Editor Whose Research interests include 19th century print culture, womens magazines and the radical alternative press. Before we began i would like to extend a special welcome to anyone who will be joining virtual mh programs. If youre definitely with her society where the first historical site in america and have been collecting, preserving, publishing and sharing our history since 1791. We hold an amazing collection of close to 14 million manuscript pages including the papers of the first three president s of the United States. Sorry, three of the first six president s of the United States, i misspoke. We are continuing to collect today, and if youre interested we are currently collecting material related to the covid19 experience. We have a special initiative designed to record peoples experiences trying this unusual time and preserve a diverse sampling, firsthand accounts for future generations. In these days of social distancing we have taken to hosting virtual programs and online programs planned every week and now through the end of july, even into the beginning of august. Next week we hosting a talk on the three corn war. You can find one for me on that on their website. Before we begin with a few quick housekeeping details to go through. So first of all if you have a a question, comment or concern about the program or actual programs you can contact me or sarah bertulli and email programs at trench will make it to us our reach us through our website. As an agent where producing all of our programs for free during the covid19 period but were a nonprofit and independent nonprofit, so if you have the capability of like to support the massachusetts historical site we would encourage you to do so and you can do that by visiting masshist. Org support. Just to go over the details of how we use zoom, we will have a presentation by ms. Harringtonlueker and then a question and answer period. There are two ways guests can ask question. The first is if you use a q a function if youre using a computer this is at the bottom of your screen. Using a tablet or cell phone it may be at the top of the screen that essentially its the q a function, the combat and type of question in. Sarah bertulli and i will read the questions to our speaker and then she will answer them. The of the week and do it is to use the raise hand function. This will allow you to indicate you like to ask a question and we will unmute people we have time. The one thing about the unmute function is that you most likely will need to unmute yourself as well. So just keep that in mind. Without further ado i am going to introduce our speaker today. We will be hearing from donna harringtonlueker, and donna, if youd like to turn on your camera and unmute yourself will be off to the races. Great to see you. I am not going to fade off into the digital divide. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you all for coming. And cue to gavin and to sarah for making this possible. Thank you to gavin. I want to dodge these are such difficult times with so much at stake and so much of import on our minds. As i have worked on this lecture this presentation in the last week i must admit i did find myself thinking is this really the time to be talking about some reading and summer leisure, even about 19th century publishing . But the last quarter of the 19th century, it wasnt without its challenges. At the beginning in 1877, federal troops are sending to quell a worker strike against the railroads. The in the United States found itself in the spanish american war. In between the country struggled with a film of reconstruction and a period of rapid industrialization of the period was not without economic social and political upheaval. So with those challenges in mind id like to invoke perhaps one of the most prominent arguments in favor of summer leisure and i would extend that to some reading. And that is a short period of time away from the pressures of 19th century life, they gave people the wherewithal to engage with the world once again on their return. I hope tonight talk might work in the same way for you. Lets just jump in. Okay. I talk about the rights of some reading and could really begin anywhere in the 19th century but id like to start in boston more specifically and dorchester with Khalistan Alice stone bloe the daughter of lucy and henry brown blackwell, the prominent 19th century abolitionists and womens rights advocate. You can see a family portrait, a family photo over here on the left of the three of them. In the early 1870s, alice was a teenager and she was a voracious reader especially in the summertime. When a reading turnberry very dramatically to stories of adventure and sensation. So if you read her somber journals, her journals are filled with entries with accounts of rushing into boston by train or streetcar to pick up the latest issue of the popular ledger, a popular weekly story paper or she talked about stopping at the Boston Public Library for stacks of books that she devours one week and returns the next. A quote here from her journals, quote, change my books i got it in time for dinner, she writes in july 1872. I have very have a very good set of books this time. Though ive read them all before. Among the titles she mentioned in this journal she mentions a gothic ministry called the thief in the night which she admits readily upset her nerves. And also thomas hughes, tom brown at which she describes as a favorite. But alice took part and a far different part of some reading as well and thats with the picture on the right is going to come in. This is the family so in dorchester. About the summer the stone blackwell household engaged in shared family reading. This is a common practice in 19th century but in the summer if they did so on the widows walk. You can see it there high atop the home to take advantage of the cool breezes in the nearby bay. And there alice reports the family read books like sir Walter Scotts the antiquary, and vanity fair. That