American society witnessed the
emergence of a new form of print culture, as penny papers, mammoth
weeklies, giftbooks, fashion magazines, and other ephemeral printed
materials brought exuberance and theatricality to public culture
and made the practice of reading more controversial. For a short
yet pivotal period, argues Isabelle Lehuu, the world of print was
turned upside down.
Unlike the printed works of the eighteenth century, produced to
educate and refine, the new media aimed to entertain a widening yet
diversified public of men and women. As they gained popularity
among American readers, these new print forms provoked fierce
reactions from cultural arbiters who considered them transgressive.
No longer the manly art of intellectual pursuit, reading took on
new meaning; reading for pleasure became an act with the power to
silently disrupt the social order.
Neither just an epilogue to an earlier age of scarce books and
genteel culture nor merely a prologue to the late nineteenth
century and its mass culture and commercial literature, the
antebellum era marked a significant passage in the history of books
and reading in the United States, Lehuu argues.
Originally published 2000.
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