84: The American Book in the Industrial Era [H-50]
25-29 July 2005
1) How useful were the pre-course readings?
1: The main text was helpful, though the minute technical aspects discussed could have been augmented with illustrations. 2: Very useful background -- good refresher. 3: Very useful for an introduction prior to the in-depth class study. 5: The pre-course readings were excellent. I highly recommend that attendees read William Charvat’s Literary Publishing in America, 1790-1850, Donald Sheehan’s This Was Publishing, and James West’s American Authors and the Literary Marketplace since 1900, as well as Hellmut Lehman-Haupt’s The Book in America. 6: Useful for getting a basic view of the world we would be learning about -- and, happily, there was only one required reading. 7: Very useful. 9: Lehmann-Haupt was a wonderful read. The mixture of almost encyclopedic coverage was accompanied by other, more personal and human stories.
2) Were the course syllabus and other materials distributed in class useful (or will they be so in the future, after you return home)?
1: Yes, definitely! 2: The distributed bibliographies were especially helpful. 3: All was appropriate and very practical. The bibliography will be extremely useful when I return home. 4: The syllabus was long, and it gives me many books to look up. I may acquire a number of them. All the course materials were helpful. 5: Yes, I intend to use the various publication lists for future reading. 6: Quite appropriate and, I anticipate, useful for my work, particularly the bibliographies. 7: Very much so. 8: On the first day of class, MW distributed a schedule, which we stuck to closely. He also passed out a detailed reading list, which should be most valuable. 9: Course material was very useful. Bibliographies, handouts reproducing illustrations, &c. will be helpful in guiding future research.
3) What aspects of the course content were of the greatest interest or relevance for your purposes? Was the intellectual level of the course appropriate?
1: Coverage of c19 publishing practices. Yes, the intellectual level was very stimulating. 2: I particularly enjoyed the overviews of the technological side of the publishing industry, which was, thankfully, presented at an introductory level. 3: The content focused on the c19; thus all of it was relevant for my purpose in my institution. The intellectual level was appropriate and very stimulating. 4: I am a descriptive bibliography enthusiast, so I enjoyed the collating and other desbib topics. I was fascinated by the business aspects of c19 publishing. As always at RBS, the intellectual level was high. 5: The intellectual level of course was appropriate. All of the content was interesting. 6: Everything was relevant to my work, absolutely everything -- and, yes indeed, the intellectual level of the course was appropriate, was very high. 7: Almost all of the course was relevant. The intellectual level was good. Most of the course focused on the c19, which is perfect for me. I was wondering how we would be brought up to 1940, but the last afternoon’s presentation admirably provided the information. 8: Similarities and distinctions between American and British publishing practices proved the most relevant to my personal research. The intellectual level was appropriate. 9: Discussions of specific important titles in publishing history, while discussing how author-printer-publisher-distributer practices were rapidly changing, was very useful. Hands-on access to multiple copies, and practice in collation and description, were also of great interest.
4) If your course had field trips, were they effective?
1: Yes, very much so! 2: Very much so -- the Special Collections (SC) collections and exhibits supplemented the classroom discussions well. 3: The field trips to SC were grand! The new facility is beautiful, and RBS Curator Barbara Heritage’s assistance was great. The vault books were fabulous to see. 4: We examined the printing history of works by two important authors. It was engrossing, and the new SC facility is impressive. 5: Examining the Whitman and Cather volumes was quite valuable. There is a nice balance between classroom time and time in SC. 6: We visited SC twice, and both visits were well worthwhile and actually quite exciting, particularly the Whitman visit. 7: Yes -- the Whitman and Cather materials were interesting and provided excellent details to supplement what we had been learning. The Cather materials actually formed the basis for much of what we learned for c20. 8: Absolutely! The class came to SC twice -- once to see editions of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, and the other to see Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop. 9: Field trips to the Small SC Library helped illustrate the bibliographical complexity of c19 and early c20 publishing history through discussion and examination of c19 typeset and plated books (Whitman) and c20 plated books in print for decades (Cather).
5) What did you like best about the course?
1: MW -- his knowledge on the subject is masterful, to say the least. 2: Looking at materials in SC and in the classroom. 3: The knowledge of the professor made the already-intriguing subject of the course amazing. Combining theory with historical evidence, pictures and the physical objects well rounded the course and made it a very practical way to study and learn this era. 4: The instructor is, to use a cliché, a living legend in bibliography and a longstanding RBS teacher whose name came up in every previous RBS course. It was wonderful to finally meet and learn from him. 5: The time spent in SC and the exchanges between students and instructor in class. MW’s discussion of Uncle Tom’s Cabin was outstanding. MW is an encyclopedia. I enjoyed the way he analyzed issues in the field and challenged the students to think about how to approach issues. 6: MW is a wonderful teacher. It is fascinating to see his mind work when he is asked a question (and he was generous about letting us ask questions). You can see him ponder a question and try to figure out how to answer it, how much of his great knowledge to bring to bear on the reply. He is very much the scholar, very much not the smooth, show-biz teacher who, if you were in the same class in a year, would be saying the same things in the same (no-doubt) elegant words. With MW you get the feeling that you and he are together looking at questions in new ways -- new ways for you certainly, but maybe also for him. Very exciting. 7: The members of the class and the instructor fit well together. Unlike in the course I took last summer, the students asked many good questions, and there was good give-and-take between instructor and students. Also, our varying backgrounds permitted us all at various times to contribute additional information to the lectures. 8: The two visits to SC. Having the books physically present while MW described each copy in great detail greatly helped reinforce the content of the classroom lectures. 9: MW’s answers to questions helped not just clear up the issue being discussed, but also helped us understand how best to think about underlying causes or to critique the unspoken assumptions that often color historical interpretations.
