Hawthorne's Celestial Railroad
a publication history

Last week I spoke on this project in the UVA Scholars’ Lab, as part of a joint presentation with my colleague Alex Gil. Alex is working on a 20th Century edition of Aimé Césaire that makes use of many of the same technologies as celestialrailroad.org, and the two talks complimented each other well.

In my talk I discuss not only the technology I’ve used in building this edition, but also the literary and historical discoveries the project has helped me make about Hawthorne, his audience, and his career. The Scholars’ Lab has posted the talk as a podcast (clicking the link will open iTunes). My talk starts at 28:08, but please listen to Alex’s talk first. The Q&A at the end addresses both talks.

Next week I’ll be presenting about this project as part of the University of Virginia Scholars’ Lab’s “Digital Therapy Luncheon” series. While preparing for that talk, I compiled for the first time a list of all the nineteenth-century books, sermons, newspapers, &c. in which I’ve uncovered references to the story. This is a very unofficial list—I don’t detail the article name for newspaper references for example. But it’s impressive for its length (which will be the point of showing it during my presentation). Eventually I’ll compile a better scholarly version and create a permanent page to display it; for now I wanted to post what I have:

Inside Higher Education ran a story today about academics using Twitter at the 2009 MLA (Modern Language Association) Convention. I was one of those academics, and was interviewed for the story. I have some reservations about the way the story was framed, as you can see in my comment below the article on IHE. Overall, though, I’m glad to see the Twitter/Digital Humanities crowds (not exactly continguous groups, but groups with significant overlap) garner the attention they have this year.

For those of you who check this blog but don’t follow me on twitter, a few items worth your consideration are Brian Croxall’s paper on the real human costs of a sagging job market—delivered in-absentia, because Prof. Croxall couldn’t afford to attend the conference without a job interview—and a followup by Jennifer Howard published by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Though he wasn’t at the convention, Prof. Croxall’s paper was likely the most talked-about paper presented this year, due in large to the twitterers and bloggers who shared and promoted it.

Also worth a look is “Make 10 Louder: the Amplification of Scholarly Communication,” in which Amanda French parses the use of twitter at MLA.

Finally a lighter must-read: Mark Sample collected the many fake “MLA tips” that circulated among the twitter crowd in the weeks leading up to the conference. For job seekers like myself, these provided a welcome distraction from interview preparation, and and important reminder not to take myself too seriously.

Well, it’s been a relatively busy week. I wrote earlier about being given a month’s access to the full archive America’s Historical Newspapers. This investigation has been fruitful: I’ve found a new reprinting in the Jamestown Journal of Jamestown, NY (12 Oct. 1843) and several interesting articles that reference the story, one of which will show up in the revision of the article I’m working on, “‘Taken Possession Of’: Hawthorne’s ‘Celestial Railroad’ in the Evangelical Canon.”

Later in the week, a link in Dan Cohen’s twitter feed led me to a Language Log post that mentions the Pennsylvania Civil War Newspapers archive (whew!). I didn’t know this archive, and a quick search there returned yet another witness, from the Lancaster Intelligencer (1 Feb. 1859). This one includes a short editorial preface—these are my favorite witnesses, as they add not only to the corpus of reprintings but also to the cultural narrative surrounding the story.

This project continues to grow exponentially; every new resource discovered returns new results.

Recently Gideon Burton speculated at Academic Evolution about what it would mean to be an open scholar: “someone who makes their intellectual projects and processes digitally visible.” One of the benefits Burton sees in open scholarship is that “having open data is in fact provisioning for serendipity,” allowing folks working on related projects to find and, hopefully, support each other’s research. Open scholarship requires a scholar “open to input from those outside of the project, the institution, or even academia”—which is to say, it requires a paradigm shift, especially from the cloistered traditions of humanities scholarship.

In the few posts I’ve added to this development blog, I’ve tried to open the project up in this way. While still in the midst of research, I’ve discussed the genesis of the project, the tools and resources I’m using to research and build the site, and my ongoing textual and technological discoveries. This work has already born fruit.

In a recent post I discussed the online newspaper archives I’ve used to find reprintings of “The Celestial Railroad,” and I speculated about which archives I’ve found most useful. Soon thereafter I received an email from a marketing director at Readex, whose America’s Historical Newspapers I had omitted from the “most useful” list. He politely asked me why, and whether I had any suggestions about how AHN could better serve scholars working on similar projects.

When I replied that I simply hadn’t found much in AHN—no witnesses, and only a few references to the story—he responded with a list of search results he’d found of “The Celestial Railroad,” which included at least one witness and several references I’d not discovered. The problem, it turns out, was that UVA only subscribes to three of the seven available series of Early American Newspapers.

