Book Trades collection, 1726-1939.
Title:
Book Trades collection, 1726-1939.
The Book Trades Collection, 1726-1939, highlights the history of over two centuries of American printing, publishing, and bookselling. There is also material relating to bookbinding, public and private libraries, and contemporary politics. Included are receipts and accounts (loose and bound in volumes), inventories and catalogues of almanacs, school books, and libraries, petitions concerning duties on items relevant to the printer's trade, library subscription lists, apprenticeship agreements, deeds of sale of printing establishments, and a large amount of correspondence concerning the operation of various printing and publishing enterprises. Many items are photocopies of original documents located at several historical societies and archival repositories. The material representing the eighteenth century includes: private library catalogues, e.g., Rev. Joseph Seccombe (1706-1760); a catalogue of almanacs printed in Massachusetts from 1678 to 1750; Bibles purchased for Quaker meetings in Pennsylvania, 1790; accounts of Massachusetts Bay Colony with area printers; petitions; book lists of circulating libraries; the account book, 1771-1779, of John Carter (1745-1814) of Providence, Rhode Island; lists of New England printers, 1770-1783; and business letters between printers and customers, including Samuel Hall (1740-1807), Timothy Green (1737-1796), Isaiah Thomas (1749-1831), John Carter, and Noah Webster (1758-1843). Several letters concern family matters and friendships; others complain of libelous statements and demand redress. Of special note is an original thirteen-page letter written by printer John Holt (1721-1784) to William Goddard (1740-1817), 26 February 1778, concerning the character of Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) and "the wisdom of preventing him from having too great an influence on American affairs." Apparently, this "expose" was to have been printed by Goddard. Among the nineteenth century manuscripts are: book catalogues; petitions concerning duties on printing type and advertisements; an indictment, 1803, by Pennsylvania Attorney General Joseph Borden McKean (1764-1826) charging Joseph Dennie (1768-1812) with libel; arguments by William Jenks (1778-1866) for the formation of a printing establishment in Western Asia, c. 1810; lists of "Valuable School Books," 1811-1814; printers' and booksellers' accounts; deeds; bookbinding accounts; several sketches and patents of new printing equipment; and letters written by David Ramsay (1749-1815), Joshua Leavitt, Jr. ( -1862), Lewis F. Shepard ( - ), Noah Webster, Alden Spooner (1783-1848), and Charles Holt (1772-1852). The latter wrote of presidential politics in 1810 and 1816. Also among the correspondence are letters of Joseph Tinker Buckingham (1779-1861) to Mathew Carey (1760-1839), and business letters written to Lincoln and Edmands, Boston, Mass., and James Thomas Fields (1817-1881). There are also detailed letters from the American Tract Society, 1857, concerning the success of colporteurs in distributing religious tracts to Southerners. Among the prominent authors who were writing to publishers were James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) and Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896). There are also several letters, 1835-1862, written to H.O. Houghton & Company, Cambridge, Mass., including two undated letters written by Samuel Eliot (1777-1845) concerning details of the company's publication of his new book; two letters, 1853, written to Maturin Murray Ballou (1820-1895), editor of Gleason's Pictorial, concerning publications, including one written by author Thomas Holley Chivers (1809-1858); and several letters of authors seeking subscriptions to or publication of their works. A small amount of twentieth century material includes a letter written by Joaquin Miller (1841-1913) concerning his publications, and letters to various customers from printers and booksellers.
ArchivalResource:
3 boxes.1 folder (7 items) ; oversize.
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/207117367 View
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