is, they read long novels whose plots would spill out over the course of many summer evening. Our delight in this shared reading was actually a parent. Heres another quote from her journal. The antiquary was read up on the roof to vote in july 1872, and i chased pahpa about to tickle his toes. Im restraint, informal, given to actionadventure. Her Summer Reading choices and to reading practices i think still with us today. Every year with familiar with this. Every year sometime around the memorial day weekend the Summer Reading season begins. She and oprah makes a fix for the best summary but so does the new times, National Public radio, the wall street journal and a host of other media outlets. Summer is a time when we are advised to turn to lightweight paperbacks that we can step into a beach bag or read without worry by the poolside. If the time dash at the time were told to reach of the actionpacked bestseller. At clyde barnes, a critic times wrote in the issue of 1968, he said Summer Reading like the statue of liberty and motherhood is always with us. And thats still true today. The list of best summer reads continues in this very, very fraught season. I have taken some screen grabs. The first three of them came from the weekend, the memorial day weekend itself. The one on the bottom was just from today. We see the top one is from the New York Times. The beach may be closed that these books are worth opening. The next one down refinery 29, aside from a lineal young women, the 25 books you will want to read this summer. On the left is from oprah, 28 of the best beach read of the summer 2020. And then yet another list, this one came from todays, this afternoon boston globe online, the best books to read the summer. I might note about the boston globe, i had a chance to go quickly through it and see what they were recommending, and i was really struck. At one point the New York Times was criticized for its book list that included primarily white authors. One season they were accused of having reached peak capacity with their choices, and the best books to read the summer in the boston globe are incredibly varied and diverse. But where did this idea of Summer Reading come from . Summer reading is a specific practice. How did he come to be an established part not only of literary commerce but of American Culture as well. Those are some of the questions i began to explore. Im a book historian and so i practiced in the field the looks at the intersection of authorship, reading and publishing. History is a a field the conces itself with the book as material object first, but also with the Cultural Practices that surround books, how books are produced, how their security, how they are received. One summer, one june of returning from a print culture conference in halifax, nova scotia, as in the airport bookstore looking for something to read on the flight home and i came across the ubiquitous brochure those announcing the best summer reads for the season. And i found myself as result thinking about my own Summer Reading rituals as the ways in which the Publishing Industry may have shaped and sustain those. So that led me to the John Hay Library at Brown University where i work with the mexico the book buyer, a magazine from Charles Scribner, the story of near new york city publisher, its a very rich text full of advertisements from other publishers, copy but with the book trade was like, what people were reading. And from there i moved on an outward in of the 19th century magazines and newspapers from across the United States. I did want to leave this just in new england. After that goes on to publishing archives at harvard and princeton and columbia, onto letters and journals into a long, long list of novels set at summer results. Many of them written by some of the periods most famous authors, stephen crane, william b howell, louisa may alcott, sarah undulate, they all practice in the tradition of the summer novel at some point in their career. So what i found as a result of this, my summers were now not so idle, so what i found was her interesting Chapter Chapter in history of publishing. Summer readings to be sure in the 19th century was very much a commercial construction. The idea of Summer Reading as a product was part of the Publishing Industry really concerted efforts to redefine a slow season and to capitalize on a really dramatic rise of travel, tourism and summer leisure in victorian america in the gilded age. But 19th century Summer Reading involved more than that. And the last quarter of the 19th century it also became a well established Cultural Practice, a performance, and many others characteristics remain with us today. Overall then, an interesting chapter both in history of the book and history of summer leisure. My book itself covers a lot of ground. I have briefly reproduce the table of content here to give you just look bit of the flavor of the larger argument as well. I looked at the dramatic rise of travel tourism and summer leisure, in the period where it is changing from an elite Cultural Practice to one that is embraced by a middleclass that increasingly uses it as a marker of gentility. And i would be remiss in not noting here that professional authors of the. All indulged in summer leisure. I also looked at right of books that were advertised as best summary and a look especially at the development of what i call the american summer novel, the novel that was specifically set at the summer resort. And finally i looked at the ways recent which authorship intersected with an kind of exploited this new genre. And at the ways in which physical spaces shaped Summer Reading practices. I look at everything from resort libraries in Saratoga Springs to rattan chairs the advertiser portside reading that a builtin bookshelves the very, very wide arms. Today the what to focus on one part of the books argument, that is the role that 19th century magazine culture played in reframing some reading into a genteel practice. Im