Mary's Reflections on American Print Culture

Brief note on my reading: As I'm reading this text, I'm also reading English Common Reader: A Social History of the Mass Reading Pub. Unfortunately, I seem to be a naturally linear thinker, and keeping track of historical progress gets difficult as dates seem helpless strewn from page to page of two different books. As a reading practice, whenever I read historical pieces I try to re-outline dates in a Word Document so I can see the chronology that I'm reading more clearly. I think it is important to understand dates not in order to set up a rigid understanding of the order in which certain events take place, but it helps me not to make false assumptions about what may or may not be happening at the time. For instance, Starr uses this strategy--presenting a timeline of American political history alongside a timeline of American print advances--in his defense that American print culture grew as a worldwide force, not because of technological advances, but rather because of social and governmental uses of print for various reasons. What will be interesting if I finish both outlines, complete with the respective author's conclusions about what the dates mean, is to see if the ultimate arguments of the books stand. I'm thinking there may be some discrepancies considering the decidedly British focus of Richard Altick's book and the decidedly American focus of Paul Starr's book.


Alas, I have not finished my outline, yet, but I hopefully I will finish both. Priorities in writing assignments often keep me from making the printed notes I always have high hopes of making.


One point Starr makes in Chapter 2: New Foundations piqued my interest. I wrestled whether or not to label his evaluation of Puritan contribution to literacy, traditional or subversive. I suppose in the current climate of literary studies, it would be considered subversive. Most teachers of Puritan culture and literature capitalize on instances of their intolerance and hypocrisy at the expense of their contributions. Starr explains that the Puritans set a precedent for education in the colonies that was not seen elsewhere in French or British societies. He even highlights that female literacy rose in the New England society because of the effort to extend literacy outside of class hierarchies (which would include gender privilege to some extent as well.)

Being a fan of the collection of Puritan prayers Valley of Vision, I appreciated Starr's concession that the Puritans were a positive influence on the growing literacy in the country, despite many of their confirmed in-egalitarian practices. It's interesting, though, that Starr sets Puritan literacy practices in opposition to the Chesapeake Bay and Virginia colonists' ideas concerning print. In this way, he champions the often derided Puritans for being more progressive than those of Chesapeake Bay who shut down printing presses and had no booksellers.

On the other hand, I feel that Starr unjustly tips the scales in favor of the Puritans over the Quakers as he relates the progress (or lack of) print production in the Middle Colonies. Having a limited knowledge of the Quakers and their role in education and abolition movements later in the 19th century, I wonder how Starr can so easily say that they followed a "pattern in print communication that was surprisingly closer to the Chesapeake's regime than to New England's" (54). While I have no positive proof to refute his short example of Quaker intolerance toward publishing, I would like to see perhaps a more engaged look at what type of print culture and education Quakers did offer. Like the Puritans, or any religious group, there will most likely be forms of suppression of ideas for the sake of each religion's pursuit of truth and integrity. However, Starr only gives an example of how the Quakers prohibited Bradford from publishing certain material. He failed to give any other examples, though clearly there were materials being published to increase literacy and knowledge. I'd like to see more study done on Quaker education and publication at this time.