History of Reading News. Vol.XX No.2 (1997:Spring)

The History of Reading SIG has named Christine Pawley the winner of the SIG's 1997 "Outstanding Dissertation Award." Pawley, who teaches at the College of St. Catherine, St. Paul, Minnesota, was awarded her Ph.D. by the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in May 1996. Her dissertation is titled, "Reading on the Middle Border: The Culture of Print in Osage, Iowa, 1870 to 1900." The chair of her dissertation committee was Wayne A. Wiegand, School of Library and Information Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706.

Pawley's study looks at how men, women and children of all classes used printed material in the setting of the small, rural, midwestern community of Osage, Iowa. Using the accession and circulation records of the Osage public library in addition to sources such as census records, city records, and the local newspapers, Pawley was able to construct a reading profile for every person who borrowed a book from the Osage library between 1890 and 1895. She also identified the reading materials used at the Osage public schools (they included the McGuffey Readers) and at the Cedar Valley seminary, and she examined the reading philosophies of key teachers. One of her conclusions is that although the print available to the inhabitants of Osage helped to shape and reproduce class identity, it also exposed them to a "rhetoric of equality."

Pawley will present an aspect of her dissertation at the next IRA conference, to be held May 3-9, 1998 at Orlando, Florida.

Members of the SIG's Outstanding Dissertation Award Committee were Janet A. Miller (chair), Miriam Balmuth, Arlene L. Barry, and E. Jennifer Monaghan.