especially interested in the socalled face making publications and ive reproduced some covers of these here. These are the three most prominent, the Atlantic Monthly which was published in boston, harpers new monthly magazine, arrival in new york city, and century illustrated monthly. Their role is going to be significant. These were publications that significant degree of cultural authority. Sedgwick described atlantic as an exemplar of yankee humanism in the kind of copy that it featured. And in this age of the magazine these publications and others become the primary vehicle for what Jane Thompkins calls the machinery of publishing and reviewing. That is, machinery that presents a a book to readers in a certain way and frames the text that establishes a context for, that prepares us as readers to read it in a certain weight and with a certain framework in mind. So together these and other publications, these and other magazines of this period shaped the discourse in some reading to the text and visual and thats what i would like to explore. Let me just say, to give an idea of where i want to go some of it, its in three parts. I want to look at early in the century, the very beginning of discourse on some reading. I did want to move on to the complete disruption of shaped fiction that develops in the period, and find out what to look at a publishers efforts to refrain and reclaim Summer Reading a something that was not sinful. Well see how that develops. So the first part, the very early discourse on some reading. Lets go back a bit and i have some images here, paintings from the period. Taking its lead from england and europe, Domestic Tourism in the United States developed in the late 1700s around places like Niagara Falls senior at the top, the hudson river, the catskills over on the left, and tourism develops around there. I the 1880s, 20s and 30s, wealthy travelers were visitine white mounds, you can see that at the bottom image on the right is the painting of horseback riding on the side of mount washington. They were in Mount Desert Island in maine, Mineral Springs in the south and a host of other sites. Excuse me, its allergy season, if you can bear with me. Newport, rhode island, begins taking shape your as a respite for the heat in the summer. I want to look at to magazines to give you the tanner of how the discourse begins. On the left, 1835 new england magazine. You can see the opening story. 1835 though, an article called summer flossie again by invoking a political philosopher edmund burke and his advice to live pleasant. Thats the theme of this article. Summer philosophy advised younger and less experienced travelers with ways to use their time and it advise they needed to use their time to cultivate equanimity. Heres a quote, walk slow, talk slow, think slow, feed, read, write, address, address, in short, live with studied and exquisite deliberation. And that the liberation needed to extend to whatever reading mattered the traveler chose to the summer travel, travel for example, was advised to avoid reading anything having to do with politics as well as anything that smacks of egotism. The best authors the article advise were lord byron and charles lamb, especially essays. Heres another quote, the reviewer wrote quote, his essays were quote to so to come to the glass class of hawk, to the customary after dinner nap with visions in the garden. Chat with good girls under it. The young man who follows this advice and articles that very specific about the gender of the summer reader, would cultivate a sweet and imperturbable serenity that was going to last him until october. Putnam over on the right, in the 1850s ran a review of a new poetry collection called a book for the seaside from the boston firm of ticknor and fields, was a collection of poetry about this scene featuring the works of shelley, tennyson, longfellow and others. And pat nims is very, very keen on as it is going to be not just a good summer read but a collection of permanent value. Later in 1850s putnam would recommend the work of Washington Irving for some reading and would describe irving who just happen to be one of buttons authors as a quote genial and beautiful genius. It also noted Irving Schwartz were part of a convenient and pretty railway classics or so would be quote delightful for Summer Reading. So heres our kind of first look, our first glimpse of a discourse taking shape. Frames of as for its transit as deliberate and frames it as very, very distinctive in what it was designed to accomplish. By mid century that changed, that discourse is gone. The discourse changes and it does so in large part because of a really Interesting Development in the literary field, and that is the wave of cheap paperback fiction that flooded the literary marketplace after the civil war. This was an absolutely unprecedented expansion of victorian americans pop culture and a challenge to mainstream publishers. That child is took a variety of forms and ill go here to wave of the cheap fiction. First in this period this was before the passage of the International Copyright act. This wave of cheap fiction included included george elliotts, lewis is also underlined, sir walter scott, charles dickens, all of these work were not protected by copyright and pirate fishing is in the United States quickly picked them up and publish them in very, very cheap paper covered addition to often and libraries can sometimes multiple releasing a bone multiple times a week at a cost of about 20 cents of volume. Readers probably would not find these in bookstores these cheap paperbacks. Instead they would find the new stands, railway kiosks and even onboard trains. Boys would go up and down selling snacks but also paperbound books. Book historian remarks by the 1870s virtually everyone who took a train for a journey of any links that all would have encountered a book from one of the popular cheap library. Cheap fiction took another form as well. In stories from the socalled fiction