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C H A P T E R O N E Womenand the Development of American Print Culture B E F O R E W O M E N stepped into the streets to partake in political celebrations, to attend plays, or to converse in salons, they were exposed to a growing body of written material about their status in the early republic. By the late eighteenth century American women had developed a new and more engaged relationship to print-a medium that both reflected current ideas about women's roles and promoted new ones. As the world of ~ublishersand readership expanded with technological and educational developments, subjects of particular concern to women-education, friendship, courtship, marriage, children -occupied an increasing number of pages in the magazines and books of the day, including Philadelphia's Lady?Magazine, Columbian Magazine, and Week4Magazine, and novels such as Susanna Rowson's Charlotte Temple and Fille de Chambre, Hannah Foster's The Coquette, Fanny Burney's Evelina and Camilla; the essays of Judith Sargent Murray in The Gleaner, and Mary Wollstonecraft's didactic Vindication of the Rights of Woman. The more American publications and British imports contained female-centered content, the more women were drawn to read them and to realize that these publications were a venue for their opinions. Moreover, such a potential audience was well developed among women who had a tradition of reading and writing to each other. Noted Philadelphia-area writers such as Elizabeth Graeme Ferguson, Hannah Griffitts, and Elizabeth Boudinot, for example, shared their writings among friends and acquaintances, an 22 Chapter 1 activity that created both educational and intellectual opportunities .. for the other women in their circles.1 Ultimately, these overlapping phenomena, all centered around the world of print, produced a new woman-centered public forum in which Americans discussed and debated women's familial, social, economic , and political roles. This forum was influenced by European writers and events. And as Americans participated in a transatlantic world of thought and culture they adapted old-world ideas to their new republican culture. This chapter will explore how popular magazines , novels, and didactic essays shared this American public forum that was for, about, and often by women. None of the developments described above would have been possible without a rapid increase in literacy during the last quarter of the eighteenth century. The growing number of advertisements for periodicals , novels, and lending libraries in the nation's newspapers between 1785 and 1800 testifies to this increasing readership in the early republic, as do the expanded educational opportunities for men and women alike.2 American readers, especially elites and gentry in the northern states and seaboard cities, had ample opportunity to purchase the latest books on any subject, and they stayed current on issues of the day through the popular periodicals that appeared with increasing frequency. Indeed, opportunities for access to print in the nation's urban centers abounded. As the United States reached a total population of five million in 1800, 219 booksellers in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Charleston served its citizens (compared to only 63 in 1773).3In Philadelphia, eighteen "Booksellers and Stationers " were listed in the 1795 city directory, all located within the city center. Along Market Street alone, in a four-block radius, there were six. Located among grocers, dry goods shops, and central markets , these booksellers were convenient to most citizens.4 Circulating libraries were another source of reading material, extending reading opportunities to those who could not afford to purchase books or magazines on a frequent basis. The number of these institutions increased dramatically in the last two decades of the eighteenth century. By one estimate, 376 social libraries were created between 1731 and 1800, while 266 of these opened in the 1790s alone. Social libraries, often referred to as subscription libraries, Women and the Development ofAmerican Print Culture 23 charged an annual membership fee and required the purchase of shares. These costs often o laced social libraries beyond the means of all but the wealthy. The New York Social Library, for example, charged a two-hundred-dollar membership fee, and a two-dollar yearly fee. By contrast, in the small town of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the Library Company operated on a more modest scale. It charged members eight dollars to join and one dollar and twenty-five cents per year.5 A commercial circulating library, in contrast,rented books to the general public at considerably lower rates. Circulating libraries reached a wider readership of moderate...

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