The Publishing of Written Materials: Newspapers, Magazines and Books :: Publishing Publish Essays

The Publishing of Written Materials: Newspapers, Magazines and Books Publishing as an industry is in constant dialogue - a true back and forth - with the surrounding culture commercially, technologically, and artistically. It has changed greatly since the early 1800's and particularly during the 1900's. These changes have occurred in relationship to evolving aspects of American life, and so the factors one must consider are many: literacy and compulsory education, legal ownership of the actual words to be published, modes of production and distribution, availability of resources such as paper and printing equipment, the ideas which generate the written word, the presence of a reading public and the questions it asks, and surrounding social events - war, money, immigration, reconstruction of the South. A brief early history: Publishing begins in US when Stephen Day issues the Bay Psalm Book in 1640 from his press in Cambridge MA Printing under state control in colonial times, and bookselling seldom an independent vocation before 1850. In the early years of the Colonies, Cambridge, Mass., had the sole privilege of printing, but the monopoly was broken in 1674, when Marmaduke Johnson, who had come over to print an Indian Bible (1663), moved his press to Boston. Gradually others followed - Philadelphia had a press in 1685; New York City, in 1693. It was difficult for the colonial printer, as for any small printer, to produce large works because of a shortage of type; but patronage by the government helped to give his products a dignified style. Almanacs, primers, and law books were the staples of book production; works of theology formed the leading category. Until 1769 American printers bought their presses from England, but thereafter they acquired their equipment and supplies, including ink and paper, do mestically. Books were sold in various ways—by subscription, by the printer himself, by hawkers, and through shopkeepers. Though Massachusetts passed a law against hawkers in 1713, it carefully excluded book peddlers, who had a valuable function in rural areas.