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Where Did All These Books Come From? the Publishing Industry and American Intellectual Life

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Where Did All These Books Come From? the Publishing Industry and American Intellectual Life Colby College Digital Commons @ Colby Honors Theses Student Research 2007 Where did all these books come from? The Publishing Industry and American Intellectual Life Maro N. Asadoorian Colby College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/honorstheses Part of the Sociology Commons Colby College theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed or downloaded from this site for the purposes of research and scholarship. Reproduction or distribution for commercial purposes is prohibited without written permission of the author. Recommended Citation Asadoorian, Maro N., "Where did all these books come from? The Publishing Industry and American Intellectual Life" (2007). Honors Theses. Paper 282. https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/honorstheses/282 This Honors Thesis (Open Access) is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Research at Digital Commons @ Colby. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Colby. Where Did All These Books Come From? The Publishing Industry and American Intellectual Life Maro N. Asadoorian Colby College Department of Sociology Advisor: Alec Campbell Reader: Elizabeth Sagaser Spring 2007 Table of Contents Introduction 1 History of the American Trade Publishing Industry 1900-1950 5 History of the American Trade Publishing Industry 1950-Present 41 Publisher and Bookseller Interviews 107 #1 New York Times Bestsellers 155 Conclusion 168 Appendix A – Methodology 173 Appendix B – Interview Respondents 179 Works Cited 183 Introduction The American book publishing industry shapes the character of American intellectual life. While the newspaper and television industries have been accused of and investigated for bias and lowering America’s intellectual standards, book publishing has gone largely unexamined by scholars. The existing studies of the publishing industry have focused on finance, procedure and history. “There are few ‘theories’ of publishing – efforts to understand the ‘whys’ as well as the ‘hows.’ Few scholarly scientists have devoted significant scholarly attention to publishing” (Altbach and Hoshino, xiii). There are many possible reasons for this lacuna. First, there is a perception that books have always been around, that they are an “old” technology and therefore they don’t appear to have had as much of an impact on our society as television and other media (which were developed quickly and suddenly) seem to have had (Altbach and Hoshino, xiv). Also, despite books’ present and past popularity, television, radio, and now the internet reach more people more easily, and are therefore more topical points of study and observation. In studying the effects of mass media on everyday American life, television and the internet may be the most logical points of study. Regarding public intellectual life however, books play a much more important role. Public intellectual life has always been associated with independent thinkers publishing their work for the masses. For this reason, this I focus on trade publishing. Trade publishing produces fiction and non- fiction works for the general reading public, as opposed to technical manuals, textbooks, and other fiction and nonfiction books targeted to small and specific audiences. Although, quantitatively speaking, “the largest part of book publishing business is Introduction 2 embodied in that great complex of companies and activities producing educational, business, scientific, technical, and reference books and materials,” (Tebbel 1987, 439) the trade industry publishes most of the books that most people read. It is the most public segment of the industry, and the most likely place to find public intellectualism. Trade publishing is not only the most public segment of the industry, but it is also the most susceptible to corruption and lowered intellectual standards. Unlike specialty publishing, which caters to a specific, known segment of society, trade publishers must compete with countless other publications, as well as with other forms of media, for the patronage of the general public. As John Tebbel (author of a widely referenced history of the publishing industry) puts it, “The textbook, scientific, or technical book is subjected to much more rigorous scrutiny by buyers and users, and in an intensively competitive market inferior products are quickly lost” (Tebbel 1987, xiv). Since the standards for trade publishing are not nearly as specific – trade books simply need to catch the attention of a significant number of readers, they don’t have to measure up to a given level of quality – the quality of trade books is much more variable. And yet, a successful trade publication can have a much greater impact on society than the most rigorously researched and edited textbook or scholarly study. Over the past few decades many social theorists have commented on and lamented the decline of public intellectuals and intellectual life in America (Hofstadter 1963; Posner 2001; Jacoby 1987). Complaints about the rise of academia and the separation of intellectualism and so-called “everyday life” abound. These analyses focus on the specialization of intellectuals, on the increasing unintelligibility of intelligent writers, and place the blame on growing institutions of higher education and career Introduction 3 academics. This study is an examination of that same divide between everyday life – specifically everyday reading and the everyday reader – and intellectualism. But here the focus is not on how academic presses commandeered all the intellectuals, but on how and why the trade publishing industry began to reject the intellectuals. This study uses multiple qualitative and quantitative methods in its search for an understanding of this phenomenon. A historical analysis of the trade publishing industry from 1900 until the present provides a foundation for understanding the inner workings of the publishing industry and also helps to show that the divide between popular reading and intellectual reading is neither inherent nor permanent, but that it has been created as a result of real tangible changes in the industry. Interviews with editors and booksellers supplement historical accounts with descriptions of the present situation in the industry. These interviews also provide first hand accounts of changes and problems in the industry both today and in the past. Finally, a quantitative analysis of New York Times #1 bestsellers and how they have changed since the list’s inception in 1942 shows that the changes described anecdotally by so many former and current publishers and editors have had a real effect on the books that people read. Theorists like Hofstadter, Posner and Jacoby lament the loss of public intellectualism, meaning intellectual thought and discussion aimed at the general public, what I will call American intellectual life. Their attacks on academia and specialized areas of study are well-founded and meaningful, but are only a part of the puzzle. In order to truly understand how and why the divide between the American public and intellectualism was created we have to take a look at popular literature, its production and Introduction 4 distribution, and how actual institutional changes have affected the literary output of this country. The History of the Publishing Industry 1900-1950 In order to understand the impact trade publishing has on society, the history of the industry must be understood not only in terms of historical dates and figures, but in terms of the broader changes in purpose and attitude within the industry. Nearly every historical study of the publishing industry tells a standard story. The period between 1920 and 1940 was a Golden Age of publishing, when publishing was at a financial, intellectual and cultural peak (Tebbel 1987, 201). Drastic changes following the Golden Age were typified by a series of mergers and acquisitions throughout the sixties, seventies and eighties. Dividing the twentieth century into two broad historical periods – from the beginning of the century through the end of the Golden Age in 1940, and from the end of the Golden Age through the eighties and early nineties – will not only facilitate my examination of the changing industry, but will also set the stage for my analysis of what those changes mean to American intellectual life. The Golden Age of Publishing Initially, the American publishing industry was composed of illegal printers. Through the 19th century, most American printers made their money by producing cheap and illegal reprints of well-known British authors. Even original American works by the likes of Thomas Paine were subject to illegal re-printings, giving American publishing a poor international reputation. This changed at the turn of the century when new copyright laws forced publishers to become serious members of the international publishing community (Lofquist 1995, 343). With federal copyright regulations in place, American publishers began in earnest the search for original American works fit for mass reproduction. History – 1900-1950 6 The end of World War I provided the publishing industry with exactly the kind of readership it needed. Population growth and increased literacy expanded the potential readership of trade books, while advances in book printing technology which lowered production costs (Benton 2000, 12-13). The populism of the 1920s provided even some of the lowest classes (though not the poorest of the poor) with enough disposable income to make books an affordable luxury
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