factories, these are stories that were quickly produced of questionable quality and were long on burgers and rescue and melodrama. Very, very heavily formulaic, a real industrial commodity that flooded the market. One other part of this mix of cheap fiction needs to be mentioned, and that is the questionable and proceed to be very immoral french novel. Typically appearing in yellow paper covers. People talk about this throughout the period and decried by one of the. Critics but not just being sinful buttoning scrofulous. All of these in the next and you can see three of the covers that will give you the flavor of this wave of cheap fiction. On the left captives of the frontier. Weston stories were in credibly popular. They did a lot in the way of nationbuilding. In the middle, levels library, particularly aggressive about the absence of the copyright and then on the right one of the most popular writers of the period, libby prolific while the popular author working girl fiction in paper covers. Now, what is relationship with some reading . Light some reading becomes part of associate with this wave of cheap fiction and indeed a number of publishers in the period tried to exploit that connection. They wanted to take mentioned. It was one of them, George Monroe, a new york publisher and he had and a kindly successful series called the Seaside Library. You see on the left this wouldve been the typical Seaside Library cover. Its doctor jekyll and mr. Hyde, clearly pirated. It does say pocket edition. Portability would become incredibly important in terms of marketing summer fiction pick the ideas you could slip it into a pocket or into a satchel. In the middle you see George Monroe packaging that cheap paperback different for the Summer Market. We have the Seaside Library pocket edition again King Solomons wise but then we have that postcard with the white house come with a couple on the cliff overlooking the sea and a sailboat is going by. Clearly evoking summer and summertime. Finally over here on the right is is one of life favorite cheap paperbacks and illustrates another way that they figured in this marketplace. Again it is libby and it is called flirtations of the beauty. Laura gene libby as a set wildly popular. Three of her novel set specifically a summer resort. Theres what the next, when Atlantic City and this one, flirtations of a beauty is set initially, the story starts in newport, rhode island. Our plots were really quite wild and predictable in their unpredictability. The plot here is the typical, a penniless young woman falls in love with a very, very rich man at newport. She knows it wont work out because the discrepancy and here she is shown sacrificing us up by throwing herself off the wharf. I like to think this is long wharf and have no reason for doing so. Here she is full of herself off the wharf and the lookout line under it says i am going into the bitterness of death. I am going to set you free. This is early in the novel and she doesnt die. In fact, as the story progresses she in step in the White Mountains of New Hampshire where she is kidnapped by in taken down the Connecticut River in very libby fashion. This is all and about the first 6070 pages. More worrisome perhaps for any publisher interested in jumpstarting the Summer Season was a cultural conversation around this kind of Light Reading and more. In 1876 the reverend, a prominent preacher launched the Summer Season with the sermon basically condemning summer life at Saratoga Springs. He criticized its dancing, the gossip, horse racing and all the other frivolities that he associated with serotonin is brings. But it leveled some of his sippers criticism Saratoga Springs. He called Summer Reading literary poison in august. He warned the kinds of novels people right in the summer were dangers to his congregations or mortal souls. So here we have him to quote from his sermon and this would get repeated in the brooklyn with some regularity. Did not let the frogs and the jump and call injure saratoga trunk or white mountain. Would it not be an awful thing for you to be struck by lightning someday . When you have in your hands one of these paper covered romances, the hero, the heroin captors in the book you would not read to your children at the rate of 100 online. I really believe theres more trash rate among intelligent classes in july and august that all the other ten months of the year. Nor was talmage alone. Throughout the 19th century witticism of the novel in general and chief paperback fiction was rented. Critics just about invariably equated novel reading physical moral the basement, especially for the woman reader. Given this cultural cross current, the period between 18701900 wasnt the most congenial setting for the birth of light some reading. But mainstream publishers persisted and is used a variety of tactics so they will reclaim some reading from this wave of cheap fiction. They used a variety of tactics. For example, first in their in e advertising to begin to put labels on everything, has some reader even if the book had nothing to do with the summer. They use another strategy of packaging books as part of a summer Series Making them recognizable summer brain. So appleton had its town country library. Others had its sunshine super leisure hour series. It was a satchel series and in the case of one newspaper, 100degree in the shade summer fiction series. They also embraced the paperback as the perfect summer read. Heres a quote from the american bookmaker in praise of the paper covers. These of the golden days of the paper cover, a flexible cloth, the pocketbook. Being with that covers may have cool and summary look and from their flexibility may be readily stowed away in ones pocket or put in a traveling back. They adapt themselves to every conceivable reading attitude from the upright to the recombinant position on sofa or loud or in a steamer chair hammock or bed or stretched out on greens would or a sandy beach. Perhaps most important