Reading Material in the Eighteenth Century

Today I worked on another interprative Sundays project that is scheduled to by unvieled August 10. That Sunday is on leisure activities in the eighteenth century and so Marcia suggested I do something on popular books. That is an intersting and tricky topic. Certainly there was popular literature, the kind that was designed for mass consumption, in colonial cities. Maybe some of it even made its way to the country. I don't know and I am certainly not an expert. I researched the Oley Valley in particular and found that most of the things people were reading there were works on religion. Quakers, like the Boones, for instance, had works by other quakers like Chalkley, or Fox, as well as Bibles.

I researched this topic by delving into primary sources almost from the beginning. I wanted to see what people who were really living in the Oley Valley had in their houses. So I looked at copies of estate inventories that we have at Boone. We actually have a lot, almost the entire Boone clan that was living in the Valley at the time, as well as the DeTurks, and Maugridge/Druries. What I found was that a lot of inventories don't specify. They say "a parcel of books" or "three books." So I know that people were reading. Just not what. The inventories that listed the books were the ones that had a substantial collection of them. These were the Quaker Boones, one of whom was a school teacher. So right now I have no information on other ethnic groups. It looks like I may have to look at more inventories, or some secondary sources.

In the end I hope to make a tri-fold with some books and maybe a few other objects on display.