Page:Cheap Book Production In The United States, 1870-1891 - Raymond Howard Shove (1937).djvu/13

 INTRODUCTION

In the United States, until the early 1830's, very little attention had been paid to the matter of supplying books at a price the masses could afford to pay. The price of books and the scarcity of money were such that book buying was commonly indulged in only by the well-to-do. With the establishment by Lord Brougham in England in 1827, of the Society for the Diffusion of Knowledge, and with a more or less world-wide awakening, steps were taken to provide larger numbers of people with reading matter, especially reading matter of an informational character. This movement spread to the United States. The Boston Society for the Diffusion of Knowledge was founded in 1829, and in 1831 sponsored the American Library of Useful Knowledge, the object of which was "to issue in a cheap form a series of works, partly original and partly selected, in all the most important branches of learning."

C. S. Rafinesque, the botanist, anxious to diffuse knowledge and learning, began in 1832 the Atlantic Journal and Friend of Knowledge. He believed that with sufficient support, he could issue good literature at a price the masses could afford to pay. The masses, however, did not respond and a year later Rafinesque was forced to give up his undertaking. Discouraged in his attempt to provide "science, truth, and original essays" to the people at a low price, he remarked bitterly that in the future he would cater to the learned and enlightened and would write chiefly for them. v