taking aim at the cultural discourse that equated novel reading with the sinful, publishers worked specifically to refrain some reading the framing it as a genteel act, a welcome escape and essential middleclass treasure. Harpers, atlanta, the century, arbiters of good taste of reading all help with this. When you read issues in this period you find in their pages summer novels began to be described as a way to fill off the vacant hours at the resort or to protect against the boredom of rainy days. They were saying summer novels didnt do that too much attention but that made them Excellent Company on long rides in pullman cars. Summer novels were episodic instruction but that just meant the best summer novels to be picked up and put down without losing the thread as other activities beckoned. Most important i think light and easy to read summer novels were an escape from the pressures of 19thcentury 19th century life. One of the most poignant examples i came across team from the overland monthly, a little great monthly in san francisco, and when season the credit card it was an especially lightweight selection of summer fiction that was available that year. He was almost inclined to criticize but then they stopped and he said, it had been and currently difficult call a rough season that year and they postulate people needed something to take their minds away from that cholera season. Publishers and authors would specifically to refrain some reading as a gracious feminine pastime. Henry james starts this out, incredibly Young Henry James come in the 1870s like many authors who were just starting out wanted to get, become part of a literary marketplace, they began with travel writing, and james is no exception. In 1870 he wrote a travel column for the nation, and in a dispatch written from Saratoga Springs he observed that there are, quote, you pretty are sites that charmingly dressed woman recently established in some shady spot with a piece of needlework or book at hand. This quote later in the pc is recounting a trip on the steamer crossing lake george to burlington, vermont, and he goes on at length about the scenery around it but then he drills debt and he focuses on the young women who are on the steamboat that he is on, on the steamer. And reports that theres been in a group on the deck with copies of lothair, Benjamin Disraeli is latest novel which are just been published that year and they all had it in their hands so we see this here. The scene above the lake, the underserved wilderness. Almost startled to behold the makeshift civilization you have wonder at the young ladies from the hotel on the deck with copies of lothair in the history Summer Reading is becoming a performance and women are embracing that performance. Another link, very, very clearly in the literary monthly that link women and some reading. This is Charles Dudley warner and hes writing as the birds appeared comes the crop of summer novels. Fluttering down the stall in procession through the railway cars, littering the drawing room tables in flight covers, ornamental attractive encounters and fanciful designs as welcome and grateful as the girls in muslim. Later on he goes on to say that when youre reading something, Summer Reading should always, quote, lightly clad and out of stay. That is, should always come in the lightweight paperback, a metaphor. Okay. Let me draw down a little bit further to show you how this narrative arc, this discourse takes shape. The book buyer is a really, really good site for doing this. You could really see this process of reframing at work clearly in the book buyer. This publication is very little known today. It was published by Charles Scribner is one of the leading American Publishing companies of the 19th century. Initially it was a house organ, a magazine designed to feature the firms own work. At this time when it starts, 1867, scribner is specializing in ecclesiastical text, the history of protestantism. It is specializing in School Textbooks and maps. Between 18671870, the first decade of its run the book buyer was tepid at best about the prospects of summer publishing. For example, every month the book buyer featured a calling poorly written from its London Office and was called for an later intelligence and you can see that over here on the left. It was the cover column. It was offered insights of the book trade in england and the continent. In 1868 the column noted in the face of a scorching summer, driving everyone abroad in search of coolness, that two new books are being brought out. I would have to wait until late autumn for any new kind of offerings from the publishing world. A year later the column noted that london was in the middle of a heated turn the left people sweltering and broadcloth in tweed, thats his language, nt mine, and thereby stymieing the sale of books. Let me read you from this augus. The papers say the thermometer and a volunteer cant at wimbledon on friday last at 130 degrees in the shade. And though this seems to be an exaggeration, the heat has been so intense that books have become a weariness to the flash, and the issues of the publishers drop off gradually until they nearly cease altogether during the months of august and september, or what is called the long vacation where everybody that is anybody be takes himself away from town. In short, people were just too busy in the summer with their travel guidebooks to have any time for reading. Gradually though in later years, beginning in the 1880s especially, gradually the book buyer begins to explore the market for the potential for summer titles in the United States. Heres an advertisement from 1872, this is very early. Its the first advertisement that scribner specifically labels as some reading. Summer reading popular books from Scribner Armstrong and company. It may be difficult to see here but basically this is the grab bag approach to some reading. Its a real grab bag of titles that it happens to have on hand. It reads in the upper