Kelman, A. (2003). The sound of the civic: Reading noise at the New York Public Library. In T. Augst & W. Wiegand (Eds.), Libraries as agencies of culture (pp. 23 41). Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. From American Studies, 2001, Fall, 42, [3], pp. 23 41 by A. Kelman. Travis, M. A. (1998). Two cultures of reading in the Modernist period. In Reading cultures: The construction of readers in the twentieth century (pp. 18 43). Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Zboray, R. J., & Zboray, M. S. (2003). Home libraries and the institutionalization of everyday practices among antebellum New Englanders. In T. Augst & W. Wiegand (Eds.), Libraries as agencies of culture (pp. 63 86). Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. From American Studies, 2001, Fall, 42, [3], pp. 63 86 by R. J. Zboray & M. S. Zboray

1. Hamilton 1
Buffy Hamilton
Thought/Response Paper
ELAN 8005
September 12, 2005
The three readings I completed during the last two weeks have opened up some new
paths for exploration; however, these new readings echoed with ideas and principles
central to my previous readings for ELAN 8005. My three readings came from two very
different texts: Reading Cultures: The Construction of Readers in the Twentieth Century
and Libraries as Agencies of Culture. Although none of the three readings turned out to
embody the ideas I originally anticipated, all three were enlightening and thought
provoking.
The first reading, “Two cultures of reading in the Modernist period” from Reading
Cultures, proved quite difficult as the style of writing was rather dense and verbose.
However, after two readings of this particular chapter, I gleaned some significant and
important ideas. The central focus of this chapter is on the construction of highbrow
readers, middlebrow readers, and lowbrow readers. Travis suggests that the construction
of these labels of readers was in response to anxiety about promiscuous reading, a term
that refers to “maverick” readers who were “sampling” a diverse range of texts that
resulted from a proliferation of secular texts on topics that fell outside the approval of the
cultural elite (18-19). Between 1880 and 1925, technology facilitated the rise of the
advertising industry and improved book distribution; consequently, the common public
had greater access to a wider range of books, and the book industry engaged in fierce

2. Hamilton 2
publicity campaigns to lure readers. The wars over highbrow, lowbrow, and middlebrow
reading were a reflection of a larger cultural war in America as the cultural elite sought to
maintain their power as arbiters of good taste and high culture (19-21).
Members of the privileged highbrow class, or the cultural elite, endorsed the belief
that institutions such as high modern texts, theater, museums, and symphonic halls were
vehicles for transmitting the values and beliefs of high culture, and those outside this
dominant class were to passively and obediently learn what was good taste and socially
acceptable through these cultural institutions (21-23). Travis identifies this process as the
“sacralizing of culture”, a movement that began in earnest 1880s and 1890s with
Matthew Arnold’s assertion that culture was “the best that has been known and thought in
the world” to be contemplated individually (21). Those outside the dominant high culture
class were expected to learn from the superior class in quiet and “civilized”
contemplation. However, much of the American masses scorned this pretentious effort to
mandate was culturally elite (22).
Travis asserts that the mission to “uplift the benighted masses” failed because of the
“…emergence of the middlebrow as a transitional culture halfway between the nineteenth
century genteel tradition and the mass market of the twentieth century”(22). The genteel
tradition evolved from the transcendentalist movement that emphasized self-help and
self-reliance and resulting institutions for learning such as the lyceum (22). Americans in
this tradition sought knowledge and culture not to attain social status but to achieve self-
improvement. However, as mass production of books ushered in the twentieth century,
Travis asserts, “The emergence of the twentieth-century middlebrow book club signaled a
transition from production to consumption in America”(22). In other words, middlebrow

