What Muncie read
"In fact, we know very little about which books Americans used to page
through: the history of reading is largely circumstantial, based upon
diary entries or sales figures.
So when Frank Felsenstein, a historian of the book at Ball State University, happened to find several unmarked boxes on a shelf in the Muncie Public Library, he was eager to peek inside. Felsenstein discovered crumbling ledgers and notebooks identifying every book checked out of the library, as well as the name of the patron who checked it out, from November 1891 to December 1902 (save a short gap when the library very likely burned the records after a smallpox epidemic). Felsenstein and his colleague James Connolly began cataloging the records, checking the names against census data to provide more patron information and digitizing what they found."
Read what Muncie read at The New York Times.
Thanks, Jonah.
So when Frank Felsenstein, a historian of the book at Ball State University, happened to find several unmarked boxes on a shelf in the Muncie Public Library, he was eager to peek inside. Felsenstein discovered crumbling ledgers and notebooks identifying every book checked out of the library, as well as the name of the patron who checked it out, from November 1891 to December 1902 (save a short gap when the library very likely burned the records after a smallpox epidemic). Felsenstein and his colleague James Connolly began cataloging the records, checking the names against census data to provide more patron information and digitizing what they found."
Read what Muncie read at The New York Times.
Thanks, Jonah.
Fascinating piece. I'm sure I'm biased since it was a significant piece of my undergrad curriculum, but I'm kind of disappointed that nobody seemed to read British and European Romantics in "Middletown" at the turn of the century(1900)-- Blake, Byron, Shelley, et cetera. My father was about to be born 10 years later to grow up in Cincinnati, and I have a small inherited antique living room library that shows evidence of those. I suppose it marked business/professional status. I'm thinking I may find one or two also from my mother's father, a bookkeeper for Newark businesses and a graduate of NHS in the 1890s.
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