The historical consensus is that between 1840 and 1860, one quarter to one third of free white people in the state could neither read nor write. There, the problems begin. Historians steeped in statistical methods have declared that census reporting on illiteracy (first in 1840) is completely unreliable. Not that one in four North Carolinians could not read is wildly inaccurate, but the reliable specificity of any estimate is questionable.
One trend, however, is apparent. After the funding of public common schools in the mid-1840s, the rate of illiteracy noticeably dropped.
More important questions about illiteracy arise beyond numbers. What did the ability to read and write indicate about a person’s value in society? To what extent did written culture advance and oral culture retreat, if at all, during this period? When a person strove to read and write, to what use did they intend to employ their skill? To make their way in the commercial world? To improve their moral selves by wide reading and reflection? To record mundane observations about the weather? To carve out a place as virtuous citizens by the mastery of the higher elements of language?
The use to which one might apply literacy is largely determined on an individual basis, but I think broad assumptions might be in order. Farmers and rural people used reading and writing largely to record mundane events and to improve their souls through study of the Bible and tracts and written reflection on their anxieties. In fact, I think men and women of all statuses used reading and writing for the later purpose. Middling folks (sounds so folkloric, but that’s not what I’m trying) did read to improve morals and advance status as virtious members of society. Elite people read and wrote for many of these reasons, but also to master the vocabulary of politics and command. Merchants, urban people, professionals, teachers, and many others understood the value of numeracy and the ability to speak the language of the ledger book.
Despite the pioneering efforts of North Carolinians to establish public schools, the state had the highest rate of illiteracy in the south. But (and you could probably disagree on this) I’m not getting too caught up on those numbers because what is apparent that the culture of literacy had overswept the state in the early nineteenth century. Missionaries and visitors thought otherwise; frequent refrains that vast swaths of North Carolina lacked books in general are the most widely quoted. (Missionaries tended to conclude so when they didn’t witness the religiosity of their particular denomination; and Frederick Law Olmstead, well…. issues. Plus, complaints about Antimisson Baptists get all the attention because they’re funny, and they’re available.) But all kinds of literature—secular and religious, fiction and non-fiction, commercial and poetic—could be found in the remotest of places despite the claim otherwise. (Going to have to read my dissertation for that evidence.)
Since I’m concerning myself with “ordinary people,” it must be asked; did this literate culture—and the aspirations it nurtured—seep below the elite classes? Does a farmer who could write down his name represent a person who might tackle The Prince of the House of David just for aesthetic purposes? I don’t know. Probably some, probably not others. Just read Strong Thomasson’s complaints about attendance at his schools and we can envision a population that just didn’t care about reading and writing. At least that’s what he thought. But I generally think that this spirit of improvement through literacy did take hold among yeoman ranks and perhaps some poor people. At least, those poor people had access to it, even if most of them (or not) preferred to learn through hearing and talking, or rejected literate culture altogether. (What use did Edward Isham have for a tract? None, likely, but his less-murderous but equally riotous countryman William T. Prestwood devoured astronomical and anatomy books.)
My diarists? Yes, Caroline and Strong are clearly part of this literate culture. Does that make them representative, or exceptional? Well, see the previous paragraph. They were in the thick of it. John Flintoff? Obviously he could read and write, but he did not have the expansive literary imagination that Caroline and Strong possessed.
How’s that for avoiding the question?
I looked at Beth Schweiger’s recent article in the JER on grammar, and Keith Whitescarver’s dissertation on literacy and education in NC, for this.
Ok, on to contemplate the middle class.
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