3. Hamilton 3
readers differed from lowbrow readers because they were somewhat discerning in what
they thought to be worthy reading, but middlebrow readers often relied on Book of the
Month advance reviews as shortcuts for the acquisition of knowledge and culture---
middlebrow readers felt they after reading a critical review of the book of the month, they
did not actually need to read the book to know enough about it to discuss it in social
circles (22-23).
What exactly defined “middlebrow” readers? The author Virginia Woolf was one of
the first to regularly use the term middlebrow (38); she regarded the middlebrow reader
as a man or woman who did not read purely “…for the pursuit of…neither art nor life
itself”(38), but as a person who read as a means to attain “…money, fame, power, or
prestige”(38). Her fear of the middlebrow class reflected, “…the recurring fears of
artists and intellectual about the commodification, standardization, and massification of
art in the early decades of the twentieth century”(39). Ironically, this fear is present in
contemporary society today. While English professors in the academy and leaders of
public schools proclaim “No child left behind” and that they want everyone to have equal
access to literacy, non-school or non-academe means of acquiring literacy, such as the
Oprah Book Club, are scorned and criticized even though these sponsors of literacy are
achieving what the culturally elite cannot: motivating masses of Americans from all
walks of life to read for self-enrichment and self-transformation.
Just as many critics today dismiss the phenomenon of the Oprah Book Club,
questioning the validity of the book club choices and whether the readers actually read
the texts, so did critics like Henry Seidel Canby, an intellectual who vocally argued
against the “maverick reader” of the middlebrow culture who made reading choices

4. Hamilton 4
without the influence of those like Canby (40-41). Like Woolf, Canby viewed the
lowbrow class as readers who were “common”; in other words, he idealized the mythical
“common reader” as someone who possessed “…cultural memory and a sense of history”
and exercised “a well-honed critical judgment”(40). Canby feared the mass production
of literature had created a crisis of middlebrow readers who were “…reading
(consuming) too much of the wrong thing”(40). He especially feared the “group
influence” or “herd mentality” of book clubs that whetted the middlebrow reader’s
appetite for reading. Canby felt that middlebrow readers were reading too much “slush,
“hash,” and “trash”; Canby viewed the diet of middlebrow readers as “…standardization
and mindless escapisms…leading most directly to cultural barbarism”(40). Travis
concludes that Canby’s struggle to fight the influence of mass-market book publishing
and reading on culture reflected “…how difficult it was in the early twentieth century to
cope with the implications of mass education and literacy…he returned always…to the
issue of cultural authority”(41).
Travis shows that readers were regarded as “consumers” by both the cultural elite and
by advertisers and the publishing industry. Just as the cultural elite required acquiescent
Americans who submissively accepted what the elite deemed as high culture, advertisers
and book publishing executives acted as sponsors of literacy who sought to achieve
power by selling their books and using selling techniques that silenced individual taste in
books and instead, urged readers to adopt the reading values of the Book of the Month
Club group (42-43). The Book of the Month Club promoters seduced members by
inviting them to “join the intellectual elite of the country” (43) and by using persuasive
techniques that caused readers to doubt their own ability to choose quality books.

5. Hamilton 5
This particular reading caused me to revisit Brandt’s concept of sponsors of literacy
and the ways these sponsors of literacy have and continue to shape culture and in
particular, readers and reading cultures, in American lives. While the concern in the
early part of the century was that the commodification of literacy would undermine high
culture, Brandt’s modern day concern is that the commodification of literacy will
undercut literacy as a means for fully participating in a democratic society. Even though
these concerns are different, the point of intersection is about literacy as a means of
preservation and perpetuation of the class system in America. The early twentieth
concerns of the masses reading and what counts as reading is eerily similar to today’s
debate about what counts as legitimate reading. This reading caused me to wonder about
who or what are the most powerful sponsors of literacy are in contemporary America,
and why is this century old war of highbrow, middlebrow, and lowbrow culture still
raging? At the heart of this battle is power: those who want to maintain power in
modern America, those who want to acquire that power, those who fear the loss of power,
and the influences that shift the balance of power.
The notion of reading as a vehicle for creating and distributing civilized culture is
echoed in Ari Kelman’s 2001 essay, “The Sound of the Civic: Reading Noise at the New
York Public Library.” In my readings from this summer and early fall, the library as a
sponsor of literacy has been invisible. In this essay that traces the rise of the first public
library in New York City, Kelman analyzes the concept of noise, defining it as “…either
incomprehensible or unwanted sound”(23). Kelman surmises that noise, “…is consumed
but never produced. You can’t make noise, you can only hear it. In this way, noise ends
up sounding a lot like silence, as silence, too, can be heard but never emitted, consumed

