Amateur newspaper collection
Title
Amateur newspaper collection, 1876-1884
Description
Collection of 131 amateur newspapers (225 issues) from sixteen states. Holdings range from single issues up to eight issues. Most of the newspapers were purchased, and the collection has increased through donations. The collection is open to new additions., Many newspapers discuss amateur journalism and amateur journalism societies., "The advent of the small, toy press, moreover, ushered in the golden age of amateur publishing during the 1870s. Because subscription lists were large and because exchanging papers was an important element in amateur journalism, the hobby spread from the Northeast across the nation, creating a mass culture for adolescents who shared the experience of reading the same stories and debating the same issues. ... Although many of the papers of the 1840s and 1850s generally imitated their adult counterparts by reprinting selections from other periodicals, the juvenile papers of the 1870s were firmly committed to original work. Bereft of stylistic sophistication--metaphor, symbol, character development, and, sometimes, plot--the amateur papers and miniature novels provided a forum for young people's thinking as they used a toy to mark the longer time between childhood and adulthood. Because they were novice writers, the authors often copied or, more precisely, plagiarized plots and characters created by their favorite adult authors: Captain Mayne Reid, Horatio Alger and, especially, Oliver Optic. Nevertheless, in their so-called adaptations of adult work, the amateur editors made significant alterations in characterization and plotting to suit their own perceptions." From Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood in History and Society: http://www.faqs.org/childhood/In-Ke/Juvenile-Publishing.html viewed March 27, 2012.
Date
1875
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Coll Amateur Newspapers 106457.D - 106564.D, Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Coll Amateur Newspapers 106566.D - 106587.D (Zinman), Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Coll Amateur Newspapers 3321.F.1
Improved authors with portraits & autographs
Title
Improved authors with portraits & autographs
Description
Incomplete card game containing 68 illustrated cards. Cards depict the bust-length portraits of Thomas Bailey Aldrich; William Cullen Bryant; Robert Burns; Samuel L. Clemens, "Mark Twain"; J. Fenimore Cooper; Ralph Waldo Emerson; James T. Fields; F. Bret Harte; Oliver Wendell Holmes; William Dean Howells; Henry W. Longfellow; James Russell Lowell; Samuel Rogers; Bayard Taylor; Alfred Tennyson; Charles Dudley Warner; Richard Grant White; and John G. Whittier. Some portraits are in profile. Versos of cards contain an allegorical image composed of a stack of books, scrolls and leaves of paper, a laurel wreath, and a quill pen. Includes small number of incomplete sets for J. Fenimore Cooper, Henry W. Longfellow; James Russell Lowell, and Richard Grant White. Lowell set includes a cut-out of the portrait from an original card., Publication date based on copyright statement on box cover., Includes "Improved Authors Directions for Playing" instruction sheet. Instructions note that the 72 cards containing the "Portrait and Autograph of some distinguished Author, together with the titles of three [of their] different works" are to be "arranged in 18 groups of four cards each" with the goal to get as many complete groups as possible., Box cover printed with gilt lettering and a decorative border., Gift of Clarence Wolf., Cataloging funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010-2012., Housed in phase box.
Creator
McLoughlin Bros.
Date
1889
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department albums - Improved [P.8453]