4 ms·

> 150 years ago, the average person was illiterate Not true in the case of the US, which famously adopted a culture of universal literacy earlier than the rest

> 150 years ago, the average person was illiterate Not true in the case of the US, which famously adopted a culture of universal literacy earlier than the rest of the world. By the mid-19th century, literacy rates among whites were not much different than they are today. It is one of the bright spots of American history; they took literacy very seriously for complicated historical reasons. Their book consumption per capita was also the highest in the world by a very large margin back in those days, which lends evidence. It may or may not be relevant to your point, but at least in the US the idea that the average person was illiterate is ahistorical. They were the best read population in the world 150 years ago, and took some pride in that.

toasterlovin 2y ago
My read of history is that the puritans basically had universal literacy not that long after the printing press hit Europe. I believe America and Israel are unique among modern countries in being founded by people whose ancestors had achieved universal literacy in the 1500s.
- acjohnson55 2y ago
  I don't think that's particularly accurate for the US. Perhaps some of the Protestant settler communities were very literate, but I'm quite certain literacy would have been far lower by the time the country was actually founded, as slaves were imported and immigration from other communities picked up.
- jandrewrogers 2y ago
  Something like that. They believed it was important that everyone was literate enough to read and understand the Bible themselves, without it being filtered through a historically corrupt Church that engaged in selective representation and interpretation of the Bible for their own manipulative purposes. Basically, they wanted everyone to be able to go to the source to determine what was and wasn’t moral and Christian, instead of relying on assertions by self-interested third parties. Regardless of if they achieved their religious objectives, that earnest mission to make every human soul capable of reading the Bible for themselves produced the social good of a literate population capable of reading prodigious amounts of non-Bible content. It is an interesting consequence of how the religious wars in Europe spilled over into in the early Americas.
  - robertlagrant 2y ago
    Like most social breakthroughs, this was coincident with a major technological breakthrough: the invention of the printing press.
    - PittleyDunkin 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - dang 2y ago
        Personal attacks and/or religious flamewar will get you banned on HN. You can't post like this or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42712561 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42712561 here. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
  - throw4847285 2y ago
    I would argue the downside was that this perspective got secularized and morphed into the particularly American paranoid distrust of institutions that has caused at least as many problems as it has solved. In fact, I think the American obsession with homeschooling has those same Puritan roots.
    - ch4s3 2y ago
      I think you can more readily and correctly connect the American distrust of institutions first to the treatment of the colonists by the British Empire, and later to immigration of people fleeing authoritarian countries. One also cannot dismiss the distrust in authority among put upon minorities. The British Empire was no less brutal in its American colonies than in other places. The Puritans were always few in number and were demographically displaced by later immigration around the fishing industry in New England.
      - throw4847285 2y ago
- jkolio 2y ago
  This seems like a suspiciously bold statement. Both in the assertion that these groups had achieved universal literacy, and in that other groups hadn't been at least as literate. Japan comes to mind, wrt the latter. Literacy, if not universal, was also widespread across the Muslim world.
elcritch 2y ago
> and less connected to the world around them. Sounds like Americans were literate back then. I also suspect that most were _more_ connected to the world around them. Not the broader world, but the immediate world around them.
throwaway2037 2y ago
I was surprised to read this post. Thank you to share. From Wiki, I found: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States > By 1875, the U.S. literacy rate was approximately 80 percent. And: > By 1900, the situation had improved somewhat, but 44% of black people remained illiterate. And: > The gap in illiteracy between white and black adults continued to narrow through the 20th century, and in 1979, the rates were approximately equal.
mzi 2y ago
> By the mid-19th century, literacy rates among whites were not much different than they are today But the states does have among the lowest literacy rate in the west. Less than 80% was considered literate in 2024, compared to almost 99% in the EU (with a range from 94% to almost 100%).
- asimpletune 2y ago
  Success itself could be to blame for the recent reversion.
- dani__german 2y ago
  [flagged]
- ch4s3 2y ago
  Of the 20% of US adults who don't have a level of literacy necessary to be considered "literate", 40+% are from other countries with low levels of literacy.
- ToDougie 2y ago
  Wrong signal. The problem is demographic. Not being mean, just a fact that a lot of people are illiterate live in the US, but were not born and raised here.
happymellon 2y ago
No offence, but your comment is quite racist. > literacy rates among whites were not much different than they are today. It is one of the bright spots of American history; The rates only looked okay if you cut out at least 20% of thr population? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_racial_and_ethnic_demographics_of_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_racial_and_ethnic... Yeah, it was okay in New England but many states had laws preventing slave education.
- intuitionist 2y ago
  It’s racist to break out statistics along what was literally the single most determinative factor for life outcomes in antebellum America?
  - happymellon 2y ago
    No its racist to claim that literacy rates in the States were the highest in the world. As long as you ignore all those pesky non-whites.
    - quacked 2y ago
      Unless the original commenters sneak-edited their comment, they included the word "whites" specifically to not ignore the non-whites and point out that universal literacy was not "universal" in the early US.
      - happymellon 2y ago
        > > 150 years ago, the average person was illiterate > Not true in the case of the US, which famously adopted a culture of universal literacy earlier than the rest of the world. Later on the a small caviet about it being for whites only, but then goes back to ignoring it by saying > It may or may not be relevant to your point, but at least in the US the idea that the average person was illiterate is ahistorical. They were the best read population in the world 150 years ago, and took some pride in that. The average person had a 20% chance of being enslaved and illiterate. Of the remaining ~80% there was high rates, but there was absolutely not universal literacy when there were strict laws in place to prevent it.