lefthand side with the french authors, a very, very piping historical fiction and they had a new book out, a story of the war. It also underneath it does something called common sense in the household by binary harlan. Shes a bit of the Martha Stewart of her agents use phenomenally popular author for scribners, author of domestic advice books. Underwrite with shooting, boating and fishing. There are a utility link with the Summer Season. That grab bag strategy, Marketing Strategy gets refined and you see scribners becoming much more sophisticated. What follows this is advertisements in 1874 and then again in 1876 for a series called the bricabrac series. This was a selection of gossipy literary reminiscences that scribner positions quite specifically as some offering and the advertisement for the period, the newspaper motions and advertisements reflected that discourse as well. They begin to describe it as the most pleasant Summer Reading aim to take the tourist at the height of his ennui. He described as as a refreshing volume suitable for the country or the seashore in guaranteed to chase away the fatigue of a long journey in the pullman car. You can see some of these in the critical notices over here on the left from the christian union, to all lovers of literary anecdote and gossip whose whispers of the murmurs, the book will prove a refreshment in many a tired mood. Or the boston post, no more refreshing volume to be carried into the country or to the seashore to fill in the niche is a time which intervene between the pleasures of summer holidays. By the 1880s the discourse continues to develop. The strategy, the Marketing Strategy continues. The book buyer begins a very sustained defense of Summer Reading and it has a much more sophisticated marketing campaign. The book buyer has changed. Its much less a house organ and much more of a literary magazine, literary monthly and it is publishing reviews of new books and advertisements from a variety of firms, appleton, ticknor, mcmillan and others. In june 1884 the start of the Summer Season, it does the best summer books in paper editions. And then we have this, 1885. This is the first ad for summer books in paper covers. This is interesting in terms of the way the advertisement works. If you look closely you can see the prices. These are paperbound books. They are 50 cents to all of 30 cents, so not as low as cheap publishing but cheaper than the cloth, that the books might he appeared in. The first three are books by very, very popular wellestablished scribner office, many of them from 1870s so youre not new. We have Frank Stockton the lady or the tiger or theres a story about family on a canal vote. It also mentions Francis Hodgkins burnett, outlast lowery, a story about the coal mines in england. Look at the three titles underneath it. The three in the middle are all the George Carson leisa, one is newport, novel. One something called passion, and the third is in the distance. All three of these are novels set at summer resorts. So scribner is beginning to see the potential of capitalizing specifically on some reading by featuring reading matter that is set novel, fiction, like fiction, at a is set at a summr resort. Then at the bottom we have Everything Else that they had available. Now, some of the firms most popular authors had been advocating this for years over unless with Frances Hodgson burnett. Her husband bobby scribners repeatedly to issue a lowpriced edition of his wifes work to compete with peterson. All the material for this site came from the scribners archives at princeton right the pleasure of spending a week reading. He wrote he helped scribner could recommend a decent from in new york that my take on the task of issuing his wifes work in cheap pick but paperback edition and he is incredibly disingenuously mentions both George Monroe which scribner which wouldve been appalled by and even archrival harpers which it began its paperback Franklin Square additions for Summer Reading that year. In the middle, Mary Mapes Dodge made a much more obvious page for summer volume. She was the author of we know her from hans brinker and the summer skippers also editor of scribners very, very popular summer childrens saint nicholas. She had a collection of short stories for the adult market called scribners had published that that she saw the potential for reissuing it for the Summer Market and she writes to scribners, quote, do you think well of the idea of issuing a very cheap and abridged edition in in a soft t attractive cover for Summer Reading . Two years later she renewed her request achieve and then covered addition, assuring scribners quote, a number of literary friends have suggested that the book would do well as a summer book of this kind. And then finally my alltime favorite over on the right, mary virginia tehrune, her pen name was mary and harlan. Shes one of the firms bestselling authors, a prolific novelist in her own right as well as a 19th century domestic diva. In 1880 she was editor the editor of the magazine called the homemaker, she was just a real scribner celebrity. In march in 1890 she wrote to scribner asking if youd be interested in her new novel which was then running in the homemaker, had not been completed and wouldnt be complete until september but in march shes writing to him. The book was published as part of the yellow paper cover series and sell accelerated in july and august including among its picks for the best books for idle summer days. A little bit of an aside. He had an entirely commercial motive for making the mask, she admitted to scribners im building again and want a large sum of ready money. She needed the 600 dollars advance that scribner was offering. A final chapter in the book buyers history with Summer Reading which i want to suggest is kind of suggestive of the larger Publishing Industry discourse on Summer Reading. This is the june 1888 issue. And scribners here decided to go headtohead with Publishers Weekly which had