Part of
Transnational Books for Children 1750-1900: Producers, consumers, encountersEdited by Charlotte Appel, Nina Christensen and M.O. Grenby
[Children’s Literature, Culture, and Cognition 15] 2023
► pp. 18–45
Edited by Charlotte Appel, Nina Christensen and M.O. Grenby
[Children’s Literature, Culture, and Cognition 15] 2023
► pp. 18–45
Chapter 1Spreading the words
Global networks and the circulation of cheap instructional and religious children’s print
From the sixteenth century on, a vast amount of
cheap print offering instruction in the basics of literacy and
religion was published, much of it intended primarily for the use of
children. Alphabets, primers, catechisms, and other similar texts
circulated widely in Europe, but this chapter considers their
distribution around the globe via emerging mercantilist and
missionary networks. Ranging from 1500 to 1850, and taking examples
from Mexico, Tranquebar, and New England, and from
nineteenth-century Bengal, Malacca, and the United States’ “Indian
Territory”, an overarching (though inevitably incomplete) history of
the global circulation of cheap children’s print is attempted. The
chapter concludes that, even though these texts must be understood
as contributing to processes of colonization, coercive evangelism,
and cultural and linguistic loss, they also produced many
fascinating hybrid formats, fusing indigenous, colonialist, and
missionary practices.
Article outline
- Exporting cheap children’s print
- Printing in colonial locations
- “Primers for the Indians” in New England
- Tranquebar
- European texts in local languages
- Hybridized forms and formats
- Conclusions
-
Note -
References
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