What to Read and How to Read: The Social Infrastructure of Young People's Reading, Osage, Iowa, 1870 to 1900

Challenging the common image of reading as a solitary activity, this article describes the social settings in which young people participated in the print culture of a late nineteenth-century small midwestern town. It focuses especially on two aspects of the social infrastructure of reading: cultural practices that encouraged reading in social settings, including the school, Sunday school, public library, and domestic parlor; and the influence of cultural authorities on the content of children's reading. At school, young people encountered a traditional formal curriculum, mediated through standard textbooks. At Sunday school, too, most young people's reading was defined by the cultural and moral values of mainstream Protestantism. However, in both of these settings, traditional boundaries were becoming porous to a greater variety of printed materials. For imaginative literature, adolescents could also turn to the public library. Analysis of library borrowing records shows that both adults and youth read "low" fiction, shared titles, and engaged in a common culture, embracing males and females alike. In sum, Osage, Iowa, in the late nineteenth century, fashioned an inclusive world of reading, reflecting rather than prescribing local tastes.