The materiality of ideology: Cultural consumption and political thought after the american revolution1

Abstract

This article uses the reading patterns of New York’s earliest elites—including a significant number of the founding fathers—who checked out books from the New York Society Library (NYSL), to evaluate the shifting meaning of political affiliation in the years between the ratification of the Constitution and the War of 1812. The reading data come from two charging ledgers spanning two periods (1789–92 and 1799–1806) during which a new country was built, relations with foreign nations were defined, and contestation over the character of a new democracy was intense. Using novel combinations of text and network analysis, I explore the political nature of reading and the extent to which social, economic, and political positions overlapped with what people read. In the process, I identify the key social and cultural dimensions on which New York and, by extension, American elite society was politically stratified in its early years.