been publishing a special summer issue for the trade since the 1870s but it devoted its entire june 1888 issue exclusively to the summer book market and Summer Reading. This was something publishers routinely did for their christmas promotions but they hadnt done at this point for the summer. And you can see here on the cover this very very definite buildup of the audience for Summer Reading as the woman reader so we see on the left a young woman, the white muslin again holding up her book and she seems to be under some kind of an Apple Blossom tree, all freshness and solitude. Nothing of the heat and dust in the crowds of Railroad Cars that would have been attending on summer leisure and that gets repeated on a fullpage ad with this familiar formula. An old favorite ofbacklist titles, a new volume as well. The woman reader becomes the center of the Marketing Strategy and the woman reader is goingto stay there for the rest of the century. Going to become a trope that other publishers exploit, making Summer Reading a markedly female space so i have some posters for example. By the 1890s publishers use posters like these to publicize new issues of their magazine so with a poster for the century , harpers, all of them teaching the summer reader. Now, to be sure reservations remained. Some magazines illustrators of the period turn right i to the woman reader and her Summer Reading practices and you can see these in the next threeimages. Ill try to gothrough these. This is a life magazine cover from july 1883. It features several people in amex but the prettiest thing and hammocks is the young woman in thecenter. She is languidly absorbed in a novel titled a burglars love. She isalone , wrapped in the hammock and she has a bag of candy if you look closely under her elbow, she has a bag of candy at her side so she becomes a consumer ofboth words and sweets. Another woman, july 1886. This is an illustration from charles warners their pilgrimage. Which was running in harpers, its a fictional romp through the summer resort and here is a scene from the installment that takes place at Newport Rhode island and its called the shepherd and his loft by the illustrator cs reinhardt and it shows theschool Teachers Convention at the hotel in newport. And every one of the young women here is totally absorbed in her paperback book ormagazine. While the creature looks on. I dont think thats the reference to talmage, he seems a little more accepting and then finally one of my absolute favorite images of the period is from july 1897 and its Charles Weiner gibsons marooned. The distinctive gibson girl is here in her summer dress on the beach. Her body language suggesting the effects of too much leisure, too much on and if the boxes and paperbacks at their feet are any sign their suffering him too much Summer Reading. Having consumed the latest novels arrive by mail, the readers are spent. Finally, i think im doing okay withtime here. Since i began with an example from boston, id like to end there as well. This example is very far removed from blackwell and her copy of a thief in the night. Its also an example that complicates this discussion of Summer Reading by referencing a second tradition that takes shape in the 19thcentury. A counter narrative that summer at the time for serious sustained and fossil reading. Though the book i want to end with an in this illustration is taken from that book. Its called the new harry and lucy, a story of boston in the summer of 1891 andits by edward hale and his sister lucretia hale. The plot is exceedingly familiar to anyone whos familiar with the genre. To anyone who has read any of the novels set at a summer resort. Two young people meet, fall in love in thesummertime. The plot moves forward with the characters engaging in a variety of summer activities area in this case, they ride the streetcars to riverside where they rent acanoe. They visit from mountauburn cemetery. They ride the votes in the hampton back. But the young lucy of the title takes her summers especiallyseriously. For her, summer is a time also to visit the trauma temple, to hear a lecture by helen keller. Its a time to teach in a morning Vacation School for bostons atrisk children and its at times and a birthday commemoration of jenny collins, for just and labor reformer who establis working women. So summer in other words was a time not just for wooing and fairy rides but for serious engagement with significant social issues. And i found myself wondering as i put this together if this will be the tyner ofour Summer Reading today but still will be Summer Reading. So with that , i thank you. And i guess im going to channel my inner lawn burnett i just calling your attention here. This is the cover of mybook , books for idle hours, the rise of Summer Reading. It is Available Online from the university of massachusetts rats and i just put the code here for 30 percent off and free shipping. Your support for the press would be appreciated and i guess i will stop sharing and we will go to questions. So just to refresh everyones memory you can either use the raise hand function at the bottom of your screen for the q a function and type inyour questions. So looks like we have a coupleof questions have come in. Are there any 19thcentury summer reads that are still read today . Okay. Thats a question igrappled a lot with. They definitely are ephemeral. They definitely are of their time. Not many of them are available today with the possible exception of the works of William Dean Howells, one of the most prominent authors of the period so his work is still there. There was one book one summer and author by the name of Blanche Willis Howard. Most of these novels were there for one season and then they disappeared. But Blanche Willis Howard novel was published every year from the 1870s through to the 1900s and beyond. It took place in maine and told the story of a young woman escorted by a young man who was wildly popular. I found references to it in the Harvard