Beyond the Lines: Pictorial Reporting, Everyday Life, and the Crisis of Gilded Age America [Hardcover]

Joshua Brown (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 5, 2002

In this wonderfully illustrated book, Joshua Brown shows that the wood engravings in the illustrated newspapers of Gilded Age America were more than a quaint predecessor to our own sophisticated media. As he tells the history and traces the influence of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, with relevant asides to Harper's Weekly, the New York Daily Graphic, and others, Brown recaptures the complexity and richness of pictorial reporting. He finds these images to be significant barometers for gauging how the general public perceived pivotal events and crises--the Civil War, Reconstruction, important labor battles, and more. This book is the best available source on the pictorial riches of Frank Leslie's newspaper and the only study to situate these images fully within the social context of Gilded Age America. Beyond the Lines illuminates the role of illustration in nineteenth-century America and gives us a new look at how the social milieu shaped the practice of illustrated journalism and was in turn shaped by it.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[A] wonderful study: Brown's narrative is a story, with twists and turns of plot, Dickensian characters and settings, and an equivalently complex set of interwoven themes." - Peter Bacon Hales, Reviews In American History "Beyond the Lines offers the most imaginative reading I have seen of 19th century visual journalism. The book illuminates in highly original ways how Gilded Age engravers both shaped and reflected popular views regarding race, ethnicity, and labor strife." - Eric Foner, Columbia University"

From the Inside Flap

"Beyond the Lines offers the most imaginative reading I have seen of 19th century visual journalism. The book illuminates in highly original ways how Gilded Age engravers both shaped and reflected popular views regarding race, ethnicity, and labor strife."--Eric Foner, Columbia University

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; First Edition edition (August 5, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520231031
• ISBN-13: 978-0520231030
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,929,147 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A persuasive study of the rise of mass-market magazines, February 10, 2004

By 

Peter B. Hales (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beyond the Lines: Pictorial Reporting, Everyday Life, and the Crisis of Gilded Age America (Hardcover)

Joshua Brown looks closely at FRANK LESLIES ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY as the paradigm of mass-market magazines in 19th century America, and his choice is apt. There's a biographical plot with a Horatio Alger twist, there's a strong and controversial woman executive, a media empire that expands and shrinks as new markets are tested and old ones abandoned, and there's the vast panoply of American cultural experience during the period from the Civil War to the 20th century. Brown's thinking is nuanced and sometimes complex; this isn't a quick read, but it's a very rewarding one. The illustrations are reason enough for most readers interested in American history.