Publishing Plates : : Stereotyping and Electrotyping in Nineteenth-Century US Print Culture / / Jeffrey M. Makala.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2022 English
• VerfasserIn: Makala, Jeffrey M.,
• Place / Publishing House: University Park, PA : : Penn State University Press, , [2022]; ©2023
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Series: Penn State Series in the History of the Book
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (214 p.)

First realized commercially in the late eighteenth century, stereotyping—the creation of solid printing plates cast from moveable type—fundamentally changed the way in which books were printed. Publishing Plates chronicles the technological and cultural shifts that resulted from the introduction of this technology in the United States.The commissioning of plates altered shop practices, distribution methods, and even the author-publisher relationship. Drawing on archival records, Jeffrey M. Makala traces the first uses of stereotyping in Philadelphia in 1812, its adoption by printers in New York and Philadelphia, and its effects on the trade. He looks closely at the printers, typefounders, authors, and publishers who watched small, regional, artisan-based printing traditions rapidly evolve, clearing the way for the industrialized publishing industry that would emerge in the United States at midcentury. Through case studies of the publisher Mathew Carey and the American Bible Society, one of the first publishers of cheap Bibles, Makala explores the origins of the American publishing industry and American mass media. In addition, Makala examines changes in the notion of authorship, copyright, and language and their effects on writers and literary circles, giving examples from the works and lives of Herman Melville, Sojourner Truth, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman, among others. Incorporating perspectives from the fields of book history, the history of technology, material culture studies, and American studies, this book presents a rich, detailed history of an innovation that transformed American culture.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1 The Development and Spread of Stereotyping in Europe and North America -- 2 Mathew Carey and the Family Bible Marketplace -- 3 The American Bible Society and the Possibilities of Large-Scale Printing -- 4 Material Texts: Trade Sales, Reprinting, and the Book Trades -- 5 Stereotyping in Language, Literature, and Material Culture -- Epilogue: Abraham Hart and Nineteenth-Century Changes in the Printing Trades -- Appendix A: First Uses of Stereotype Plates in the United States, by Date and Location -- Appendix B: “Directions for Repairing Plates,” ca. 1820 -- Appendix C: Inventory of Stereotype Plates Belonging to the American Bible Society, 1829 -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index