Duquesne University Duquesne Scholarship Collection Electronic Theses and Dissertations Spring 2013 Scenes of Reading: Forgotten Antebellum Readers, Self-Representation, and the Transatlantic Reprint Industry Marianne Mallia Holohan Follow this and additional works at: https://dsc.duq.edu/etd Recommended Citation Holohan, M. (2013). Scenes of Reading: Forgotten Antebellum Readers, Self-Representation, and the Transatlantic Reprint Industry (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/660 This Immediate Access is brought to you for free and open access by Duquesne Scholarship Collection. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Duquesne Scholarship Collection. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SCENES OF READING: FORGOTTEN ANTEBELLUM READERS, SELF-REPRESENTATION, AND THE TRANSATLANTIC REPRINT INDUSTRY A Dissertation Submitted to the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts Duquesne University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Marianne Mallia Holohan May 2013 Copyright by Marianne Mallia Holohan 2013 SCENES OF READING: FORGOTTEN ANTEBELLUM READERS, SELF-REPRESENTATION, AND THE TRANSATLANTIC REPRINT INDUSTRY By Marianne Mallia Holohan Approved March 27, 2013 ________________________________ ________________________________ Thomas Kinnahan, Ph.D. Greg Barnhisel, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of English Associate Professor of English (Committee Chair) (Committee Member) ________________________________ Kathy Glass, Ph.D. Associate Professor of English (Committee Member) ________________________________ ________________________________ James Swindal, Ph.D. Magali Cornier Michael, Ph.D. Dean, McAnulty College and Graduate Chair, English School of Liberal Arts Professor of English Professor of Philosophy iii ABSTRACT SCENES OF READING: FORGOTTEN ANTEBELLUM READERS, SELF-REPRESENTATION, AND THE TRANSATLANTIC REPRINT INDUSTRY By Marianne Mallia Holohan May 2013 Dissertation supervised by Thomas Kinnahan, PhD ―Scenes of Reading: Forgotten Antebellum Readers, Self-Representation, and the Transatlantic Reprint Industry‖ argues that African-American and white working- class people participated in transatlantic antebellum literary culture in a far more central and sophisticated manner than has been assumed. Employing ―scenes‖ of reading—self- representations of what, where, how, and why African Americans and the white working classes read—as primary texts, this dissertation asserts that these groups, in differing degrees and under distinct circumstances, were able to learn to read, to appropriate reading materials from mainstream literary culture, and, most importantly, to transform their acts of reading into acts of politicized self-representation. Their literary practice was possible because of the transatlantic reprint industry that flourished during the antebellum era resulting from the lack of a copyright agreement between Britain and America. This iv meant that in both nations, texts from across the Atlantic could be reprinted and sold more cheaply than domestic texts, making novels, poetry, and non-fiction available to wider readerships. Reprinted texts in multiple inexpensive formats were ubiquitous, allowing even marginalized readers to encounter them in the context of everyday life. More importantly, reprinted texts legally belonged to no one, meaning that they could be appropriated by anyone, including black and working-class groups whose political values threatened to undermine accepted social hierarchies. With no permission or payment required for reprinting, reprints were easily grafted into new ideological contexts, meaning that black and working-class newspapers had access to free literary content that they could employ toward counter-hegemonical self-representations. The practices and implications of reprinting enabled free blacks, slaves, and white workers to participate in mainstream literary culture subversively through ―underground literacy‖: set of literary practices that were counter-cultural yet also dependent upon the apparatus of mainstream print culture in order to carry out subversive aims. Reading reprinted texts and assimilating them into the context of their everyday lives, African Americans and the white working classes in America and Britain formed similar strategies for practicing literacy beneath the surface of a transatlantic print culture. This dissertation examines scenes of reading that exemplify these underground reading strategies and represent the literacy of these groups. v DEDICATION To my father, the late Frank ―Dino‖ Mallia, who practiced literacy despite opposition. vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my committee for all of the time they spent discussing, reading, and commenting on my dissertation. Also, I would like to thank the English Department for conference funding, which allowed me to test many of the ideas that became this dissertation in front of a scholarly audience, and for research funding that helped me accomplish the archival research upon which this project depends. I am grateful for permission to use materials and the expertise and enthusiasm of librarians and other staff at the Wilson Library at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; the American Textile History Museum in Lowell, MA; the American Antiquarian Society; and the Wallace Library at Wheaton College in Norton, MA. And finally, I would like to thank my husband, Mike Holohan, for his endless support and confidence in my work. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract .......................................................................................................................... iv Dedication ...................................................................................................................... vi Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................... vii List of Figures ................................................................................................................ ix Introduction ..................................................................................................................... x Chapter 1: ―Stolen‖ Texts, Stolen Moments: Reprinting and the Practice of Underground Literacy .................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2: Feargus O‘Connor‘s Northern Star and Frederick Douglass‘s Papers: Radical Self-Representation, Underground Literacy, and Transatlantic Reprinting .................................................................................................... 48 Chapter 3: Haunting the Master‘s Library: The Bondwoman’s Narrative, Underground Slave Literacy, and Transatlantic Fiction in Southern Libraries .................. 136 Chapter 4: ―Poets of the Loom, Spinners of Verse‖: Reading British Poetry and Writing Class Consciousness in New England Mill Towns......................... 202 Bibliography ............................................................................................................... 292 viii LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure I.1 Richard Caton Woodville. War News from Mexico. 1848. ........................... xi Figure 1.1 Catalogue of the Pacific Mills Library. Title Page. 1855. ............................ 11 Figure 1.2 ―Readable Books.‖ Clarke, Beeton & Co. Advertisement. 1853. .................. 34 Figure 2.1 Northern Star. Front Page. 13 Jan. 1838. ..................................................... 86 Figure 2.2 North Star. Front Page. 30 June 1848. .......................................................... 86 Figure 2.3 Illustration of the Glasgow Spinners. Northern Star 27 Jan. 1838. ............ 116 Figure 3.1 Catalogue of the Library at Hayes. Title Page. 1830. ................................. 146 Figure 3.2 Page from the Catalogue of the Library at Hayes. 1830. ............................ 155 Figure 3.3 Letter from Aaron of Hayes. Unpublished. 28 August 1850. ...................... 174 Figure 4.1 Masthead of The New England Artisan. 30 August 1834. ........................... 242 ix Introduction Was the act of reading in the antebellum era largely a white, privileged activity? While twentieth-century scholarly narratives of literacy have created ―scenes‖ or representations of reading that answer this question in the affirmative, visions of a more diverse antebellum readership suggest otherwise. One such scene of reading, Richard Caton Woodville‘s 1848 painting, War News from Mexico (figure I.1), represents a more expansive view of antebellum literacy by illustrating how black and working-class readers, while marginalized, participated in mainstream print culture. At the center of the painting stands a white man, wearing a top hat and his shirt sleeves, reading aloud from an unfolded newspaper to a crowd on the porch of a hotel in an unspecified American town. Closest to this central figure are six other white men, some young and some old, listening to the latest news about the Mexican-American War. These central ―readers‖ in the image appear to be middle-class, some with top hats and cravats, though their class status is ultimately uncertain. More importantly, to the right of these men, Woodville places four other individuals who have also gathered to ―read‖ the newspaper. In the shadows, stretching to catch sight of the newspaper, stands a white man and woman whose working-class status is marked by his straw hat and