A Place of Reading: Part II Image Bank

Part II:
Image Bank

Image Bank of Reading Places

The previous section illuminates popular reading spaces broadly conceived within the confines of a historical narrative, but images also exist of reading in specific locations, among certain groups, or even with specific mental states. The following image bank, although it is in no way comprehensive, offers up a few such images of reading places for our readers’ edification and enjoyment.

This bank is the start of an ongoing conversation about seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth century illustrations of reading. If viewers of this exhibition have an image they would like to add, they are welcome to visit the Blog for A Place of Reading: Addenda for an opportunity to contribute and/or view newly-found images.

Note: The images for "Part I: The Exhibit - Three Centuries of Reading Places" are not included in this section. Please see the Exhibit Illustration Index to view a list of images from the exhibition portion of A Place of Reading.

Reading Music in the Music Room & Beyond

Musicians read music as readers read text. Soon after it made its appearance in the United States in the 1790s, sheet music became a fixture in the American home...
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Title: Estey Organ Co. [image cited]

Title: Home Education [image cited]

Title: I'se Gwine Back to Dixie [image cited]

Title: A Father Reading the Bible [image cited]

Title: The Ledger Polka [image cited]

Reading in the Kitchen

Ample evidence of cookbooks, or manuscript commonplace books filled with recipes, suggests that plenty of reading of recipes occurred in America’s kitchens...
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Title: American Meat
and Vegetable
Chopper [image cited]

Title: The Novel
Reader
[image cited]

Reading in Bed

Reading in bed was a luxury few could afford throughout most of America’s history. The young might steal enough time...
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Title: Chimney
Corner Almanac [image cited]

Title: Frontispiece of
Catharine Brown [image cited]

Title:
Anna Parsons [image cited]

Reading at the Bath

Reading while lounging in a private bath was not likely to occur until the end of the nineteenth century, if even then. It was not until...
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Title: American Enterprise [image cited]

Reading at Work

Throughout history, certain occupations have always been intimately tied to the act of reading. This is perhaps most clearly...
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Title:
The Fruit Seller [image cited]

Title: Subscribers
to a Literary Institution [image cited]

Title: New York
Book Bindery [image cited]

Reading in Reading Places

Libraries (private or public) and bookstores are obvious reading places, even if just for browsing. Private libraries and bookstores have existed...
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Title: In the Public Library
[image cited]

Title: Saturday Night
[image cited]

Title: Edwin S. Stuart
[image cited]

Title: Father and Child
[image cited]

Title: D. Lothrop & Co.
[image cited]

Reading in Prison Libraries

The early-nineteenth-century prison reform movement, in its effort not merely to warehouse criminals but also to educate them, resulted in the creation...
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Title: City Prison at Midnight [image cited]

Title: A Prison Library at the Tombs [image cited]

Reading in Public Spaces

Reading in public is a time-honored tradition. From town criers proclaiming the news off printed broadsides to urban landscapes littered with advertisements...
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Title:
Entrance to Cornhill [image cited]

Title: The Bill
Poster's Dream [image cited]

Title: Sketch at the
Forest Garden [image cited]

Title: All in my eye
[image cited]

Title: Outward Bound
[image cited]

Title: Homeward Bound
[image cited]

Women Readers

Women have always to some extent been readers in America, but it was not until the nineteenth century that they experienced a reading “revolution.” Literacy for women...
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Title: Miss Louisa
May Alcott
[image cited]

Title: Scraps from
divers artists
[image cited]

Title:
Vignettes
[image cited]

Title: Scraps
after Deveria [image cited]

Title:
Clarissa [image cited]

Little Readers

Children have always been little readers making up their own market for books. In the colonial period Bibles, primers, catechisms, and hornbooks were offered for young...
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Title:
Historical Amusement
[image cited]

Title:
Excursion! To Leominster
[image cited]

Title:
E. P. Dutton & Co.
[image cited]

Title: Little Students [image cited]

Title: Fairy Tales
[image cited]

Title: One No. 1
[image cited]

Title: The Young Teacher [image cited]

Reluctant and Imaginative "Readers"

In spite of the great emphasis that parents, publishers, preachers, and society at large placed on learning to read, some children severely resisted the act of reading...
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Title:
The Schoolmaster
[image cited]

Title:
Attention, Company!
[image cited]

Title:
Freaks and Frolics
[image cited]

The following images were used in the Image Bank of A Place of Reading

Reading Music in the Music Room and Beyond [top]
1. Estey Organ Co., 1870–1900. Brattleboro, Vt. U.S.A. AAS Call number: Ephemera Late Trade Music 0044.
2. Home Education – Lithograph. between 1865 and 1871. AAS Call number: Lithf KimmF Home.
3. I’se Gwine Back to Dixie, undated. White, C.A. AAS Call number: Sheet music, lithographed. [not in online catalog]
4. A Father Reading the Bible, undated. Bufford, Lithf. AAS Call number: Sheet music, lithographed. [not in online catalog]
5. The Ledger Polka, undated. Duval, Lithf. AAS Call number: Sheet music, lithographed. [not in online catalog]

Reading in the Kitchen [top]
6. The American Meat and Vegetable Chopper, circa 1875. AAS Call number: Uncatalogued Ephemera Late Trade Food. [not in online catalog]
7. “The Novel Reader” T.H. Matteson. M. Osborne in Gem of the season, for 1850, c1849. AAS Call number: Annuals C Gem 1849a plate.

