ASH3002y Reading Assignment
February 22, 1999

Print cultures: Ben Franklin and Jonathan Edwards

During this class meeting, we'll use the figures of Benjamin Franklin and Jonathan Edwards to consider print culture in eighteenth-century America.  Along the way, we'll consider some fairly major cultural phenomena, including the Great Awakening and the American Revolution, but we'll primarily focus on these events as they affect print culture. 

Required reading:

• Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography, in The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. 1 (491-596). (HTML version, Electronic Text Center at the University of Virginia)
• Introduction to Jonathan Edwards in The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. 1 (440-441).
• Jonathan Edwards,  "Letter to Rev. Dr. Benjamin Colman (May 30, 1735)," in The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. 1 (466-474).  (HTML version, Jonathan Edwards On-line)
• Jonathan Edwards,  "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," in The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. 1 (474-485).  (HTML version, Jonathan Edwards On-line)
• Jonathan Edwards, "Letter to the Trustees of the College of New Jersey," October 19, 1757
• NAIP Data (handout)
  • Information on the North American Imprints Program at the American Antiquarian Society

As you read the material listed above, consider the following questions:

• What kinds of texts were people writing and reading? 
• What was the relationship between authors and printers?
• What relationships can you see between events and the NAIP data?
• How useful a lens is print culture for helping us to understand this period?

Useful websites:

• Jonathan Edwards On-line
• The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin
• The World of Benjamin Franklin at the Franklin Institute
  • a replica of Franklin's printing press
• Benjamin Franklin:  A Documentary History
• Another on-line version of The Autobiography
• Colonization and Print in the Americas

Further reading:

• David D. Hall, Cultures of Print:  Essays in the History of the Book (Amherst:  U of Massachusetts P, 1996).
• Cathy Davidson, Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America (New York:  Oxford UP, 1986).
• Ronald J. Zboray, A Fictive People:  Antebellum Economic Development and the American Reading Public (New York and Oxford:  Oxford UP, 1993).
• Michael Warner, The Letters of The Republic:  Publication and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century America (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 1990).
• Charles E. Clark, The Public Prints:  The Newspaper in Anglo-American Culture, 1665-1740 (New York and Oxford:  Oxford UP, 1994).
• Rosalind Remer, Printers and Men of Capital:  Philadelphia Book Publishers in the New Republic (Philadelphia:  U of Pennsylvania P, 1996).