Spowage, K orcid.org/0000-0003-3736-2104 and Toth, HG (2022) Reading and ideology: the case of the free public libraries movement. Journal of Political Ideologies. ISSN 1356-9317
Abstract
This article examines social debates on mass reading in Britain, linking them to the free public libraries movement of the mid-19th century. It argues that free public libraries were defended on the grounds of a piecemeal, eclectic, but nonetheless identifiable vernacular theory of ideology that emerged over the course of a century. This theory treated literary texts as containers of ideas and values that could be transmitted to readers. It responded to the social tensions emerging from industrial capitalist society, but located conflict in the realm of ideas, rather than in material reality. It thus offered an idealist account of class conflict, positing both that dissent was rooted in the new phenomenon of mass reading, and that it could be resolved by encouraging workers to consume particular texts. Our aim is to show that, while such a theory of ideology was demonstrably reductive and flawed, it was part of what compelled the British State to pass the Public Libraries Act in 1850 and therefore merits exposition.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an author produced version of an article published in Journal of Political Ideologies. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of English (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 21 Sep 2022 13:25 |
Last Modified: | 26 Feb 2024 01:13 |
Status: | Published online |
Publisher: | Taylor and Francis Group |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/13569317.2022.2112083 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:191098 |