| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 87.3

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 87.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

An American Bible: A History of the Good Book in the United States, 1777–1880. By Paul C. Gutjahr. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999. xx, 256 pp. $39.50, ISBN 0-8047-3425-9.)

Paul C. Gutjahr's An American Bible is a fascinating study of the Bible's changing cultural status in America from the time of the Revolution to the closing years of the nineteenth century. Drawing on work in the history of the book and studies of gentility and consumption, Gutjahr makes a convincing case that, while the Bible began its American career as the central book, its status and authority declined as innovations in publishing and distribution, changes in reading patterns, and increasing religious pluralism took hold. 1

Gutjahr uses the analytical tools of bibliographers and historians of the book to assess the changes in Bible production over the course of the nineteenth century. With such developments as stereotyping, increasingly lavish book illustrations and bindings, added text and criticism, and more effective distribution networks, the Bible blanketed the nation in ever greater numbers. Piloting those developments and pushing book production technologies toward innovation were those whose goal was to provide every household with a Bible, such as the leaders of the American Bible Society. They succeeded to a stunning degree, disseminating over a half million Bibles by midcentury (as shown in Gutjahr's helpful appendices on distribution). . . .

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