toasterlovin 2y ago

My read of history is that the puritans basically had universal literacy not that long after the printing press hit Europe. I believe America and Israel are unique among modern countries in being founded by people whose ancestors had achieved universal literacy in the 1500s.

acjohnson55 2y ago
I don't think that's particularly accurate for the US. Perhaps some of the Protestant settler communities were very literate, but I'm quite certain literacy would have been far lower by the time the country was actually founded, as slaves were imported and immigration from other communities picked up.
jandrewrogers 2y ago
Something like that. They believed it was important that everyone was literate enough to read and understand the Bible themselves, without it being filtered through a historically corrupt Church that engaged in selective representation and interpretation of the Bible for their own manipulative purposes. Basically, they wanted everyone to be able to go to the source to determine what was and wasn’t moral and Christian, instead of relying on assertions by self-interested third parties. Regardless of if they achieved their religious objectives, that earnest mission to make every human soul capable of reading the Bible for themselves produced the social good of a literate population capable of reading prodigious amounts of non-Bible content. It is an interesting consequence of how the religious wars in Europe spilled over into in the early Americas.
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  Like most social breakthroughs, this was coincident with a major technological breakthrough: the invention of the printing press.
  - PittleyDunkin 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - dang 2y ago
      Personal attacks and/or religious flamewar will get you banned on HN. You can't post like this or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42712561 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42712561 here. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
- throw4847285 2y ago
  I would argue the downside was that this perspective got secularized and morphed into the particularly American paranoid distrust of institutions that has caused at least as many problems as it has solved. In fact, I think the American obsession with homeschooling has those same Puritan roots.
  - ch4s3 2y ago
    I think you can more readily and correctly connect the American distrust of institutions first to the treatment of the colonists by the British Empire, and later to immigration of people fleeing authoritarian countries. One also cannot dismiss the distrust in authority among put upon minorities. The British Empire was no less brutal in its American colonies than in other places. The Puritans were always few in number and were demographically displaced by later immigration around the fishing industry in New England.
    - throw4847285 2y ago
jkolio 2y ago
This seems like a suspiciously bold statement. Both in the assertion that these groups had achieved universal literacy, and in that other groups hadn't been at least as literate. Japan comes to mind, wrt the latter. Literacy, if not universal, was also widespread across the Muslim world.

elcritch 2y ago

> and less connected to the world around them. Sounds like Americans were literate back then. I also suspect that most were _more_ connected to the world around them. Not the broader world, but the immediate world around them.

throwaway2037 2y ago

I was surprised to read this post. Thank you to share. From Wiki, I found: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States > By 1875, the U.S. literacy rate was approximately 80 percent. And: > By 1900, the situation had improved somewhat, but 44% of black people remained illiterate. And: > The gap in illiteracy between white and black adults continued to narrow through the 20th century, and in 1979, the rates were approximately equal.

mzi 2y ago

> By the mid-19th century, literacy rates among whites were not much different than they are today But the states does have among the lowest literacy rate in the west. Less than 80% was considered literate in 2024, compared to almost 99% in the EU (with a range from 94% to almost 100%).

asimpletune 2y ago
Success itself could be to blame for the recent reversion.
dani__german 2y ago
[flagged]
ch4s3 2y ago
Of the 20% of US adults who don't have a level of literacy necessary to be considered "literate", 40+% are from other countries with low levels of literacy.
ToDougie 2y ago
Wrong signal. The problem is demographic. Not being mean, just a fact that a lot of people are illiterate live in the US, but were not born and raised here.

happymellon 2y ago

No offence, but your comment is quite racist. > literacy rates among whites were not much different than they are today. It is one of the bright spots of American history; The rates only looked okay if you cut out at least 20% of thr population? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_racial_and_ethnic_demographics_of_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_racial_and_ethnic... Yeah, it was okay in New England but many states had laws preventing slave education.

intuitionist 2y ago
It’s racist to break out statistics along what was literally the single most determinative factor for life outcomes in antebellum America?
- happymellon 2y ago
  No its racist to claim that literacy rates in the States were the highest in the world. As long as you ignore all those pesky non-whites.
  - quacked 2y ago
    Unless the original commenters sneak-edited their comment, they included the word "whites" specifically to not ignore the non-whites and point out that universal literacy was not "universal" in the early US.
    - happymellon 2y ago
      > > 150 years ago, the average person was illiterate > Not true in the case of the US, which famously adopted a culture of universal literacy earlier than the rest of the world. Later on the a small caviet about it being for whites only, but then goes back to ignoring it by saying > It may or may not be relevant to your point, but at least in the US the idea that the average person was illiterate is ahistorical. They were the best read population in the world 150 years ago, and took some pride in that. The average person had a 20% chance of being enslaved and illiterate. Of the remaining ~80% there was high rates, but there was absolutely not universal literacy when there were strict laws in place to prevent it.