The books displayed on the second floor of the Central Library for the month of July explore two different themes- Independence Day and Graphic Novels in Libraries Month. Independence Day commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.  While this established the United States of America as an independent country, the Revolutionary War against Britain would not end until 1783 when the Treaty of Paris was signed.

Graphic Novels in Libraries Month was established in 2019 by Booklist, a trade magazine for librarians published by the American Library Association. Reading graphic novels has multiple benefits and many schools now incorporate graphic novels into their literacy curriculums. You can use online database resources provided by UTA to dive even further into these topics. As always, contact your subject librarian for help using these resources or for other research support. 

No Taxation Without Representation

The American Revolutionary War resulted from years of disputes over taxes levied by the British monarchy.  Debates over whether the colonists were justified in their feelings and actions raged in Great Britain’s periodicals. Browse through the British Periodicals Collection (1681-1939) and you can find some of these highly intellectual, and occasionally pedantic, arguments. In A Letter to Doctor Tucker, on his Proposal of a Separation between Great Britain and her American Colonies the author takes offense at the word “consider,” and makes sure that Tucker knows it. “We hope the Author will now add one other consideration to the foregoing number, and then we shall never have the trouble of considering any more of his inconsiderable productions.” 

Back in the American colonies, upper- and middle-class women signed public boycott agreements against English imports such as tea and cloth to avoid paying taxes. The database Women and Social Movements in the United States includes the work How Did the Ladies Association of Philadelphia Shape New Forms of Women’s Activism during the American Revolution, 1780-1781? written by Gregory Duffy and Kathryn Kish Sklar. The authors include excerpts from primary documents including one of those public boycotts. It’s interesting to note that an exception was made when it came to tea. The women agree that they “will totally abstain from the Use of that Article, (Sickness excepted) not only in our respective Families, but that we will absolutely refuse it, if it should be offered to us upon any Occasion whatsoever.” This implies that tea was either thought to have medicinal properties or that depriving a sick person the small comfort of a hot cup of tea was one step too far even in a revolution.

The Rise of American Writing

Several of the resources provided by UTA work together to provide a fuller picture of this time in American history. In his scholarly article Inventing an American Public: Thomas Paine, the “Pennsylvania Magazine,” and American Revolutionary Discourse, author Edward Larkin argues that Paine’s experience as a magazine editor and essayist led to his later success as a political writer. Paine became wildly famous for his 1776 pamphlet Common Sense, which is credited with inspiring the fight for American independence, but he first partnered with Robert Aitken to develop a magazine to provide the public with original “American” writing instead of just reprints of British essays and poetry. Larkin describes how Paine sometimes hid political discourse in his satirical or comedic writings included in the magazine. You can look for these hidden messages yourself in American Periodicals (1740-1940). For example, the July 1776 issue of The Pennsylvania Magazine includes an article warning ladies that wearing pins and wires in their bonnets effectively turns them into human lightning rods. Was this a serious warning, a comedic essay, or disguised political commentary?

The Power of Visual Storytelling 

As Thomas Paine demonstrated so long ago, discussion of serious topics can happen anywhere. In the last few decades, comic and graphic novel creators have increasingly used “sequential art” to shed light on many important topics- sometimes unintentionally.

In the database Disability in the Modern World search for the title Death, Disability, and the Superhero: The Silver Age and Beyond. Author Jose Alaniz examines how superhero stories might be seen as allegories for disability. Chapter three discusses the still popular character Daredevil, who is blind, and the tensions between his bumbling cover identity that reaffirms “cultural expectations about the defenselessness of blind people” and his extraordinarily capable superhero identity. Alaniz and others note that “superhero stories have also long been described as ‘passing narratives’…the act of successfully presenting oneself as something one is not.” Some readers with disabilities find these interpretations problematic while others find them validating. Looking at comics and graphic novels through a scholarly lens has made many people realize that visual storytelling has value beyond entertainment. 

Graphic Novels for Everyone

Public libraries often have large graphic novel collections for everyone from elementary school to adults. Making graphic novels accessible for readers at a public library can be an organizational challenge. Do you group them by main character since some series have many different authors and artists? Do you put them in order by author since some writers and artists have name recognition that goes beyond the characters they created? Do you use the call numbers assigned by the Dewey Decimal or Library of Congress classification systems? What about arranging them by publisher like many retail stores do? In Gale OneFile: Pop Culture Studies you can find articles from Booklist including this one from 2022 and this one from 2019 discussing this small detail that makes a big difference for library patrons. Both authors argue that the best system is the one that works for both patrons and the library, whether it follows traditional library methods of shelf organization or not. 

Even scholars want an easy way to study and enjoy their favorite graphic works. The database Underground and Independent Comics, Comix, and Graphic Novels allows you to browse by series, character, genre, people, publisher, and subject. In the Comic Book History of Comics by Fred Van Lente, you can learn all about the development of this unique storytelling format including the rise of graphic novels in the chapter “It Rhymes with Traffic Hovel.” Jewish-American artist Will Eisner is often credited with creating the graphic novel format. Van Lente proposes an alternate origin of both comic strips and graphic novels in the works of Swiss and Flemish artists published decades before Eisner’s works. Regardless of who invented the long form comic, it is generally agreed that Eisner popularized the term “graphic novel” with his 1978 work A Contract with God. Several books by and about Eisner are available at UTA libraries along with many other graphic novels. We hope you will take some time this summer to enjoy a graphic novel that speaks to your interests.

The cover photograph for this post is from the UTA Libraries Special Collections Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection. It depicts 4-year-old Beverly Hilton sitting with a comic book in her lap next to Private First Class Hough W. Ross.  Hilton was a war refugee from England and met the American soldier during an event at the Fort Worth Service Men’s Center.  The photo is dated September 6, 1943.  Special collections identifier: AR406-6-282