Description
Book SynopsisFrom the colonial era to the onset of the Civil War, Magazines and the Making of America looks at how magazines and the individuals, organizations, and circumstances they connected ushered America into the modern age. How did a magazine industry emerge in the United States, where there were once only amateur authors, clumsy technologies for product
Trade ReviewCo-Winner of the 2016 CITAMS Book Award, Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association "[Magazines and the Making of America] is a work of sociology and as such it contributes to the growing literature on print culture by considering how the demography, geography, and economics of print fueled (and were fueled by) capitalism."--Choice "Magazines and the Making of America is a treasure trove for students of social movements and political history, for it chronicles the scores of movements, from anti-dueling to Indian rights to free love, that swept the nation... A bright star to guide others applying the new methods of social science to historical topics. Haveman has a penchant for coding and counting everything in sight. She tracks each broadside and circular from before the dawn of the nation, and thus we get much more than an impressionistic romp through the history of the genre. The book is chock full of figures and analyses that substantiate the argument, and the narrative is followed by well over a hundred pages of appendices and bibliography."--Frank Dobbin. Administrative Science Quarterly
Table of ContentsList of Figures and Tables ix Acknowledgments xiii Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Why Focus on Magazines? 4 Magazines, Modernization, and Community in America 5 The Modernization of America 9 Modernization and Community in America 12 The Path Forward: The Outline of This Book 15 Conclusion 22 Chapter 2 The History of American Magazines, 1741-1860 23 Magazine Origins 23 Magazine Evolution 26 Variety within and among Magazines 41 Conclusion 52 Chapter 3 The Material and Cultural Foundations of American Magazines 55 Publishing Technologies 57 Distribution Infrastructure: The Post Office 61 The Reading Public 74 Professional Authors and Copyright Law 86 Conclusion 103 Chapter 4 Launching Magazines 106 Who Founded American Magazines? 106 Why Were Magazines Founded? 127 How Did Magazines Gain Public Support? 136 Conclusion 142 Chapter 5 Religion 143 The Changing Face of American Religion 143 The Interplay between Religion and Magazines 160 Conclusion 184 Chapter 6 Social Reform 187 The Evolution of Social Reform Movements 187 Religion and Reform: The Moral Impulse 197 Magazines and Reform 201 The Press, the Pulpit, and the Antislavery Movement 212 Conclusion 221 Chapter 7 The Economy 224 Economic Development 224 Commerce and Magazines 238 Rationality and "Science" in America 245 A New American Revolution: Agriculture Becomes "Scientific" 250 Conclusion 267 Chapter 8 Conclusion 269 Appendix 1: Data and Data Sources 279 Core Data on Magazines: Sources 279 Refining the Sample: Distinguishing Magazines from Other Types of Publications 281 Measuring Magazine Attributes 284 Background Data on Magazine Founders 291 Data on Religion 294 Data on Antislavery Associations 301 Data on Social Reform Associations 303 Other Contextual Data 303 Appendix 2: Methods for Quantitative Data Analysis 307 Units of Analysis 307 Chapter 2: The History of American Magazines, 1741-1860 309 Chapter 3: The Material and Cultural Foundations of American Magazines 310 Chapter 4: Launching Magazines 319 Chapter 5: Religion 327 Chapter 6: Social Reform 335 References 343 Index 395
