A Bookshop of Their Own
Reading and Print in Chartism, 1838–1850
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9740829 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Robert G Hall (0000-0001-8556-5016, Ball State University , Muncie, IN , USA, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 136 |
| Issue | 581 |
| Pages | 894-917 |
| Publication date | 2021-11-11 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The English Historical Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0013-8266 • E-ISSN: 1477-4534 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/ehr/ceab178 |
| OpenAlex | W3214693678 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
To become a Chartist was to enter the world that print had made; to do so, most working men and women relied on a national network of sympathetic publishers, printers and booksellers. At the centre of this Chartist print culture was the bookshop. For some time now, historians have recognised the important contributions of booksellers as Chartist leaders and organisers; however, the role of bookshops in shaping Chartist reading practices and experiences has not really been explored. There has also been a tendency in studies of Chartism and print to focus primarily on the selling and reading of the Northern Star and to underestimate the importance of almanacs, pamphlets and ephemera (such as posters and advertisements). In this article I take as my subject Chartist print in its multiplicity of forms and argue that Chartist bookshops affected the production, circulation and the reading of texts in several different ways. As retailers and publishers, Chartist booksellers provided the working classes with a diverse mix of cheap publications, Chartist and non-Chartist alike, in many different forms; the bookshop itself came to serve as a free and democratic reading site for these publications. Of an inclusive nature, Chartist bookshops were places where oral and print cultures met and where readers read and discussed all kinds of different texts and ideas. In these and other ways, Chartist booksellers challenged many of the practices and conventions of the respectable book trades and at times crossed over into illegal and seditious activities
Art · Art history · Ephemera · History of the book · Library science · Literature · Media studies · Political science · Print culture · Publishing · Reading (process · Sociology · Subject (documents · Classics · Computer Science · European Political History Analysis · Historical Influence and Diplomacy · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,33 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2023 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |