Who Makes the Text? The Production and Use of Literature in Antebellum America

"Who Makes the Text?: The Production and Use of Literature in Antebellum America" examines the literature read and written by southern women and men in the 1850s. To learn about these readers, I have researched public and private documents that tell us about their lives and the novels, newspapers, magazines, and religious tracts that they read. To understand why readers chose to read these particular texts, I examine how they were produced, distributed and marketed. Finally, through my own readings of this diverse literature, I consider how people used reading in their daily lives. For example, I explore the ways in which readers responded to and interpreted messages about contemporary political concerns embodied in their reading such as slavery and the women's movement. Chapter 2, "The Uses of Reading in the Ella Clanton Thomas Journal," examines the journal of avid reader Ella Clanton Thomas of Augusta, Georgia. Focusing on her entries from 1848-1860, I trace her life from age 14 to 26. Her identity as woman changes dramatically during these years and so too does she change as a reader, in what she reads, how she reads, and how she uses her reading. Chapter 3, "Literature in the Mail: Periodical Reading in Henderson, North Carolina," uses U.S. Postal Records for Henderson, North Carolina from October through December 1857 to study the periodical reading of a community. I examine the 81 titles which were subscribed to by 111 townspeople, and analyze subscription patterns by type of publication and place of publication (North and South). I use information found in the U.S. Census of 1860 to examine the effect of readers' property-holding, slaveholding, gender, age, and household structure on the number and type of subscriptions. Chapter 4, "Making Tracts: The Work of the American Tract Society in the South," uses the private writings of two colporteurs--Frederick Mallett in North Carolina and Micah Croswell in South Carolina--to examine readers' responses to American Tract Society publications. I also offer a close reading of tracts about working-class male and female characters.