Where is the Culture of Print?: Rhetoric and Region in the Early Republic and Antebellum America
Thursday, April 8, 2010; 10:15 AM
For a generation, scholars of the early republic and antebellum America have probed the importance of print culture in creating a national identity. From Michael Warner to Benedict Anderson, Jay Fliegelman to Sandra Gustafson, elements of that national culture have been traced in newspapers and official documents, public rhetoric and personal letters. Yet recently, Trish Loughran has argued that it was the very *lack* of a truly national print culture--and the presence instead of a highly fragmented series of regional print cultures--that allowed residents of the young United States to imagine a unified national identity. Building on new research to explore the connections between the printed word and formulation of the nation, this panel engages the history of communication and the formation of regional identity from Boston after the Revolution to St. Louis in the years of the Dred Scott Case. Through examinations of the periodical press, the first major urban public library, and cross-regional coverage of a noted lecturer, these papers together establish the importance of local and regional specificity in understanding the role of print culture in shaping the American public sphere. Robb Haberman examines post-revolutionary Massachusetts magazines for clues to the ways these periodicals created a “provincial nationalism.” While employing nationalist rhetoric, he argues, these publications emphasized regional ties and fostered a profoundly local literary culture. Lynda Yankaskas analyzes the 1854 opening of the Boston Public Library (BPL) to bring to light the deep anxiety about place that that institution’s supporters reveal in their arguments for, and accounts of, the new institution. She argues that while the BPL was enmeshed in wider networks, its primary significance to its boosters was deeply tied to a sense of place. Adam Arenson brings the panel's theme westward, as he explores the contrasting coverage of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s antebellum lectures in Rochester, New York, and St. Louis, Missouri, and in competing St. Louis newspapers. He argues that this coverage reveals previously underexplored aspects of regional politics, including the ways regional differences were held in uneasy balance with national aspirations. Trish Loughran herself will add an important voice to the panel as commentator and chair. She has considered in depth the intersections of place and print and has expanded the discipline's understanding of region as a lens for understanding print culture. Combining Dr. Loughran's expertise with the varied research of the three paper presenters, this panel promises to make a significant contribution to the OAH Annual Meeting’s exploration of “American Culture, American Democracy.”
Lynda Yankaskas, Virginia Commonwealth University
Adam Arenson, The University of Texas, El Paso
Robb Haberman, University of Connecticut
Chair/Commentator: Trish Loughran, University of Illinois