Mass Print, Clipping Bureaus, and the Pre-Digital Database: Reexamining Marianne Moore's Collage Poetics through the Archives

For the duration of her writing career, Marianne Moore maintained a system of clippings files inspired by early twentieth century clipping bureaus. Her files confirm scholarly observations about her proclivity for quotation and assemblage, and her devotion to unliterary, anonymous sources, but they also show an alternative to the narrative that Moore's interest in collage stemmed from the visual arts. Moore's clippings files and the phenomenon of clipping bureaus anticipates yet-undeveloped digital technologies and redefines the purpose and use of printed text. Moore's clipping files are a pre-digital database searchable by metadata categories and available for micro as well as macro readings. The influence of clipping bureaus and her personal clipping files on Moore's poetics demonstrates the profound impact of mass print on the modernists. The clippings files also show how Moore—and the American public—grappled with mass print management strategies in the early twentieth century and re-envisioned the status of the book.