By Dr. Shrout<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

The readings for today come (or will come) after a discussion of national politics in the United States, but they remind us that politics, information and education in the mid nineteenth century was not bounded by national borders. Thus far in the class we have been talking about American expansion into western space \u2013 space that was populated by Native peoples, Tejanos, Mexicans and the descendents of Spanish and French immigrants, but which was being claimed as American. We’ve not spent much time talking about the other side of the Atlantic \u2013 an absence that is corrected this week.<\/p>\n

Taking a transnational perspective on American information\/knowledge\/technology opens up some very interesting questions. Carolyn makes a very interesting point<\/a> about the didactic nature of the Chambers brothers’ publications. I wondered how that educational impulse should change the way we read texts like those produced in the Chambers’ publications? Do we think that American readers understood the educational impulse of the publications? Did they mind?<\/p>\n

Cordelia<\/a> also reminded us that even as we attend to the transnational news economy, we must also consider the technological mechanisms that actually spread this news. This reminded me of Eleanor’s primary source analysis, which interrogated the meaning of tracts printed in Britain, but read in North America. As we move towards final projects, we should think about both the content and the form of information transmission.<\/p>\n

Finally, I encourage everyone to read Kurt’s post from this week<\/a>, in which he discovers a bit of railroad history in his backyard!<\/p>\n

<\/a>  <\/a>  <\/a>  <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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