May 2012 Dinner Meeting

Speaker:  Michael Winship

"The Rise of the Bookstore in 19th c. America"

Bookstores were a defining feature of the American trade book publishing and distribution system that developed in the United States in the decades before the Civil War and that survived in its basic outline until the turn of the 21st century. This talk will explore the emergence of the independent bookstore as the primary retail outlet for trade books during the 19th century using such evidence as advertisements in book trade periodicals, early directories of the book trade, credit reports, and a gallery of images depicting the interior of 19th century bookstores. 
 
Michael Winship is Professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin. He has special expertise in publishing and book trade history in the United States before 1940 and has published extensively on American literary publishing. He edited and completed the final three volumes of Bibliography of American Literature, for which he received the bibliography prize of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers. He served as an editor and contributor to the recently completed 5-volume A History of the Book in America.

Union League, 65 W. Jackson, 22nd floor. Timing: spirits at 5:00, dinner at 6:00, program at 7:30.