Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part One Foundations
- Part Two Women Journalists and Writers in The Old South
- 3 Periodicals and Literary Culture
- 4 Female Authors and Magazine Writing
- 5 Antebellum Women Editors and Journalists
- Part Three Women Journalists and Writers in The New South
- Epilogue Women???s Press Associations and Professional Journalism
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
3 - Periodicals and Literary Culture
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 October 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part One Foundations
- Part Two Women Journalists and Writers in The Old South
- 3 Periodicals and Literary Culture
- 4 Female Authors and Magazine Writing
- 5 Antebellum Women Editors and Journalists
- Part Three Women Journalists and Writers in The New South
- Epilogue Women???s Press Associations and Professional Journalism
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
Southern white women read a wide range of fiction and nonfiction, welcoming books and periodicals as both a diversion from everyday life and as a source of erudition. Magazines in particular attracted significant readerships across the region. As Sarah Lois Wadley proclaimed after reading two periodicals, “I received them with gratitude and read them with gravity; and after the perusal was finished, felt about as much edified as if I had been reading over the long columns of words in Webster’s spelling book.” Thus, whereas southern women may have found few outlets for exploring their intellectual attainments, they nonetheless cherished the pursuit of knowledge through printed material, including literary periodicals.
Increase in the numbers of antebellum magazines started in southern states, by decade
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011