No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Books and Wealth on the Frontier: Athens County and Washington County, Ohio, 1790-1859
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 January 2016
Extract
One of the perplexing questions that one faces when addressing the problem of literacy and the diffusion of knowledge and culture in early nineteenth-century America relates to the factors that determined whether or not an individual participated in the cultural uplift described by so many early nineteenth-century commentators. When reformers spoke of reading as a moral imperative in consonance with a more general social and spiritual moral order, when educators described Americans as “unquestionably a reading people” or labeled the late 1820s as “emphatically the age of reading,” the questions of who were the subjects of such remarks and what socioeconomic factors determined whether or not an individual was a “participant in culture” must be raised (Welter, 1975: 254; Ohio Journal of Education, 1856: 97; Story, 1876: 419-420). These questions are part of a more basic and more complex question: What were the factors that determined the diffusion of knowledge and culture in the America of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries? Such a question is, of course, exceedingly complex and lends itself readily to an interdisciplinary as well as a multidisciplinary approach.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Social Science History Association 1981
References
Atherton, E. (1971) The Frontier Merchant in Mid-America. Columbia: Univ. of Missouri Press.Google Scholar
Clark, P. (1976) “The ownership of books in England, 1560–1640: the example of some Kentish townsfolk,” pp. 100–103 in Stone, L. (ed.) Schooling and Society. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Coxe, T. (1814) A Statement of the Arts and Manufactures of the United States of America for the year 1810. Philadelphia: A. Cornman, Junr. Reprint of American Industry and Manufactures in the Nineteenth Century, A Basic Source Collection, Volume 2 (1970). Elmsford, NY: Pergammon.Google Scholar
Craig, J. E. and Spear, N. (1978) “The diffusion of schooling in nineteenth century Europe: toward a model.” Presented at the annual meeting of the Social Science History Association, Columbus, Ohio.Google Scholar
Harris, M. H. (1972) “Books on the frontier: the extent and nature of book ownership in southern Indiana, 1800-1850.” Library, Q. 42 (October): 416–430.Google Scholar
Harris, M. H. (1971) “The availability of books and the nature of book ownership on the southern Indiana frontier, 1800-1850,” Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University.Google Scholar
Howe, D. W. [ed.] (1976) Victorian America. Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Jones, A. (1972) “Wealth estimates for the New England colonies about 1770.” J. of Economic History 32 (March): 98–127.Google Scholar
Kaestle, C. F. (1976) “Between the Scylla of brutal ignorance and the Charybdis of literary education: elite attitudes toward mass schooling in early industrial England and America,” in Stone, L. (ed.) Schooling and Society. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, S. (1836) “Remarks on common schools,” in Stowe, C. E., The Prussian System of Public Instruction. Cincinnati: Truman & Smith.Google Scholar
Main, G. L. (1974) “The correction of biases in colonial American probate records.” Historical Methods Newsletter 8 (December): 10–28.Google Scholar
Mayer, V. J. (1950) “Coonskin library.” Presented at the American Library Association, Cleveland, July 15.Google Scholar
Nash, G. B. (1976) “Urban wealth and poverty in pre-revolutionary America.” J. of Interdisciplinary History 6 (Spring): 545–584.Google Scholar
Ohio Historical Records Survey (1941) “A check list of Ohio imprints, 1796-1820,” in American Imprints Inventory. Columbus: Author.Google Scholar
Peckham, H. H. (1958) “Books and reading on the Ohio valley frontier.” Mississippi Valley Historical Rev. 44 (March): 649–663.Google Scholar
Shaffer, E. (1966) “The children’s books of the American Sunday-School Union.” Book Collection 17 (October): 21–28.Google Scholar
Smith, D. S. (1975) “Underregistration and bias in probate records: an analysis of data from eighteenth-century Hingham, Massachusetts.” William and Mary Q. 32 (January): 100–110.Google Scholar
Story, J. (1876) “A discourse pronounced at Cambridge, before the Phi Beta Kappa Society,” pp. 415–453 in Williston, E. B. (ed.) Eloquence of the United States (31 August), Volume 5. Middleton, CT: E. & H. Clark.Google Scholar
Suffolk County, Massachusetts (1780, 1783, 1786, 1789) Probate Records, Vols. 79, 83, 85, 88, 89.Google Scholar
Swormstedt, L. (1852) “The general conference on the Methodist Episcopal Church,” in Papers of Leroy Swormstedt, Collection 231. Columbus: Ohio Historical Society.Google Scholar
Tebbel, J. (1972) A History of Book Publishing in the United States, 1. New York: Bowker.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census (1854) Compendium of the Seventh Census of the United States. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Commerce (1975) Historical Statistics of the United States, Part I. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Washington County, Ohio, Marriage Records V. 1. (1910) Journal of Common Pleas, Vol. 3, Marietta, Ohio, Special Census for Washington County, Ohio, 1810, in Special Collections, Ohio University Library.Google Scholar