Searching the entire database, he found many that I would never had known existed, because I had no idea that the database I was accessing through UVA’s library was incomplete. Had I not been posting my research, this serendipitous conversation (between an academic and a marketing director, no less) would likewise never have happened.

The story has a happy ending. Readex has generously given me personal access to the entire database for the month of November—not quite as good as UVA subscribing to it, but given how tight both library and personal budgets are right now, I’ll take it. I also understand that worse encounters are possible through open scholarship, including intellectual theft. But this exchange demonstrates that Burton’s ideas can pan out in the ways he imagines. I’ll certainly keep blogging this project, and likely will do so more fervently from now on.

At the Poe Studies’ Association Conference last weekend, conversations about this site invariably turned to questions about what online newspaper archives are out there. Most folks are aware of American Periodicals Series Online, but not many of the others that I’ve used . So below I’ve compiled my list so far. These all bear primarily on 19th Century American research, but some include wider resources.  They’re organized here alphabetically, but I’d say that APS Online, the Gale Group’s Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers, the Access Newspaper Archive, and the Making of America Projects have been most useful to me. Final caveat—some of these live behind pay-walls. At UVA we subscribe to them, but I’m not certain how many will be accessible if your school doesn’t. Noticing Google Books in this list, my next post will be a “true/but” response to Geoff Nunberg’s recent article, “Google Books: a Metadata Train Wreck.” If you spot any fixable problems with these links, please let me know. If you know an archive of 19th Century American periodicals that I haven’t included, please, please let me know.

Access Newspapers Archive (http://access.newspaperarchive.com)

Accessible Archives (http://www.accessible.com/accessible/preLog)

America’s Historical Newspapers (http://infoweb.newsbank.com/?db=EANX)

American Periodicals Series Online (http://proquest.umi.com/login)

Gale Group, Nineteenth Century U. S. Newspapers (http://infotrac.galegroup.com)

Google Books (http://books.google.com)

Library of Congress, American Memory Collection (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpcoop/moahtml/snchome.html)

Library of Congress, Chronicling America Collection (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/)

Making of America Project, Cornell University (http://digital.library.cornell.edu/m/moa/)

Making of America Project, University of Michigan (http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moajrnl/)

I’ve just discovered a new reprinting in the Louisville newspaper, the Baptist Banner and Western Pioneer. This was a random discovery–I borrowed several papers that seemed likely candidates and started browsing. This is my first Louisville discovery, and expands the map of printings toward the South.

Below is my current bibliography for “The Celestial Railroad.” I’m currently transcribing these versions. Eventually this site will (I hope) incorporate a web-based version of Juxta that will allow visitors to compare textual changes across these versions. Items prefaced with an asterisk (*) are new to Hawthorne studies; found mostly through searchable online newspaper repositories. My next task will be a bibliography of references to the story, which will be a considerably longer list.

Bibliography

Periodical reprintings of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Celestial Railroad”

“The Celestial Railroad,” United States Magazine and Democratic Review 12, no. 59 (May 1843): 515-523.

* ——, Morning Star (New York) 18, no. 5 (24 May 1843): 20.

* ——, Midnight Cry! (New York) 4, no. 20 & 21 (13 Jul. 1843): 156-159.

——, Signs of the Times and Expositor of Prophecy (Boston) 5, no. 21 (Jul. 1843): 161-164.

——, Cambridge Palladium (Cambridgeport, MA) 1, no. 31 (5 Aug. 1843): 1-2.

——, Christian Advocate and Journal (New York) 17, no. 52 (9 Aug. 1843): 205-206.

* ——, Christian Secretary (Hartford, CT) 22, no. 29 (29 Sep. 1843): 1, 4.

* ——, Christian Watchman (Boston) 24, no. 39 and 40 (29 Sep. and 6 Oct. 1843): 153, 157.

* ——, Scioto Gazette (Chillicothe, OH) 44, no. 2249 (18 Oct. 1843): 1-2.

* ——, Baptist Banner and Western Pioneer (Louisville, KY) 10, no. 42 and 43 (19 and 26 Oct. 1843):

——, Salem Gazette 42, no. 84 (20 Oct. 1843): 1.

——, Salem Mercury 4, no. 43 (25 Oct. 1843): 1.

* ——, Vermont Chronicle (Windsor) 18, no. 44 and 45 (1 Nov. and 8 Nov. 1843): 173-174, 177.

——, Gazette and Courier (Greenfield, MA) 52, no. 2700 (14 Nov. 1843): 1-2.

* ——, Episcopal Recorder (Philadelphia) 21, no. 40 and 41 (23 Dec. and 30 Dec. 1843): 160, 164.

* ——, Republican Compiler (Gettysburg, PA) 26, no. 14 (25 Dec. 1843): 1-2.