6. Hamilton 6
but never produced. Noise…must accompany information. It is necessarily social.
Noise is produced in and by communication”(25). Kelman asserts that noise is
productive and asks, “How does noise produce the city?”(25). In particular, Kelman
wants to know what noise is produced or not produced in the main branch of the New
York Public Library, a place that is a public space which is, “…powerful and deeply
productive of a civic, if eternally noisy city. The main branch speaks because, as a
library, it has to. How and what the building speaks---and whom it permits to speak---is
part of an ongoing struggle between noise and information, books and people, civility and
the city”(25-26). In other words, how does this symbol of power produce culture and
literacy in New York City? This library space is a paradox: a library depends on silence
to run smoothly and successfully, yet the success of a civic and democratic society
depends on noise and dialogue (28). How and why did the library, an institution seen as
the gateway to equality and access to information for all, come to be a place of silence?
What do the practices and policies of public libraries such as the New York City Public
Library imply about culture and civilized readers? How do libraries explicitly and
implicitly transmit culture?
Kelman believes that library space produces knowledge, a “civilized citizenry” who
can read quietly, and the production of a community “…through public discourse that had
to happen elsewhere”(29). While readers may come to a public library to acquire
information, the conversations about that information that create culture take place
outside the library. Kelman believes that the sponsors of literacy who helped build and
consolidate the New York Public Library system consciously created libraries as silent
places of information access and public reading to civilize the masses (29-31).

7. Hamilton 7
It was not until 1895 that New York City had a city wide public library system. New
York’s wealthiest families, the Astors and the Lenoxs, owned the city’s two elite research
libraries (32); these branches were open only to the academic elite or members of the
upper echelons of New York society. Other public branches were known as free
circulating libraries, which served diverse populations across the city. When the trustees
of the Astor and Lenox libraries decided to consolidate their resources, they proposed the
establishment of a public library system to the leaders of New York City, citing that “…a
popular public library, bringing sound literature within the reach of every man’s home, is
in a very real sense a part of the educational system of the State. Education ought not to
stop with the public school, nor even with the high school. It is necessary to provide the
higher school which a well-equipped popular library can alone afford. Moreover, the
State has a profound interest in aiding the circulation of ideas that are not
ephemeral”(33). In essence, the trustees argued that a library would help breed good
citizens; consequently, good citizens would lead to the flourishing a literate city that
would command the respect of the world (33). The proposed library would provide
access to the ideals, values, and information necessary for shaping and creating a
civilized society of New York’s burgeoning immigrant culture. This belief reflected a
larger movement of the time known as “city beautiful,” a philosophy that believed noble
and great public spaces and institutions would cure the woes of urban areas and inspire
the lower classes to a greater standard of living and personal conduct (34-35).
Once the library was approved and constructed, the trustees then turned their attention
to instituting library policies and practices that could mold and shape uncultured
immigrants and patrons into subservient consumers of information who would take that

8. Hamilton 8
information and produce a great city outside the silent walls of the public library (36).
One important hallmark of this first public library branch was that patrons were allowed
to read library texts and access information, but books were not permitted to be loaned
out to patrons. Patrons were expected to be quiet and industrious so that patrons could
read, write, and research efficiently; those who did not conform to this code of silence
and productivity were removed. Patrons learned quickly that access to the library meant
obeying the code of civility and decorum of the library (36-37). Kelman contends that,
“Similar to the noise of the city that keeps us awake at night or calls our attention in the
street, the noise of the civic invades the private consumption of information. The free
circulation of information would produce disciplined citizens who could efficiently
contribute to the moral and economic fabric of the city. The noise of reading overwhelms
what is being read; it is consumed but never produced. Only in its consumption is it able
to be productive…But both silent civility and a civility of a perfect communication are
both impossibilities”(37-39). In short, the library sanctioned silence as a critical practice
because silence taught readers how to behave in a civilized manner; however, Kelman
believes that this practice taught patrons that it did not matter what one read but how one
read, a skill necessary to those who belonged to a cultured society.
After re-reading Kelman’s essay, I have mixed responses to her claims. While I
certainly can envision the creation of a public library in that time period as an institution
designed to produce a certain kind of culture, I can also see the policy and practice of
silence as a necessary evil for a productive library. As a librarian in elementary and high
school, I can attest to the fact that a quiet and civilized decorum is critical in order for all
patrons to achieve their pursuits in the library, whether they are there to read for pleasure

