Readers and Primers and Spellers--Oh MY!

Much to my delight, I have recently found myself in a glorious position to help survey and catalogue the Weinstein Collection of antique and vintage children's books at National Louis University in Skokie, Illinois.

So a few days ago I was doing what I typically do when facing shelf upon shelf of these splendid books--I stared with my mouth hanging open and my eyes sliding along the laden shelves--waiting for that moment when a book jumped out at me.

And so it did:

Graded School Series First Reader by T. W. Harvey
Van Antwerp,Bragg  & Co. 1875

I looked at the front cover.  I read the title.





















I looked at the back cover, noting the unavoidable blemishes and damage of time--the water stains, the missing corner, the yellowed, cracking pages.

















And  my mind told me "EXCELLENT!  An early edition of a McGuffey's Eclectic Reader!"


Yes, in spite of obvious visual evidence to the contrary, I thought this was an early McGuffey's Reader.

When I gingerly opened this treasure, the pages  still looked McGuffey-like enough stylistically to not trigger my brain.



In fact, it wasn't until I had closed the book, had slid it gingerly back onto the shelf and had toted my photo-filled iphone home that I realized the truth--this was no McGuffey's.

I knew McGuffey's Readers.  I had taught for years at a private school that used McGuffey's as part of the primary reading program.   While we eventually had to lay aside the McGuffey readers to accommodate the push for modern reading curricula, I still always kept a soft spot for the McGuffeys.

For those of you not in the know, this is a McGuffey's Eclectic Reader:

https://www.rainbowresource.com/proddtl.php?id=025733

McGuffey's Eclectic Readers, written by William Holmes McGuffey, were the most well-known school readers, first published in 1836 and finally going out of print in 1960. (1)

McGuffey's Readers bridged the moral themes and some of the religious themes of its predecessors (namely The New England Primer) with contemporary stories that entertained as well as taught.



McGuffey's departed in style from other readers by presenting vocabulary and spelling lists as connected to stories, which gave students the opportunity to learn new words in context. (6)  This approach was perhaps one of the reasons for the longevity of McGuffey readers when other readers and primers that came before and after it seemed to fade away from use.










However, before there were McGuffey's readers, there was The New England Primer which has the honor of being the first U.S. printed school reader, first published in the United States in 1690. (2)

http://venezky.stanford.edu/colonial/

The New England Primer leaned heavily on the Bible for content and context, unsurprising considering the Puritan roots of Colonial America.

The New England Primer is noted for combining reading instruction with moral and religious themes that gave previously illiterate people the skills needed to read the Bible for themselves, rather than have to be at the mercy of others for spiritual comfort and learning. (3)

http://venezky.stanford.edu/colonial/

With The New England Primer  leading the way, and McGuffey's Eclectic Readers adding increasingly modern approaches to reading instruction (albeit still heavily religious and moralistic, not to mention skewed exclusively to  readers of a single  ethnic, cultural and religious background), the  path was laid for the next permutation of readers--The Graded-School Readers, by Thomas W. Harvey.

And thus we come full-circle, back to the reader at the start of this post.

Thomas W. Harvey started along the path of reading and book publishing at the age of 15, working as a print office apprentice. (7)  From here his professional life rose steadily--from attending a Teacher Seminary to founding a high school, becoming principal of that high school and then being elected as Commissioner of Common Schools.  It was in this last position that Thomas Harvey wrote a series of textbooks to be used in classrooms--several grammar and language books as well as a series of first readers and primers (7)--one of which I had stumbled across.  He published his first reader in 1877.  They stayed in print until 1927. (7)



Even from these small sample pages one can see the influence McGuffey's Readers must have had on Thomas Harvey as he wrote his own primers.   Also present in a number of stories are lessons in morality, although these lessons are presented a bit more subtly by Thomas Harvey than by either McGuffey or in the New England Primer.  Harvey's readers--like the New England Primer and McGuffey readers that came before--still reflected a uniformly white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant perspective of course.   This might have been a non-issue in the United States in the 1800's and early 1900's--however it is telling that even now, 300 years later, children's books still fail--in quantity and even at times in quality-- to faithfully reflect the diversity of real life.
















When I consider these three early readers, I find myself automatically comparing and contrasting them with textbooks and phonics programs I have used over the past  25 years I have  taught in  primary programs.   In the end, what we do today rests heavily on what has come before--teaching vocabulary and spelling in context, trying to present stories that have meaning and connection with student's lives, and above all nurturing the reading skills in our young students that will empower them to take charge of their own learning.   Just as the New England Primer over 300 years ago strove to enable people to read and interpret the Bible for themselves, don't we, in the end, teach children in order for them to break away and interpret the world for themselves?




Who knew that such history, power and influence could be hidden inside such a small book?







