A History of the Book in America, vol. IV: Print in Motion: The Expansion of Publishing and Reading in the United States, 1880–1940 (review)

With this volume the American Antiquarian Society's History of the Book in America reaches the twentieth century —and advances almost halfway through it. The size of this enterprise is not to be under-estimated. Simply in terms of grants by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America, the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, the Spencer Foundation, and several other national or local funds, this volume represents a heavy investment, exceptional when compared with other national histories. A further grant from the William R. Kenan Charitable Trust assisted publication. Such a financial structure makes other countries seem almost puny by comparison. And yet, we are on familiar ground, a history of the book nationally conceived and concentrating almost exclusively on the book within one geographical area.

The editors, Carl Kaestle from Brown University and Janice Radway from Northwestern, are well suited to their task. Both have excellent track records in the history of the book in the United States, and their careful editorial hand is evident in the execution as well as the planning of this volume. They have divided their subject under four main headings: print in motion, the publishing trades, the social uses of print, and readers and reading. Each section is preceded by a summary introduction by the editors. Contributors have been so organized as to pay particular attention to some of the complexities in the book trades, particularly including the place of newspaper and magazine publishing. The chapter on advertising by Ellen Gruber Garvey is a valuable extension of the subject. In the section on the social uses of print, contributors offer chapters on the European ethnic press in the US, on Hispanic publishing, and on African American publishing. Turning to religion, there are chapters on Protestant, Jewish, and Catholic publishing. Of the further chapters in this section, one by Radway links learned and literary worlds, another by Marcel LaFollette treats of scientific and technical publishing, and another by Charles Seavey and Caroline Sloat addresses government publishing. Censorship is placed immediately after this trio. Finally, in the section on readers and reading, matters turn to studies of textbooks, of public libraries (by Wayne Wiegand), of some of the great research libraries (by Phyllis Dain), reading clubs, and lastly a chapter by Joan Shelley Rubin on 'the study and practice of reading'. A brief epilogue by the editors closes the volume: 'By 1940 the United States had become a nation of readers', even as television was being introduced into the New York area. The history of the book thrives on such tensions, and this volume deals with a period of immense change in the means and assumptions of communication. Some of the illustrations are familiar, while many others are not, and the volume concludes with a bibliographical essay.

The volume's subtitle tells us much: 'The Expansion of Publishing and Reading'. Several of the contributors strive to describe this expansion, sometimes with statistics that are repeated. Conventionally enough, the population 'exploded' (p. 49); more originally, holdings of major libraries 'zoomed' (p. 457). As every American was acutely aware, the country was a large place. In 1890 a government report pointed out that it was difficult to establish a western frontier line; and with that observation we move into the country more or less (save for Hawaii and Alaska) that we know today. It was a country made up of many parts, reluctant to be governed too much by Washington, split between north and south, east and west, with industrialized cities on unprecedented scales contrasting with vast areas especially in the Midwest and in the south still only sparsely...