College library, books donated by harvard professors and that would come closest to the works of sarah on jewett but i think they are the books are very much of their time period. The tradition is very much a part of ours today. Thank you, that was a great question. Tomorrow, thank you. Was Summer Reading recommended as a escape from george beards version of im sorry, i cant pronounceit. American nervousness or alternately associated with a version of american nervousness that. I think what they were most concerned with was kind of a hypersensitivity and so this whole period in which they talk about women and womens hysteria and so they definitely were in conversation. The critics of summer conversation were in conversation with those effects of Light Reading but for women i think they were more worried not so much about languor as about hypersensitivity to sexual stimulation by reading sensational novels. We couldnt have that. Does Summer Reading become popular below the lower class, is it targeted to noncaucasian audiences . I was surprised by the range of audiences that met and i have to tease this out. I found a number of books that were contributed to libraries so a copy of one summer appeared in the Stanford University collection and it comes specifically from the stanford family. The book by the stanford family estate. Also a copy of harvard that had been in the vocation of a harvard political professor who donated it. At the same time know i look that theres a wonderful online site called what muncy read and looked at what was checked out of the library in muncie indiana and we can kind of trace summer novels there as well. And then kind of a final piece of this, they were advertised not just in new england but in california as well so novels about maine and the maine coast would appear in california and working people would have been featured in the fiction. But maybe less clear that it might be beyond a middleclass to the working class except for i dont know if i can callher by her first few names. Do you think this right type of reading and virtue for women to keep women in their place and reinforce their inferiorstatus in society . Marriage was definitely a major concern. All of the plots had to do with marriage and this would have been a period of time just after the civil war where you had a proliferation of young single women so i think you have to say that is the glass half empty or half full . It doesnt provide much agency but it does and in marriage for just about everyone. I can think of one exception and that is William Dean Howells novel. So i guess with that in mind, but theyoung women are shown in dramatically , some what of a period of relief so you have what young women in canoes, you have young women climbing trees declining mountains. So its kind of like that checks. Shakespearean comedy. We have this comedy where there is there period of festive relief where women are trying out new roles and given the freedom to do that. But there is that marriage at the end. And whether you see that as containment or fruition i think the books kind of leave that up in theair. Donna from norval, wonderful presentation. In your book you mentioned many of the characters in summer novels were themselves reading summer novels you talk about the intention there, was it for fun, awake and anod or marketing . A number of the novels, theauthors who are writing these are kind of very very aware of what the conventions are. Very often they will be references to characters seeking out Summer Reading and in one summer for example the two people eventually who will marry, they meet because the young woman goes out on a rainy night she seen a paperback bestseller in the drugstore that morning and she has to go out in the rain in order to do that and she bumps into the man who will become her husband the cost she has to do that. Another young woman is being courted by multiple suitors and they have her reading in the novel itself. So its kind of a metaanalysis but the authors were very aware of kind of what theconventions were , what readers expected and i dont want to say that they works lavishly following it. I think and a number of cases especially for howells is very much exploding some of the conventions and showing the ways in which this genre can tell stories that are more complicated than simply lightweight. I want to be conscious of peoples time. We may have time for one last question. I guess the last question could be what happens with summer novels in the 20th century as we turn into the 20th century . I have to stop at some point and i stopped in the early 1900s. But i went back through and just looked. It persists. I went back and look for example in times of war what happened . So the tradition of kind of putting the label on it, this persists. The idea that being a specific kind of a novel. I think that persists as well, that you can take the Aaron Hildebrandt and some of the books that are set on nantucket and other places today thatare very much designed for a female audience and you can trace that genre back. But i have to say i cited clive barnes saying like the statue of liberty and an apple pie, Summer Reading is always with us. I think it persists clearly as a marketing practice and im not sure that it has the force of a Cultural Practice today as itdid back in the 19th century. Thank you for a wonderful presentation and im going to share with everyone how to go about getting a copy of this. So if youd like to order a copy of the book, it is available from Massachusetts Press and the Discount Code is on the screen here and thank everyone forjoining us. And we hope you enjoy the program and hope you will consider continuing to support nhs and joining us for the rest of our programs over the summer while you may be on the beach reading i hope everyone has a wonderful evening. Now on cspan2s book tv more television for serious readers. Welcome to the special presentation, Racial Equity during and after the pandemic