Book Sleuthing
The Nineteenth Century
Do you love printed paper and wonder how much longer it will survive in the age of ebooks? Are you curious about how the mass-produced modern book emerged in the first place? Come behind the scenes in Harvard’s libraries to explore the look, feel and even smell of nineteenth-century British and American books in this module of The Book: Histories Across Time and Space.
In 19th-century Britain and America, schooling expanded, paper cheapened, and new technologies allowed print to reach wider audiences than ever before. After the rare and beautiful manuscripts and books showcased by earlier modules, the mass-produced, disposable objects that survive from the nineteenth century bear witness to the rise of the reading public.
This module investigates what scholars know about nineteenth-century reading, as well as how they know it.
This module’s six sections guide you through underlined, inscribed, defaced and repaired books in Harvard’s collections:
1. Name That Book
Find out what you can tell about a book when you’re blindfolded.
2. Handheld Books and Mobile Readers
What book did one soldier carry to Civil War battlefields in his pocket? (Hint: it’s not what you think.)
3. The Pen and the Needle
Did 19th-century girls have to choose between sewing and reading? The holes pricked in one book suggest they did both at once.
4. Leaving your Mark
Luckily for future historians, these children didn’t listen when people told them not to write in their books.
5. Detective Work
Try out some tools that build on what you’ve learned about books at Harvard to discover the stories hidden in your local library.
6. Over to You
Your chance to share what you have found in the books around you.
Join us, and discover how people in the first information age read, underlined, and repaired the pages that they treasured.
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Rating | 5.0★ based on 1 ratings |
---|---|
Length | 3 weeks |
Effort | 1 - 2 hours per week |
Starts | Sep 21 (449 weeks ago) |
Cost | $70 |
From | Harvard University, HarvardX via edX |
Instructor | Leah Price |
Download Videos | On all desktop and mobile devices |
Language | English |
Subjects | Humanities Art & Design |
Tags | Art & Culture Humanities Literature |
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book series had less
I did find that this module of The Book Series had less content than the others but it still is a useful edition to the series because it doesn't take much time either.
less content than
did find
one part
Nice mini-MOOC module focusing on one part of the overall course that can be completed in a much shorter time.
others but
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Rating | 5.0★ based on 1 ratings |
---|---|
Length | 3 weeks |
Effort | 1 - 2 hours per week |
Starts | Sep 21 (449 weeks ago) |
Cost | $70 |
From | Harvard University, HarvardX via edX |
Instructor | Leah Price |
Download Videos | On all desktop and mobile devices |
Language | English |
Subjects | Humanities Art & Design |
Tags | Art & Culture Humanities Literature |
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