Rare Book School Lecture: Landscapes, Labor, and the Infrastructures of Printed Newspapers

Printed newspapers have become endangered as digital distribution has transformed the news business and the ways that people access information. Michael Stamm (Professor of History, Michigan State University) returns to the decades in our previous century when the printed newspaper thrived as the center of the news cycle, and it highlights some of the hidden landscapes, labor, and infrastructures enabling that. Twentieth-century newspapers were not just outlets for news but were also the material products of industrial capitalism manufactured by business firms organized like those in other mass production industries. These firms drew upon natural raw materials and developed infrastructures of production and distribution gathering large and diverse human labor forces including lumber jacks, paper mill operators, and newsboys. We often think about printed texts as relationships between authors and readers, but this talk draws attention to some of the hidden materials, people, and infrastructures involved in producing and circulating printed newspapers.

This lecture is also available by Zoom livestream.