Sources

1. ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Holmes_McGuffey

2.  http://www.christianbook.com/the-new-england-primer/david-barton/9780925279170/pd/79171?gclid=CMrsw4aKj8sCFZSEaQod97wAAQ

3.  http://familyphonics.com/ab/ab1/history.htm

4. http://venezky.stanford.edu/colonial/

5. https://www.rainbowresource.com/proddtl.php?id=025733

6. http://www.mcguffeyreaders.com/1836_original.htm

7. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=22786693

From the PurpleBookCart: Sleuthing out Syllables

History of Illinois in Words of One Syllable by Thomas W. Handford
1888. Belford, Clarke & Co. New York, Chicago, San Francisco

I have known my dear friend and fellow book blogger Sue Conolly over at  www.purplebookcart.com/ for nigh on 20 years.  Usually her passion is for splendid, fairly current children's books, while my guilty pleasure tends more towards a kind of "book archaeology"--and the older the book, the better.

Recently, however, our interests crossed over this book.   We were together at a certain utterly mesmerizing little bookshop in Evanston, Illinois when our greedy little eyeballs simultaneously fixed upon this confusing treasure of a tome that (a) was written for children as well as English language learners and (b) was very old.



We wrangled over it a bit, did some "Jan-Ken-Pon" (Japanese "rock paper scissors), and she won the honor of the purchase.

Over at her blog, Sue dug into the subject matter of this book:  the mind-boggling way it is written entirely in syllables-that-don't-always-seem-like-syllables, the vicious discussion of Native Americans, the baffling--and often conflicting--presentation of women.

And then she loaned it to me.

It is a beautiful book, with its brilliantly hued cover, large, precise print and, as it advertises on the title page, the way it is "profusely illustrated".   Handling this book is rather like handling an ancient eggshell--it feels both impossibly strong, yet delicate as well, the paper soft and the stitched binding loosening to the point that individual pages seem to be held in by nothing more than  a stubborn sort of determination.

Yet, as much as I admired this book as a piece of history, and as fascinating as I found the subject matter, my curiosity was piqued by the author, Thomas W. Handford.  I wanted to know more about the man behind the at times oddly  selected bits of Illinois history that rested between the covers of this book.

Frustratingly enough (and as I have run into with other books I have written about here), while Thomas W. Handford was clearly a prolific writer and editor, (4)  I was unable to find any details about the man himself.  None.  Zilch.

Possibly Thomas W. Handford's grave...possibly not.

(5)

The most I could find was a cryptic reference to the dates of  his birth and death at the librarything.com/ website, which I then plugged into the findagrave website (5), which yielded me a photo of a gravestone that may or may not be the final resting place of Thomas W. Handford.



And so, deprived of any satisfactory epiphanies about author Thomas W. Handford, I turned to the publishers--Belford, Clarke & Co.


Bingo.  I hit the motherlode of intrigue.


Belford, Clarke & Co. had a convoluted history.  Alexander Belford, originally from Canada, started publishing books at the tender age of 13 using a nifty method referred to, by a number of accounts, as "pirating"--printing editions of books without permission from the authors themselves. (1)   This apparently laid the foundation for his future as a publisher.  He was joined in the publishing business by his brother Robert, and later by his brother George.  Eventually they were partnered by James Clarke.  (I admit I am brazenly simplifying this history--there were many nuanced shiftings of power between the Belford brothers and James Clarke before  Alexander Belford and Clarke finally teamed up).

Back cover of History of Illinois--including persistent advertising

Alexander Belford and Clarke moved their business from Toronto to Chicago and then started poking holes in the existing publishing methods of the time. (1)   They printed cheap versions of existing books and magazines, which often resulted in lawsuits.   When established bookstores wouldn't sell their questionable books, they would set up displays of books to be sold on consignment at any store that would accept them, from hardware stores to department stores    They even set up temporary stores to sell backlogs of books--a nifty little method that earned its own name:  "hippodroming"(1), evidently in reference to the constructed racing, entertainment and gambling venues in which fraud played no small part. (6)

Belford and Clarke also came up with various marketing strategies that shot their business into the publishing stratosphere financially.  They reprinted the Encyclopedia Britannica in an American version that they could sell to  great demand at a cheaper price.  They came up with ways to use payment plans, aggressive advertising and subscription services.   They were riding a wave that kept going.  And going.

At one point Alexander Belford even earned the dubious honor of being considered a vile enemy to no lesser a writer than Mark Twain. (3)   Living up to his reputation as a publishing "pirate",  Belford and his Canadian publishing company reprinted Tom Sawyer without regard for American copyright or royalties. (3)  Belford then flooded the American market with 100,000 copies of Tom Sawyer. (3)  Mark Twain--Samuel Clemens then--filed a lawsuit against Belford, Clarke & Co. for violation of his works and "nom de plume".  Clemens lost, adding more fuel to the fire of his animosity against Belford.


Eventually, however, Belford, Clarke & Co. fell off their wave of success, starting with a fire  that wiped out their inventory.   They were  then beaten down further by the financial panic of 1893. (1) By 1900 Belford, Clarke & Co. was divvied up and consigned to history. (1)


Not for the first time I  find myself considering  the fleeting nature of the process of being a writer, and the seemingly (hopefully) permanent nature of the product of being a writer.