——, Baptist Magazine for 1844 (London) 36, series 4, vol. 7 (Jan., Feb. 1844): 9-12, 71-76

* —— (excerpt), Liberator (Boston) 14, no. 11 (15 Mar. 1844): 44.

* ——, Hagers-town Torch Light & Public Advertiser (Hagers-town, MD) 30, no. 21 (21 Mar. 1844): 1.

——, Voices of the True-Hearted (Philadelphia) (Nov. 1844-Apr. 1846): 119-125.

* —— (excerpt), Ohio Observer (Hudson, OH) 21, no. 8 (24 Feb. 1847): 1.

* ——, Non-slaveholder (Philadelphia) 2, no. 10 (Oct. 1847): 228-236.

——, National Anti-Slavery Standard (New York) 8, no. 24 (11 Nov. 1847): 96.

——, The Friend, A Monthly Journal (London) 6, no. 61 (Jan. 1848): 4-8.

* ——, Christian Secretary (Hartford, CT) 26, no. 52 (3 Mar. 1848): 1-4.

——, Vermont Christian Messenger (Montpelier) 4, no. 23 (5 Jun. 1850): 1-2.

* ——, Circular (Brooklyn, NY) 2, no. 44 (16 Apr. 1853): 175-176.

* ——, Littell’s Living Age (Boston) no. 851 (22 Sep. 1860): 740-747.

* ——, Friends’ Intelligencer 17, nos. 39-41 (8, 15, and 22 Dec. 1860): 620-623, 637-639, 652-655.

Other notable reprintings:

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Celestial Rail-road (unauthorized pamphlet, Boston: James F. Fish, 1843).

——, The Celestial Rail-road (unauthorized pamplet, Boston: Wilder & Co., 1843).

[——], as A Visit to the Celestial City, revised by the Committee of Publication of the American Sunday-School Union (Philadelphia: American Sunday School Union, 1843).

—— and anon., as The Celestial Rail-road; or, Modern Pilgrim’s Progress: After the Manner of Bunyan. Vividly Representative of the Present-Day Professors of Religion, Bible Examiner, vol. 12 (Philadelphia: Merrihew and Thompson, February 23, 1844).

——, in Mosses from an Old Manse (New York: Wiley and Putnamn, 1846).

——, in Prose Writers of America, with a Survey of the History, Conditions, and Prospects of American Literature, ed. Rufus Wilmot Griswold (Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, 1847).

——, The Celestial Rail-road (unauthorized pamphlet, Lowell: D. Skinner, 1847).

* [——] and Salomon Neitz (trans.), as Ein Besuch auf der Eisenbahn nach der Himmlischen Stadt (Philadelphia, 1853).

—— and anon., as The Celestial Rail-road; or, Modern Pilgrim’s Progress: After the Manner of Bunyan. Vividly Representative of the Present-Day Professors of Religion (Boston: J. V. Himes, 1860).

—— and anon., as The Celestial Rail-road; or, Modern Pilgrim’s Progress: After the Manner of Bunyan. Vividly Representative of the Present-Day Professors of Religion, Advent Tracts (Western Series), no. 16 (Buchanan, MI: W. A. C. P. Association, 1867).

——, “A Walk Through Vanity Fair, Hawthorne” (excerpt), in Roses and Holly: A Gift-Book for All the Year (Edinburgh: William P. Nimmo, 1867): 129

*——, “The Celestial Railroad,” in A History of the Church of God, from the Creation to A. D. 1885; Including Especially the History of the Kehukee Primitive Baptist Association, ed. Elder Sylvester Hassell (Middletown, NY: Gilbert Beebe’s Sons, 1886): 951-963.

*——, “The Celestial Railroad,” in The Feast of Fat Things (Middletown, NY: Gilbert Beebe’s Sos, 1890): 93-120.

*——, “The Celestial Railroad,” in Capital Stories by American Authors, Published by the Christian Herald, ed. Louis Klopsch (New York: Bible House, 1895): 13-42.

* [——], as A Visit to the Celestial City, revised by the Committee of Publication of the American Sunday-School Union (Philadelphia: American Sunday School Union, 1897).

*——, The Celestial Railroad (Philadelphia: Union Press, 1899).

This blog is build in Wordpress, but the site itself likely won’t be.  The online edition of “The Celestial Railroad” will need to serve as a repository for scans and text versions of many copies of this text.  I could, of course, build such a site from the HTML up, but I’ve been looking at Omeka, developed by the folks at George Mason University’s Center for History and New Media, as a possible platform that will do much of the heavy lifting for me.

Omeka is designed to archive and present historical materials, which is, in essence, exactly what I want to do.  Last weekend I attended an Omeka “playdate” at GMU—essentially a day-long training sessi0n—and returned optimistic about the platform as a possible solution for a digital edition like this one.

