Building a National Literature: The United States 1800-1890

Building a National Literature: The United States 1800-1890

Summary:

            In the early 1800’s critics and even Americans agreed that there was really no presence of American literature.  This really made Americans unhappy. They were just looking at print culture in a simplistic way when really there was print of different kinds in the 1800’s.  Letters, public documents, and newspapers really rose to the occasion of daily public reading.

            Serving both public purpose and private interest, newspapers proliferated at a dizzying pace up and down the coast and deep into the western frontier. It circulated very fast for the new nation.

            The boundaries of American journalism really expanded dramatically with the production of the penny press.  It took concepts that were used in London and incorporated it into the New York Sun later becoming the New York Herald, and the New York Tribune.

Comment: 

           

            I thought that it was very interesting that in 1869, the British journalist Edward Dicey characterized the American as a “newspaper-reading animal”.  This was interesting to me because we adopted a lot of British concepts for literature.  We used British books as our literature to read, and used their concepts on presenting news to the masses with the use of periodicals.  I think it is odd that Dicey would speak negative of the newspaper when it really is just a product of the English influence.

Question:

            Where would American literature be without the production of the newspaper?  Would we eventually adopt our own American literature or would we have continued to use British literature imported.