Review of Christiane Schwab’s “Sailors, Book Hawkers, and Bricklayer’s Laborers: Social Types and the Production of Social Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Periodical Literature.”

In this article, Christiane Schwab investigates the written sketches prominent in European periodicals of the 1830s and '40s.Unlike "macro-level approaches" of early sociologists such as Henri de Saint-Simon (1760-1825) and Auguste Comte (1798-1857) these focused on life's minutiae (404).Describing either the role-defined "species" exemplified by her title, or "flesh-and-blood" examples, Schwab argues that these sketches differed from traditional allegorical character types by gesturing to "larger social dynamics', establishing "the modern obsession with [] human classification" (405-409).Sketches helped a growing periodical readership, the result of migration, technological change, reduced censorship, and increased literacy rates, "classify and conceive of social complexity and change" (408).They served their audience's fascination with social observation, while honing the craft of Dickens, Balzac, and others.In exploring the relationship between nineteenth-century sketches and sociology, the article builds on the work of Schwab and others working on the Dissecting Society project, which investigates broader connections between nineteenth-century media and sociology.Given the abundance of material, Schwab focuses on two hundred texts from two multi-authored sketch serials: the English Heads of the People (1840-1), and French Les Franais peints par eux-mmes (1840-2).She takes a threefold approach, zooming out from the sketch's "narrative forms and rhetoric", to engage with the two models they employed ("species" descriptions and "flesh and blood" types), before suggesting their wider contribution to sociology (409).Schwab begins by analysing the sketch "L'diteur" by lias Regnault, which appeared in the fourth volume of Les Franais.The sketch describes various character types associated with the French book trade, including "the mobile book vendor" and "modern editor" (410-2).Focusing on the sketch's language, Schwab describes how Regnault's blend of "anecdotes, ethnographic descriptions [], physiognomic depictions, and political comments" creates a sketch covering "the French literary market on [] a local and trans-local level" (412-3).Limited space prevents Schwab from including additional examples, meaning we must take her at her word that this blending was the norm.However, Schwab successfully convinces us that "L'diteur" shows how "a variety of [] perspectives" can explore, and provide entertaining analysis of, "a transforming realm of society" (412).Regnault's sketch uses both the "species" and "flesh-and-blood" models in its portrayal of different editor types and named book trader, Dumolard.To explore the former of these models, Schwab switches her attention to "The Farmer" from Heads of the People.Unlike "L'diteur", which jumps from subtype to subtype, this sketch describes the wealth, education, and politics of each type of farmer in granular detail.However, as before, Schwab rapidly moves to the "flesh-and-blood" model without further exemplification.Here, she uses "L'Employ", by Paul Duval, which begins by describing various "species" of civil servant.The sketch then introduces a specific