The Origins of a Free Press in Prerevolutionary ... - Web Publishing

on legal documents, but that technique is only partly successful in determining who
could write. It tells us little about who could read, as reading is a type of literacy
entirely separate from writing. As Eisenstein suggested, “It is wise to sidestep
problems associated with literacy rates whenever possible since inadequate data and
uncertain criteria make all general statements suspect. Hard evidence for the
interval before the eighteenth century is not only scarce, it tells us only about
learning to write rather than learning to read—let alone learning by reading.” 65 The
same problems exist in the eighteenth-century British-American colonies, where
the skills of reading and writing were taught independently. Children were often
taught to read, and then sometimes—but not always—were taught to write later. 66
The typical measurement by modern historians is made by looking at who signed
court records, a technique that tells us more about writing than it does about
reading, and one that is replete with inherent bias. 67
While literacy in England was high compared to continental Europe,
literacy in New England is thought to have been even higher. British-American
colonists were more literate at the beginning of the eighteenth century than any
European population, with the possible exception of the Scots. 68 Literacy in the
Chesapeake colonies is estimated to have been somewhat lower than that in both
England and New England. 69 One study of records puts men’s literacy at about 65
65 Eisenstein, Agent of Change, 414.
66 Hall, Cultures of Print, 124-125, notes that “literacy” was relative to the specific situation,
and some individuals who could read and write at home, might sign a court document with an
“X,” thus being counted as illiterate in historical estimates. The word “literacy” can be confusing,
as it generally intertwines the ability to read and write, which are separate skills. While some
estimates of writing literacy have been made, numbers for reading literacy are more difficult to
assess. (See Hall, Cultures of Print, 79-96.) The relationship between printing and literacy is also
problematic, with some theorizing printing as the cause of rising literacy, see Winton, “Richard
Steele, Journalist—and Journalism,” 21-23.
67 See Chapter 5 on women and literacy specifically.
68 Richard Brown, Knowledge is Power: The Diffusion of Information in Early America, 1700-
1865, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 11-12.
35