6) How could the course have been improved?
1: I can’t think of any improvements. 2: Oh, I don’t know. I would have been willing to do more background reading than we did so as to skip some of the most introductory material in class, but that’s just me. 3: The course was well-planned and executed -- it was brilliant to see MW’s mind work as he taught. No need for improvement. 5: No suggestions. 6: Can’t imagine. 7: We were pressed for time and the instructor did digress occasionally -- but then, we did insist on asking questions. 8: While covering the period of roughly 1820-1940 is a huge span of time (and a broad topic), I would have liked more specific details, especially in machine processes. 9: I would have benefitted from more time with the RBS illustration packets.
7) We are always concerned about the physical well-being both of the RBS teaching collections and of materials owned by UVa’s Special Collections. If relevant, what suggestions do you have for the improved classroom handling of such materials used in your course this week?
1: I thought the SC materials were handled with care. 3: I think everyone was quite careful with all the materials. 4: I have none. Everyone in our class was respectful of the materials, and they were returned in approximately their original condition. 5: The materials were handled appropriately. All of the students were careful and followed the rules. 6: All materials were well-respected this week. 7: I thought they were well-handled. 8: MW was very concerned about correct handling of the books. 9: N/A. The professor and all staff were appropriately concerned and explicit about how to handle (and when not to).
8) If you attended the Sunday and/or Wednesday night lectures, were they worth attending?
1: Yes -- Mr Wendorf’s lecture was very enjoyable. 3: Both lectures were great. The Sunday night standard was great because of the Lower Tibet tour, whereas Monday’s lecture was inspiring and delivered by a terrific orator. 4: They were both quite good this year. I would not miss either lecture, as they are so intrinsic to RBS. 5: Yes. 6: They were both fine. TB is always interesting and Richard Wendorf gave a good talk. 7: Sunday -- N/A. Wednesday was good and informative. I was surprised it wasn’t better attended by the public. 8: The Wednesday lecture tended on the dull side, and I didn’t find it relevant to my field. 9: Both lectures were very worth attending. I only wish that more of TB’s and the Malkin lectures were in print or online, because I have missed far more than I’ve been able to attend.
9) If you attended Museum Night or Video Night, was the time profitably spent?
1: I did not attend. 3: Of course -- it is nice to drop in and out to see what new things there are. 4: They further enriched the experience, as always. 5: All of the evening programs were worthwhile. 6: I attended neither this year. 9: Museum Night and Video Night were both invaluable. The time spent in learning more about the topics relevant to the other classes here this week helped connect us to each other’s intellectual pursuits.
10) Did you get your money’s worth? Any final thoughts?
1: Yes -- can’t wait to return! 2: I am very pleased with the experience, though I most likely will not have the money to take another course for some time. I should also say, for what it’s worth, that this course was more intellectually stimulating than an entire year of graduate school. So it was well worth the expense. 3: The course, week and entire experience were brilliant -- of course I got my time and money’s worth, as did my institution. Thank you to TB, MW and all the RBS staff. 4: I always have felt that RBS courses give me more than my money’s worth. This one was not an exception. I would advise anyone interested in RBS that this is one of the courses worth taking. 5: Absolutely. 6: Yes. I am always volubly enthusiastic about attending RBS and will continue to be so. 7: Yes, definitely. I very much appreciated our classroom location in the Studio, unlike the distant Architecture School last summer. For this course, students really do need to come armed with a working knowledge of book format (the pre-course reading will help them). 8: This was a great course. MW was also very willing to answer questions related to personal research projects. 9: Homework involving more hands-on access to multiple copies, and more direct examination of published bibliographical descriptions of books, would both help students take home practices that we’ve spent a full week learning about.
Number of respondents: 9
Percentages
Leave Tuition Housing Travel
Institution Institution Institution Institution
gave me leave paid tuition paid housing paid travel
44% 56% 56% 33%
I took vaca- I paid tui- I paid for my I paid my own
tion time tion myself own housing travel
0% 33% 33% 56%
N/A: self- N/A: Self- N/A: stayed N/A: lived
employed, re- employed, with friends nearby
tired, or had retired, or or lived at
summers off exchange home
56% 11% 11% 11%
There were two rare book librarians (22%), two full-time students (22%), two book collectors (22%), one general librarian with some rare book duties (11%), one teacher/professor (11%), and one conservator/binder/preservation librarian (11%).