Before we get there, however, I have to do the bibliographic work—comparing the many editions of the text.  For this I will use Juxta, developed by NINES right here at UVA.  Juxta will allow me to import and immediately see changes between many different versions of “The Celestial Railroad.”  It should help me see lineages of printing, as particular changes propagate through witnesses, and hopefully to notice significant editorial decisions made by particular groups or editors.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “The Celestial Railroad” retells Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, using Bunyan’s religious ideals to satirize the easy, liberal, modern Christianity Hawthorne saw all around him. While it is widely anthologized, most scholars read it as a quirky but unrepresentative piece in Hawthorne’s oeuvre—a fairly blunt allegory, “The Celestial Railroad” can disappoint 21st century readers who come to literature expecting narrative subtlety or symbolic nuance.  During my dissertation research, however, I uncovered a history of extensive printing, reprinting, and commentary of and about the story in the years immediately after its first publication in early 1843. The quirky story resonated in profound ways with contemporary readers—including devout readers who were less likely to encounter Hawthorne otherwise—and may have influenced mid-nineteenth century culture more than many of the subtler tales that modern scholars privilege.

I first became aware of this wider influence while digging through copies of the Midnight Cry! and Signs of the Times, two newspapers printed between 1842-44 by the apocalyptic evangelical group known as the Millerites or Adventists. My dissertation investigates apocalyptic figures and rhetoric in antebellum religious literature and fiction, and I was reading these papers because the Millerites were the most famous apocalyptic group of the period—50,000 Americans countenanced Baptist pastor William Miller’s claim that the world would end in 1843 and then, when that initial claim didn’t pan out, on October 22, 1844.

Most of the content in Adventist papers reflected their eschatological concerns: articles describing ominous natural events, charts illustrating biblical prophecy, sermons unpacking apocalyptic passages. I was surprised, then, when I saw the following—

Introduction to Midnight Cry! Printing

—on the front page of the July 13, 1843 edition of the Cry; inside the paper is a complete reprinting of Hawthorne’s story. Quickly opening the Signs of the Times folio just beside me, I soon found “The Celestial Railroad” printed there as well, on July 26 of the same year. I was, in short, surprised; there isn’t much fiction in these papers, and nothing by any writer modern readers would recognize. I suddenly had new research questions: why did this story resonate with this groups of readers?  Did other religious readers also see “rich stores of instruction” in Hawthorne’s allegory?

1st page of Midnight Cry! printing

And so I started digging, beginning with the Morning Star, published by the Freewill Baptists—from whom the Midnight Cry claimed to have copied the story—and this small breadcrumb pointed me toward a deep history of printing, reprinting, and public reception for Hawthorne’s story. Following this and subsequent breadcrumbs, I have since uncovered 32 reprintings of “The Celestial Railroad” in the years between its initial publication in the Democratic Review in 1843 and the end of the Civil War [working database of my findings]. Most of these are unaccounted for in bibliographies of Hawthorne’s work, the most authoritative of which were published before the American Periodicals Series Online, Cornell’s Making of America Collection, and Google Books made broad-ranging initial research into such questions simpler.

Reprintings of the “Celestial Railroad” appeared in period newspapers and pamphlets; the American Sunday School society issued tract versions—with commissioned illustrations—of the story under the title A Visit to the Celestial City in both English and German for the edification of America’s children.  There are even two novelistic rewritings of the piece, including the behemoth, two-volume Modern Pilgrims: Showing the Improvements in Travel, and the Newest Methods of Reaching the Celestial City by George Wood.

More than half of “The Celestial Railroad’s” reprintings come from religious or denominational periodicals, published by a wide range of religious groups, including Baptists, Methodists, Episcopalians, Quakers, and even Oneida Perfectionists.  Denominational editors often modified Hawthorne’s text; some, in fact, deleted and/or added large sections of text to help the story better fit with the theological viewpoint of their publications, and many provided short introductions or glosses suggesting to readers just how the story should be read or interpreted.  The texts of these reprintings have never been collected, collated, or compared, however—which is just what this website hopes to remedy.

from the Sunday School Union's "Visit to the Celestial City"

This site will aim to allow scholars, teachers, and students to follow the rich history of “The Celestial Railroad’s” publication and editing. This site will provide both images and the text of each printing of the story, highlighting significant amendments or deletions, as well as any editorial introductions appended to the texts. I’ll use the Juxta collation software to compare the editions. The first steps in this process, which I hope to complete in the Summer of 2009, will be collecting, digitizing, transcribing, and collating the many printings of “The Celestial Railroad” made in books and periodicals between 1843 (the year of its first authorized publication) and at least 1864 (the year of Hawthorne’s death), with a special focus on its circulation in religious periodicals.