{"id":2385,"date":"2018-04-23T00:41:11","date_gmt":"2018-04-23T04:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/?p=2385"},"modified":"2018-05-30T18:08:06","modified_gmt":"2018-05-30T22:08:06","slug":"the-western-debate-provenance-and-use-of-danas-geographical-sketches-of-the-western-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/2018\/04\/23\/the-western-debate-provenance-and-use-of-danas-geographical-sketches-of-the-western-country\/","title":{"rendered":"The Western Debate: Provenance and Use of Dana’s Geographical Sketches of the Western Country"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Page of Interest<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Other Posts on Edmund Dana’s Geographical Sketches of the Western Country:<\/p>\n

Additions<\/a><\/p>\n

Origins<\/a><\/p>\n

Introduction<\/a><\/p>\n

Afterlives<\/a><\/p>\n

When I began this project, I stated that my interest in picking Edmund Dana\u2019s <\/span>Geographical Sketches of the Western Country <\/span><\/i>was in understanding what the mind of an early 19th century American reader may have found in the reading of its descriptions of a land way out west. \u00a0If I\u2019m honest then, the most bibliographic interesting feature of the particular copy of <\/span>Geographical Sketches<\/span><\/i> held in special collections at Colby College is for me, the signs of provenance\u4e00ownership and use. \u00a0From the early days of my time with the book, the stamp reading \u201cColby University\u201d, the book plate reading \u201cColby College”, and the oxidized ink writing that reads <\/span>Erosophian Adelphi <\/span><\/i>has been a savory entree for my bibliographic inquiry, and one I intend now to fully enjoy in hopes that it can position Dana\u2019s work within the context of a new and growing nation, and the formation of the ideology that would govern the United States expansion Westward in institutions that educated the men who put that governance into action. <\/span><\/p>\n

This admittingly, seems contradictory to the textual evidence of the book\u2019s purpose. \u00a0Dana\u2019s own subtitle reads \u201cFor Emigrants and Settlers\u201d after all, suggestive of an intended audience of new proprietors and those seeking to make a living in the western country, rather than that of the established gentry of the east coast who would send their young men to Waterville College (later to become Colby College) where this particular copy of <\/span>Geogrphical Sketches <\/span><\/i>has a long history. \u00a0Examining the physical evidence of the book, however, can provide new meanings to the text beyond that of what is explicitly stated.<\/span><\/p>\n

The earliest sign of ownership and use in this copy of <\/span>Geographical Sketches <\/span><\/i>is the now oxidized pen inscription \u201cEroshophian Adelphi\u201d on the pastedown of the end pages at the beginning of the book. \u00a0Its prominence is striking within the context of the books lacking of marginalia, a reminder that there has been physical contact between this book and readers before I stumbled upon Dana\u2019s work in special collections. \u00a0It denotes the books ownership by a literary fraternity at Colby College, one of the first student organizations at the college and one which was fairly typical of the northern colleges established in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in America. \u00a0The particularities of the history of the literary institutions at Colby College are well summed up in an article published in 1944 by then Colby librarian N. Orwin Rush and head cataloger Mary Herrick. (1944) These literary fraterni<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Benjamin Butler, civil war general, colby alumni, and founding member of Ersophian Adelphi.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

ties operated as an extracurricular societies devoted to the practice of letters, debate, rhetoric, and social functions expected of the upper class gentlemen of the early 19th century. \u00a0They also, crucially, collected and operated their own libraries, of which <\/span>Geographical Sketches <\/span><\/i>was a volume in. Colby\u2019s first literary fraternity was founded in 1824, but with growth of the institution, a second, rival fraternity was founded in 1835 and incorporated in 1836\u4e00Eroshophian Adelphi. \u00a0According to it\u2019s charter, this society started with 30 members, of whom it is worthy noting civil war general and Colby alumni Benjamin F. Butler was one. (1835)<\/span><\/p>\n

Geographical Sketches <\/span><\/i>was part of the library which Eroshophian Adelphi would build in it\u2019s 40 years of existence (1836-1876). \u00a0An 1856 catalogue of American higher education put this library at 2,500 volumes, which is far smaller than the reported 10,500 volumes of the college library.<\/a> \u00a0The size of the library however, is not as important in determining to what extent a book like <\/span>Geographical Sketches <\/span><\/i>was read. \u00a0As is pointed out in Harding\u2019s history<\/a> of the literary society in American universities, the college library at Colby was very limited in accessibility, being open \u201cone half-hour twice a week.\u201d Adelphi\u2019s student library then, was much more suited to the everyday literary needs of the College’s students in that it was accessible and catered toward use<\/span>.<\/span><\/i> \u00a0The extent of <\/span>Geographical Sketches <\/span><\/i>circulation in the library is unknown to me. \u00a0The society kept a record of books it came into possession with that is available still in Colby\u2019s special collections, however, after a fair amount of digging, attempts to trace the time that <\/span>Geographical Sketches <\/span><\/i>spent in the Adelphi library have been fruitless. \u00a0The inclusion of the \u201cColby University\u201d stamp on the publisher\u2019s page of <\/span>Geographical Sketches <\/span><\/i>indicates that the Adelphi gave the volume over to the college library sometime between 1869-1900, when Colby boar the University title. \u00a0The most apparent date would be in 1876 when the Adelphi ceased operations an<\/span><\/p>\n

