Wit and Wisdom
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1843
1870
1879
1880
A crown of wisdom weave
A01=Joan Newlon Radner
American intellectual history
American Lyceum
Author_Joan Newlon Radner
biblical parodies
Category=NHK
Category=NHTB
Coming here among strangers
Courier
Debate
Debating society
December 16
Discovering a Forgotten Institution
domestic toil
Dublin
Dublin Literary Society
Edmund Steadman
Effulgent in wisdom and sparkling with wit
End of an Era
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eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Everyday Ideas
Exploring the Papers
February 15
February 17
Fremont Historical Society
Fremont Literary Society
Fryeburg
Gazette
Greenfield
handwritten literary compositions
How shall we win back lost ground?
jokes
Jonas Piper
Joseph F. Kett
Josiah Holbrook
Learning through Debate
Literary culture in rural America
livestock care
Lyceums
Maine
March 12
Mary Zboray
Massachusetts
Matthew Thomas
Millbury
New England history
New Hampshire
Newspapers
Nineteenth Century America
Performing the Papers
Period fiction
poetry
Poplin Herald
prose
Read by so many eager subscribers
Reverend James Hill
Ronald Zboray
Rural Community
Rural Lyceum Tradition
rural northern New England
school attendance
sober essays
South Bethel
T. P. Mason
The great work of self-culture
The ladies have nobly responded
the nineteenth century
The Press as Model
The speaking eye and the listening ear
The Treasure in the Attic
The Work of Editing
Toll Bridge
Toll Bridge Journal
Village life
western migration
Who will sustain the paper?
Women in the Lyceum
woods work
Writing
wry reportage
Yankee Runway
Zoar Lyceum
Product details
- ISBN 9781625347398
- Weight: 272g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 31 Jul 2023
- Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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The lyceum movement gained momentum in the decades preceding the Civil War, presenting members with the opportunity to participate in literary life and engage with the issues of the day. While urban lyceums played host to a who’s who of nineteenth-century intellectual life, literary societies also cropped up in thousands of villages across the nation, acting as influential sites of learning, creativity, and community engagement. In rural New England, ordinary men and women, farmers and intelligentsia, selectmen and schoolchildren came together to write and perform poetry and witty parodies and debate a wide range of topics, from women’s rights and temperance to slavery, migration, and more.
Wit and Wisdom takes readers inside this long-forgotten tradition, providing new access to the vibrant voices, surprising talents, and understated humor on display on many a cold winter’s night. Having uncovered dozens of handwritten newspapers produced by village lyceums across Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts, Joan Newlon Radner proves that these close-knit groups offered a vital expression of the beliefs, ambitions, and resilience of rural New Englanders.
Joan Newlon Radner is professor emerita of literature at American University. She is past president of both the National Storytelling Network and the American Folklore Society.
