Pulpit, Press, and Politics: Methodists and the Market for Books in Upper Canada

Abstract

Scott McLaren’s fine study provides a detailed analysis of Methodist book culture in early nineteenth-century Upper Canada. His discussion of book production, supply, sales, pricing, and profits illuminates how Canadian Methodists responded to the oft-competing influence of their American and British Methodist colleagues in a charged and turbulent political context.McLaren is a historian and librarian at York University in Toronto, and he writes in a very readable and engaging style. He does not presume much knowledge of Canadian Methodism, perhaps because the book was published in a series on book culture rather than a specialized religious history series. Thus, the story of Methodism in Upper Canada unfolds naturally as McLaren discusses his topic. His lens is broad, and he considers books and periodicals both as an important part of Methodist finances and as cultural objects with a deep connection to denominational identity. In so doing, McLaren offers fresh insight on book culture and Canadian religious historiography.McLaren’s argument proceeds chronologically, and the first chapter focuses on the establishment of the Methodist Book Concern in America and its early inroads into Upper Canada before the War of 1812. McLaren highlights how the Book Concern marketed its products as integral to the greater good of the Methodist Episcopal Church, thus establishing its wares as key markers of denominational loyalty. Methodism came to Upper Canada from the United States, and McLaren discusses the way early preachers such as Nathan Bangs and William Case sold books from their saddlebags, creating an insular denominational market in a context where books were difficult to acquire.In the second chapter, McLaren argues that American Methodist books and periodicals were decisive in maintaining Canadian ecclesiastical ties to the Methodist Episcopal Church after the War of 1812, despite strong political pressure to cut off all American influence. Chapter 3 centres on Egerton Ryerson, whose publishing activities (including the founding of the Christian Guardian newspaper in 1830) furthered his fight against the creation of a religious establishment in Upper Canada.The fourth chapter discusses the tightrope that Canadian Methodists walked as they began to assert ecclesiastical independence while remaining financially dependent on the sale of American Methodist books. Ongoing political pressure pushed the Canadians to pursue a shaky merger with the British Wesleyans in 1833. McLaren highlights the disadvantageous terms that the Wesleyans forced upon Canadian book sales, requiring them to purchase more expensive products from the London Book Room at a lower discount than they received from the Americans. The merger also undercut the ongoing Canadian petition for a financial settlement from the American Book Concern, discussed in the fifth chapter. The already weakened Canadian case went up in smoke when a February 1836 fire ravaged the Book Concern in New York. However, McLaren argues that the Canadians’ failed pursuit of a lump-sum settlement allowed them to reset their relationship with the Americans. The Canadians continued to receive steep discounts on the Book Concern’s publications, and they were able to free themselves of the pretence that their bookselling partnership was part of a shared denominational identity.This set the stage for the revitalization of the Canadian Book Room under John Ryerson and Anson Green’s stewardship in the 1840s, discussed in chapter 6. Much to the chagrin of the British Wesleyans, who dissolved their merger with the Canadians in 1840 (only to re-establish it seven years later), American books continued to dominate among Canadian Methodists, but they were now marketed for their low cost, rather than their status as markers of denominational loyalty. McLaren argues that this shift to seeing American books simply as commodities had far-reaching effects on Canadian publishing. The Canadian Methodist Book Room went on to become a major supplier of books to the broader reading public, and later established an important Canadian publisher that produced secular as well as religious literature. This distinctly Canadian path, McLaren notes, diverges from British and American Methodist publishing, both of which maintained a more strictly religious focus.McLaren’s book is based on careful scholarship and displays his extensive knowledge of Canadian Methodist history. His argument contrasts with that of Todd Webb, whose Transatlantic Methodists (2013) stressed the importance of British Wesleyan influence. McLaren’s focus on publishing points to an important stream of American Methodist influence, which endured long after official ecclesiastical ties to the Methodist Episcopal Church were severed. If he were writing today, one suspects that McLaren would discuss Egerton Ryerson’s influence on the development of the Indigenous residential school system. The issue is not directly relevant to McLaren’s argument, and the harmful residential school programme was not developed until the later nineteenth century. However, it would be helpful to address it on some level, given the ongoing public debate concerning Ryerson’s legacy, punctuated by the recent toppling and decapitation of his statue in Toronto.