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Colby University Stamp<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

d donated the remainder of its library to the college library, about 1,000 volumes. (1944) \u00a0This number, 1,000, is notably smaller than the quoted 2,500 volumes in the 1856 catalogue, indicating that Geographical Sketches <\/i>at least remained in circulation in the library of the
\nAdelphi when others did not. \u00a0There is some physical evidence to suggest its circulation in readership, including a few torn and bent pages. \u00a0It is notable that these signs of use are fairly clustered around the beginning of the book, either in the end pages or the extensive preface written by Dana. \u00a0I have no way of knowing exactly when these physical imperfections (that is, from the rest of the book\u2019s form) took place in the book\u2019s history, but it does indicate that the book was read while in circulation. \u00a0The book plate denotes the current owner, Colby College, but unlike a lot of volumes in the special collections of the same period which I\u2019ve seen in my work this semester, it does not bear the \u201cTreasure Room\u201d stamp that would have denoted it\u2019s being in special collections at the time it was moved from Colby\u2019s original campus in the mid 20th century. (see 1st image) \u00a0This would indicate Geographical Sketches <\/i>remained in regular circulation into the 20th century, making it difficult to narrow exactly when reader\u2019s were most interested in reading it.<\/p>\n

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Physical Wear and Tear<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

When considering this particular copies usage then, this physical evidence has to be followed with a question; why?\u00a0 Why purchase this book for a literary fraternity? And why keep it in collection for so long? In answering this, it is important to note the disparity between authorial intent and when this particular copy shows signs of usage. \u00a0<\/span>Geographical Sketches <\/span><\/i>publication in 1819 is anachronistic to the history of it\u2019s ownership, Erosophian Adelphi having acquired it at the earliest in 1836. \u00a0The books likely advertorial intent would have been dampened for the reader who came into contact with it and catalogued it for the literary society of early Colby College, even if it was acquired at the Adelphi\u2019s inception. \u00a0It instead then, would perhaps serve an informative intent for the Erosophian Adelphi, a way to come into contact with a land far west of Waterville, ME removed from any intent to be emigrants or settlers to that land. Instead, it could serve as a way of knowing about the West that would feature in the public debates that the members of the society would grapple with in their weekly meetings, \u201c7pm on Wednesday evenings\u201d according to their charter. (1835) An interesting way to speculate on this is in considering what other volumes Colby still holds that are similar to Dana\u2019s work. \u00a0When looking at a bibliography of \u201ctravelers and observers (1763-1846)\u201d found in <\/span>A History of American Literature<\/a>, <\/span><\/i>in which <\/span>Geographical Sketches <\/span><\/i>is listed, I found there to be multiple other examples of notable works from the early 19th century on voyages and travels that Colby now houses in it\u2019s special collections and have a similar history as the copy of <\/span>Geographical Sketches <\/span><\/i>I\u2019ve been studying, including entries by Winterbotham, Morse, Guthrie, and Harris. \u00a0Viewed within the context of this canon of other work from the first half of the 19th century in a similar genre, Dana\u2019s work can be seen as serving a vital role in shaping the perception that the dominant class of protestant anglo-saxon Americans who studied at places like Colby in the 19th century had of the West, and therefore in our modern reading we can come into contact with the formation of an ideology of Western expansion that would shape the history of the United States up to today.<\/span><\/p>\n

These findings are exciting in that they are insightful into the questions that excited my interests in Dana\u2019s <\/span>Geographical Sketches.<\/span><\/i> \u00a0By analysis of the physical evidence of provenance of the particular copy held at Colby, one can come into contact with the regional socioeconomic structures that governed where and when people expanded West, from a land of commerce in the East to an agrarian West. \u00a0In light of this, I can begin to formulate the history of me, the people around me, the places I\u2019ve lived, and the reasons, some two hundred years in the making, that this has all been this way.<\/span><\/p>\n

For Further Reading on the History of Literary Societies at Colby College:\u00a0Herrick, Mary D., and N. Orwin Rush. \u201cEarly Literary Societies and Their Libraries in Colby College, 1824-78.\u201d American Library Association, Dec. 1944, pp. 58\u201363.<\/span><\/p>\n

A thank you to Erin Rhodes in Colby College’s Special Collections for her help in exploring the history of Erosophian Adelphi.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Other Posts on Edmund Dana’s Geographical Sketches of the Western Country: Additions Origins Introduction Afterlives When I began this project, I stated that my interest in picking Edmund Dana\u2019s Geographical Sketches of the Western Country was in understanding what the mind of an early 19th century American reader may have found in the reading of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7713,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[399560,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2385"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7713"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2385"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3048,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2385\/revisions\/3048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}