9. Hamilton 9
or to research and access information. While some modern public libraries provide
spaces for audible discourse, most public schools do not enjoy the privilege of having
adequate funding or advance input in the design of a library that would include the
creation of a space that would permit dialogue and conversation above a whisper or
outside of small group instruction. While the practice of silence may have originated
from the desire to “teach” patrons how civilized behaviors, today’s silence is to ensure a
decorum of concentration and contemplation.
However, if libraries are indeed the preservers and transmitters of culture, is it time to
expand the traditional mission and concept of libraries, particularly school libraries,
which are often the only literacy site outside of the classroom that many American
schoolchildren can access? The American Association of School Librarians embraces the
concept of a public school library as a place of inquiry, yet inquiry requires “noise” and
dialogue. How can public school libraries balance their mission as sites of access to
information and places of literacy as inquiry? Is it possible for libraries to reinvent
themselves as places of dialogue around books, texts, ideas, and information rather than
merely a point of entry to literacy? What messages about culture and literacy do current
library practices (school libraries, public libraries, academic libraries) impart to their
patrons and to society? How have libraries across America functioned as sponsors of
literacy in the past, and how do contemporary libraries now function as sponsors of
literacy? What are the possibilities for libraries as sponsors of literacy, particularly in a
climate where libraries are facing cutbacks in funding and personnel? These are
questions that I would like to explore this semester and in the future.

10. Hamilton 10
As I sought to envision non-traditional possibilities for libraries as sponsors of
literacy, I discovered some exciting possibilities in my final reading from Libraries as
Agencies of Culture. In the fascinating and revealing chapter entitled, “Home Libraries
and the Institutionalization of Everyday Practices Among Antebellum New Englanders,”
the focus of this scholarly article is on the role of personal libraries as agents of culture in
pre-Civil War New England. Zboray and Zboray ask the reader to conceptualize the
cultural history of the library, “…not as a thing but as a process consisting of a cluster of
discrete-though-related activities requiring neither institutional support nor even
specialized rooms serving the information needs of community member or strangers.
The institutional history of libraries thus becomes a subset of society-wide practices of
collection (and preservation), arrangement, cataloging, retrieval, and circulation of
cultural artifacts”(66). The authors studied nearly 4,000 manuscript diaries and letters
written by a diverse group of New Englanders between 1830 and 1861; they chose to
study antebellum New England because the region pioneered tax based public libraries,
the region was a site of rich literary culture, and the region had the nation’s highest
literary rates by 1850 for both black and white adults, 93 and 98 percent (66-67).
Through their study of these manuscripts and practices in the private lives of these
Americans, Zboray and Zboray concluded that “…books and reading became
instrumental in forging and maintaining social ties; literariness infused everyday social
encounters and literature was given meaning through social expression”(66).
In contrast to the experiences and literacy histories of the participants in Deborah
Brandt’s Literacy in American Lives, the possession of a personal library, no matter how
small, was essential in the lives of antebellum New Englanders. Zboray and Zboray

11. Hamilton 11
discovered that “…having a good collection was an ideal toward which even the lowliest
New England reader strived”(67), and even the poorest families managed to create small
collections. While the size of one’s collection could reflect one’s financial status,
selectivity was more important to these home librarians (68-69). In addition, these New
Englanders purchased books specifically for reading and studying; they did not collect
books to merely sit on the shelves as home décor. The most valuable books, though,
were not the most expensive ones. Instead, the most prized books were those, “…imbued
with personal meaning…out of date almanacs inscribed by deceased relatives, gift
volumes presented during courtship, personal journals filled with memories, or old
textbooks worn and torn by years of schooling”(69). Selectivity and personal meaning
were the guiding principles for home library building. Not only did these citizens collect
books, but the manuscripts also revealed personal ways of cataloging and organizing
books. While the systems of organization were diverse, ranging from classification of the
books in relation to personal memories to lexicons, the organizational systems usually
revealed the relationship of the owners to their books (70).
What I found most interesting about this research was that the books did not sit idly in
the owners’ homes. Books were regularly and frequently exchanged between friends and
family; Zboray and Zboray concluded that, “Library circulation played into rhythms of
everyday life---from visiting to enlivening working hours---just about everywhere people
congregated…. nearly every act of circulation ultimately expressed personal
relationships”(71). While the rules of lending and borrowing were not written down as
formal policy, the implied understanding that books were to be well cared for and
returned in a timely manner was well understood and respected by New Englanders (72-

