Mail-Order Culture and Its Critics

In 1956, a nearly 1200-page typed transcript of oral history interviews conducted with the officials of the Book-of-the-Month Club was deposited in the Oral History Research Office of Columbia University. The editors of the transcripts noted in their introduction that the project had been undertaken upon a single premise. “The premise,” they observed, “is that the Book-of-the-Month Club has had, and in all likelihood will continue to have, a very considerable impact upon the cultural life of the American people of the Twentieth Century.” ¹ They continued, “we leave it to others to evaluate that impact, for our function is not to interpret material but simply to collect what appears to be worth collecting. We do submit that such an impact exists, and that its existence is incontestable.”