Reading in Bed [top]
8. The Chimney Corner Almanac, 1869. AAS Call number: Lithf MajoK Chim Copy 1.
9. Frontispiece from Memoir of Catherine Brown. J.R. Penniman del. W. Hoagland, sc. 1825. AAS Call number: R B877 Ande M825.
10. Anna Parsons, photograph. Undated. AAS Call number: Uncatalogued photograph – Graphic Arts Collection. [not in online catalog]

Reading at the Bath [top]
11. Advertisement, American Enterprise, No. 1, 1870. AAS Call number: Cross Family Archive Items – Miscellaneous Box 23.

Reading at Work [top]
12. “Edward Leonard, The Fruit Seller of the Old South,” The Boston Notion, Saturday, May 20, 1843. AAS Call number: DC Johnston Family Collection Box 8; News.
13. Subscribers to a Literary Institution, 1843–1849. AAS Call number: Lithf Robi Subs.
14. New York Book Bindery, 1843–1846. AAS Call number: BDSDS. 1843.

Reading in Reading Places [top]
15. In the Public Library, post 1890. AAS Call number: Ephemera Late Trade Publish 0089.
16. “Saturday Night” [at the New York Mercantile Library], Scribner’s Monthly, February 1871. AAS Call number: PR.
17.The largest old book store in America Edwin S. Stuart no. 9 South 9th St. Phila. AAS Call number: Ephemera Trade 0659.
18. Father and Child, 1849. AAS Call number: Lithf CurrN Fath.
19. “D. Lothrop & Co.’s New Bookstore—Interior View” (Boston) from American Bookseller I (1 June 1876). AAS Call number: PRF.

Reading in Prison Libraries [top]
20. “The City Prison at Midnight,” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, May 16, 1874. AAS Call number: PRPF.
21. “A Prison Library at the Tombs,” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, September 19, 1874. AAS Call number: PRPF.

Reading in Public Spaces [top]
22. Entrance to Cornhill from Washington Street, 1826–1835.AAS Call number: Lithf Pend Hunt Entr.
23. The Bill Poster’s Dream: Cross Readings, to Be Read Downwards, 1862. AAS Call number: Lithff Derb Bill.
24. Sketch at the Forest Garden Passaic Falls, 1825–1828. AAS Call number: Lithf Imbe Clay Sket.
25. All in my Eye. AAS Call number: Charles Peirce Collection. Box 1 Folder 9.
26. Outward Bound, Lithograph,1854. AAS Call number: Lithf Hanh Nico Outw.
27. Homeward Bound, Lithograph, 1854. AAS Call number: Lithf Hanh Nico Home.

Women Readers [top]
28. “Miss Louisa May Alcott,” Hearth and Home, Saturday, January 16, 1875. AAS Call number: News NY New Hear.
29. Scraps, from divers artists, 1832. AAS Call number: Lithf ChilI Laws Scra.
30. Vignettes published by Charles Magnus, undated. Scraps, after Devéria, 1832. AAS Call number: Lithf ChilI Scra.
31. Scraps, after Devéria, 1832. AAS Call number: Lithf ChilI Scra.
32. Clarissa, 1848. AAS Call number: Lithf BailJ Clar.

Little Readers [top]
33. Historical Amusement, A New Game, undated. AAS Call number: Instructional Games Part 3 Box 1. [not in online catalog]
34. Excursion! To Leominster, 1852. AAS Call number: BDSDS 1852.
35. E. P. Dutton & Co. New illustrated books for children, 1883. AAS Call number: Ephemera Late Trade Publish 0037.
36. Little Students, 1872. AAS Call number: Lithf BencS Litt.
37. Fairy Tales, 1856–1866. AAS Call number: Lithf Buff Fabr Fair.
38. One no. 1…, before 1876. AAS Call number: Ephemera RoM 1391.
39. The Young Teacher, 1858. AAS Call number: Lithff Lafo Spen Youn.

Reluctant and Imaginative “Readers” [top]
40. The Schoolmaster: A Very Popular Glee, 1839. AAS Call number: Sheet music, lithographed. [not in online catalog]
41. Attention, Company! William Harnett, 1878. Courtesy of the Amon Carter Museum.
42. Freaks and Frolics of Little Girls and Boys, 1887. AAS Call number: McL P7715 F8493 1887.