12. Hamilton 12
76). It was not uncommon for lenders to share keys with neighbors, family, or friends so
that others could have unlimited access to one’s personal library (76). Most importantly,
outsiders had free access to personal libraries because, “…reading itself was a social
activity---one associated with family life, visiting, and entertaining guests---rather than a
recluse’s pastime”(76). Reading was the fiber that held together the society of this time,
and reading was an essential part of daily and social life. Those who had enough space in
their home for a room devoted to their libraries used the room as part of their daily life
routines; sewing, napping, smoking, receiving guests, and conversing with friends were
activities people practiced regularly in their libraries. Consequently, libraries “…housed
not only books, but cherished memories”(78). Even those who could not devote a room
to their books kept their prized possessions in safe places in their home, or more
commonly, in a spot where the books would be handy for reading and sharing with
neighbors and guests who might drop in to visit (78). In short, books and reading were
practices that were an essential part of daily life.
Ironically, with the establishment of public tax-supported libraries in the mid 1800s,
“…in the transfer of responsibility {for enriching and maintaining literary experience for
citizens}, reading lost some of its social meaning, for the locus of book exchange---an
institution rather than neighbor---became abstract”(81). The very institution designed to
continue and expand the literacy practices already in existence in the region somewhat
eroded the “vibrancy of every day literacy experience among antebellum New
Englanders”(81). While an increasingly industrial society and the explosion of
information weakened the social bonds of the once agrarian society necessitated the
establishment of a public library system to meet the needs of all citizens. However, as

13. Hamilton 13
much as the establishment of the public library helped to legitimize a community’s
commitment to knowledge (81), the public library could never establish the sharing of
books and reading as a social practice in the way that the personal home library networks
did.
As I read this chapter, I could not help but marvel with a sense of wonder and awe at
this remarkable private library system that reinforced and enriched the literacy
experiences of these citizens. In some ways, we practice these same behaviors today as
we share books with family and friends and maintain our own persona libraries.
However, I seriously doubt there is any community in contemporary America where
reading and personal libraries are an essential part of daily life as they were during this
time period and region of antebellum New England. The questions that now linger after
reading this chapter include:
Is it possible for this kind of literate community to be revived on a larger scale
today?
How, if even possible, could public, school, and academic libraries create similar
literacy experiences as these for today’s readers?
Reading was valued during this time for personal enrichment and knowledge, not
as an economic commodity. Are there any pockets of American society that still
value literacy experiences for their intrinsic merit rather than as a required tool for
survival in modern American society and our contemporary economy?
Did other communities like these exist elsewhere in the United States during the
same time period? Why or why not?

14. Hamilton 14
Can reading ever regain its status as an essential and pleasurable aspect of daily
life in the lives of modern Americans? If so, how might this change our
conception and uses of public libraries?
How did these literary communities affect the future literacy acquisition and
experiences of future generations in the region?
Do local or chain bookstores embody any of the functions as these personal
libraries did over 150 years ago?
In conclusion, these readings were challenging in terms of content and style.
However, I found these three readings to be thought provoking and a source of new
research questions for my current and future studies. I feel these potential lines of inquiry
are important because they all address the dynamic relationship between reading, books,
culture, libraries, and other sponsors of literacy in America. I look forward to further
exploring the history of libraries in my next reading and to see if I find any answers to the
questions I have posed in these readings.

15. Hamilton 15
References
Kelman, A. (2003). The sound of the civic: Reading noise at the New York Public
Library. In T. Augst & W. Wiegand (Eds.), Libraries as agencies of culture (pp.
23-41). Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. From American Studies,
2001, Fall, 42, [3], pp. 23-41 by A. Kelman.
Travis, M. A. (1998). Two cultures of reading in the Modernist period. In Reading
cultures: The construction of readers in the twentieth century (pp. 18-43).
Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
Zboray, R. J., & Zboray, M. S. (2003). Home libraries and the institutionalization of
everyday practices among antebellum New Englanders. In T. Augst & W.
Wiegand (Eds.), Libraries as agencies of culture (pp. 63-86). Madison, WI:
University of Wisconsin Press. From American Studies, 2001, Fall, 42, [3], pp.
63-86 by R. J. Zboray & M. S. Zboray.