Breaking Bread, Not Bones: Printers' Festivals and Professionalism in Antebellum America.

This research examines a little-studied facet of nineteenth-century journalism, the Printers' Festival or Franklin Dinner, finding in the discourse of the many toasts lauding the craft evidence of attempts to turn an artisanal craft into a profession. The research argues that these feasts were sites of production for values and practices that helped create group identity and culture that led to formal press associations by the middle of the century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]