It's a dangerous sort of unspoken deal that writers make, isn't it? --balancing their need to tell their stories against the possibility that their stories will someday perhaps be all that is known or left of them.   Who they were and why they wrote will vanish, leaving behind an equally delicate legacy--a book--that is just as fragile and potentially short-lived as a human body.

Unless someone somewhere keeps that book safe.

Which points to the realization that libraries are much more than places where books live--they are places where writers and illustrators never really die.







Sources
1. http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/lucile/publishers/belford/BELFORD.HTM

2. https://www.librarything.com/author/handfordthomasw

3. http://www.twainquotes.com/TWW/TWW.html

4. http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Handford%2C%20Thomas%20W.

5. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=149564514#.Vr-w1vIvd-Y.email

6. http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-hip1.htm

Books May be Mirrors, but What do they Reflect?

Today's Booklouse entry will contain no photographs.

There will be no photographs because I would have to include what would be a nearly infinite number of photographs, and I'm not up to that challenge.  Nor, I suspect, is the internet.

Let me set the scene.

I have the world's most dangerous and lovely part time job for a book lover--I am the Program Coordinator at a certain place that connects teachers, librarians, creators and children's literature.  

I am surrounded by ALL THE BOOKS (as the meme goes).   All the books--incredible formal collections of vintage, old books.   Cutting edge, newly published books.  Award-winning books that take one's breath away with their vision, beauty and connectivity.

And I am surrounded by all the other books.  There are so many other books--so many of them lovely, fine, excellent books that just slipped under or over the radar of popularity or awards.  And of course, there are just books--books that kids may enjoy but that aren't particularly far-reaching or deep.  I have no problem with these books because many children love reading books such as these--books that are written in rapid succession and published quickly.  Books that are like potato chips--delicious and easy but not terribly filling and not necessarily something one would want to make a meal out of all the time.  But they are books and children enjoy reading them and reading for fun is a worthy thing to do too.

And I cannot deny that  there are the books that, for reasons that range from the subjective to objective, I feel aren't so good--some I would go so far as to deem pretty awful--for whatever reason.

So in this dangerous job of mine, I recently oversaw a donation of a fairly large number of books to a school whose children desperately need books.   I asked the principal if there were any specific needs or guidelines (s)he would prefer, so that, if possible, I could curate a collection best suited to the student's needs.   (S)he said that, while the main goal is to get books into the student's hands, books reflecting diversity of all kinds would be ideal.

A fellow librarian/friend and I set to work putting this collection together, keeping foremost in our minds the principal's request.

We come now to the crux of this post.

We went through hundreds of books.

We examined the cover art and interior art if there was any (because children are highly visual when selecting a book and the cover of a book is like the doorway.  And we all know that if the doorway to a place is off-putting or forbidding, we aren't going to open that door, are we? No we're not.)

We read the summaries on the book flaps and on the backs of the books.
We read the first few lines or even the first chapter (in the case of an upper elementary or YA book).

In the end we did put together a suitable number of books to donate.  But we had to eventually abandon the principal's request for this reason:

an appalling lack of diversity.

Books are often called mirrors in that they reflect the values and events of the world around them. They reflect not only the author's sensibilities but the sensibilities of the readers as well.  This has always been the case, and is a theme I touch on in other posts on this very blog.

In terms of cover art and illustrations,  over and over and over I saw main characters depicted as uniformly white.   Or, if there was a character drawn representing a different  ethnic, cultural or religious background, they were off to the side, or tucked into a lineup surrounded by fellow white characters.  

And I can't remember seeing differently abled individuals depicted at all--and no, eyeglasses do not count.

Before any readers of this blog start blasting me out of the water for this, I have no problem with cover art depicting white characters for books in which the main characters are explicitly white.   I'm not looking to erase anyone for the sake of anyone else.

But this wasn't just a case of a few books.  This was nearly all the books.  Over and over again.

Over
and
over
again.

Am I laying blame?

Not exactly.

Authors write from what they know.  Writing from one's heart and  personal experiences creates stories that resonate.   As a writer myself I can attest to this--when I write from a place of my own strength and knowledge I create far stronger narratives than when I have written through guesswork or even research.

And for that matter, book illustrators and artists logically must create from the story--if an author explicitly states the ethnicity or culture, religion or ability of a character, the illustrator/artist is, logically, going to draw the character according to that information.

So the problem is not that authors aren't writing from what they know, or even that illustrators and artists aren't depicting characters faithfully to the narrative.   The problem is that we need to nurture and encourage people from diverse backgrounds and perspectives to  tell their stories and draw their pictures--to add their voices, senses of humor and creative sparks to a field that has predominantly been created and built according to a single cultural/ethnic perspective--that of people who happen to have light colored skin who live in a country, in a culture, indeed in a world where people with light colored skin hold much of the power.

If this wasn't the case, then I wouldn't be writing this.  If this wasn't the case then principals and teachers, librarians and parents, wouldn't be clamoring for "diverse books" because there would be no need to do so.

"Diverse books" would simply be called "books" and  would already be part of our shared narrative as captured and treasured within the paper or virtual pages of a story.

And I, for one, look forward to the day when this is true.