Southampton's Forgotten Stories
Port cities are fascinating mutable spaces characterized by rhythms of transience, impermanence and fragmentation. This collaborative research project focuses on one multi-dimensional, skilled, artisanal group – the book trades – and examines how movement in, out of, and through the port city of Southampton shaped their professional, social, and cultural identities in the nineteenth century. Mass industrialisation and increased access to affordable transport enabled printers, bookbinders, engravers, papermakers, and other members of the book trade unprecedented opportunities to become global citizens both through migration as well as through the print medium they produced which kept them in touch with complex networks of families, colleagues and friends. As purveyors of material goods and services, bookworkers helped shape the civic landscape as well as its intellectual culture.
Makers
How does print come into being? From the paper to the ink to the printed impression of handset type to binding and decorating: all these processes leave traces – sometimes even ghosts – of physical evidence that provide evocative insights into the materiality of print culture and its makers.
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Distributors
Print is reliant upon sophisticated networks to deliver content. Whether booksellers, stationers, newsagents, bill stickers, circulating library owners, toy and general goods sellers, berlin wool retailers, all are in competition for the market share and deploy many strategies for luring customers into browsing, purchasing, and sharing.
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Readers
Novels, newspapers, broadsheets, ephemera. Print genres embrace different reading experiences and fashion many different kinds of readers. Solitary reading in the comfort of one's own home; communal exchanges over a cup of tea; performing print with dramatic recitations, magic lantern shows, or hearth-side storytelling: the varieties of 'reading' are endless.
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