1!The Rise of Literacy and the Popular Press !History of Information 103!Geoff Nunberg!March 12, 2009!1!where we are!2!week!1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 !2009!1980!1950!1900!1800!1700!1600!1200!600!400!0!500!3000!5000!30,000!50,000!Making the modern world!Itinerary: 3/12!The emergence of mass communications: creating supply and demand !The historical rise of literacy!The two sides of literacy: empowerment and social control!The emergence of "literacy" as a social good!Creating the institutions of literacy: schools and libraries!The creation of the popular press:!sensationalism, muckracking, "news," and "objectivity" !3!4!Literacy: The Original "Technology Adoption"!Complicating the notion of "literacy rates." Literacy varies according to:!1. Levels of individual skill. !Cf Stone's five levels of literacy in pre-industrial Britain!Ability to sign name!Some reading, writing, use of numbers!Account keeping & preparation for professions!Some education in classics!University education!Historians tend to measure literacy as simple "alphabetism" -- why? !5!Literacy: The Original "Technology Adoption"!Complicating the notion of "literacy rates." Literacy varies according to:!2. Range of social functions requiring literacy: What do people need literacy for? !"Functional literacy” defined in UNESCO report of 1956: “A person is functionally literate when he has acquired the knowledge and skills in reading and writing which enable him to engage in all those activities in which literacy is normally assumed in his culture or group”!6!“!"Functional Literacy”!What does "functional literacy" entail in modern America?!How did you use your literacy today?!7!“!"Functional Literacy”!How did you use your literacy today?!8!“!"Functional Literacy”!What does "functional literacy" entail in modern America?!9!Individual and Group Literacy!Complicating the notion of "literacy rates."!3. Is literacy individual or group achievement?!Cf role of public readers, letter writers, etc.!10!Group Literacy in the Modern World!Factors influencing the growth of literacy (Stone)!Social stratification!Job opportunity!Religion!Social control!Demographic patterns!Economic organization!Political institutions!11!12!Social and Religious Prerequisites for literacy!Growth in literacy!Protestant > Catholic, North > South!Literacy rates highest in Scotland, Sweden, New England, Wales… !But there is also a relatively high literacy rate in Catholic areas of Northern Europe (Bavaria, Rhineland), which tended to be wealthier with more commercial development and more towns.!"une France double"!13!Social Prerequisites for Literacy, 2!Growth of literacy!! Urban > rural"! Men > women!14!Literacy and Education!Education should be a vehicle for producing literate society per societal requirements…!But often fails to achieve these goals for historical, symbolic, class reasons!15!Literacy and Social Control!Conflicting views of literacy:!Instrument of increased political consciousness, which can instill "dangerous ideas"!Too much education "would make everyone unfit to follow the plough." Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, 1857!"Educate first, agitate afterwards. Ignorance, superstition, and timerity [timorousness] are the weapons which our oppressors have used most effectively in the past. "-- Palladium of Labor, 1873!Cf Paulo Freire on literacy as the “pedagogy of the oppressed” and a means for disrupting the “culture of silence.!16!Seditious Uses of Literacy in the Renaissance… and now!The "talking statue" in the Piazza del Pasquino, Rome, with posted pasquili ("pasquinades")!17!Rise of the Radical Press!William Cobbett's Political Register in Britain achieves 44,000 weekly circulation in 1816 (as pamphlet, to avoid 4d. newspaper tax). !1819: Richard Carlile's Republican achieves greater circulation than the Times after Carlile is imprisoned for sedition.!Cobbett!18!"Group" Literacy and Political Consciousness!Cf lectores in Cuban cigar factories:!Followed creation of cigar-makers' union in 1857; lector paid for by workers (85% illiteracy rate in Cuba at the time)!Readings included novels & histories, also newspapers (esp. La Aurora, political paper est. for cigar makers)!1866: Political Governor of Cuba issues edict making it illegal "to distract the workers of the tobacco shows…. with the reading of books and newspapers, or with discussions foreign to the work in which they are engaged."!Lector in "Key West, 1920's!The Lone R!"Reading will help to mend people's morals, but writing is not necessary." Jonas Hanway!"It is not proposed that the children of the poor be taught to write and cypher." Anglican National Society for fostering education.!19!The Spelling Bee: !the oral culture of literacy!"Perhaps [the teaching of orthography] is best done by Pairing the Scholars, two of those nearest equal in their Spelling to be put together; let these strive for victory each propounding ten words each day for the other to be spelt. He that spells truly most of the other's Words; he that is Victor most Days in a Month, to btain a prize, a pretty neat Book of some Kind useful in their future Studies."!B. Franklin, 1751!20!The Spelling Bee: !the oral culture of literacy!Popularity of the spelling bee: !"Thar's a new game down in Frisco, that ez far ez I can see!Beats euchre, poker, and van-toon, they calls the "Spellin' Bee.'" !…O little kids, my pretty kids, down on your knees and pray!!You’ve got your eddication in a peaceful sort of way;!And bear in mind thar may be sharps ez slings their spellin’ square,!But likewise slings their bowie-knives without a thought or care.!You wants to know the rest, my dears? Thet’s all! In me you see!The only gent that lived to tell about the Spellin’ Bee!"!!! --Bret Harte, "The Spelling Bee at Angels"!1875: 4000 attend spelling bee at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. !21!The Spelling Bee: !the oral culture of literacy!"Spelling was my forte, as is natural for a child of tenacious memory and no judgment." Horace Greeley, of his childhood around 1820!Winning words from Scripps National Spelling Bee in decade following 1925: promiscuous, intelligible, fracas, gladiolus, knack. !Winning words in recent Bees: xanthosis, vivisepulture, euonym, opsimath, succedaneum, and prospicience.!22!The "dangers" of black literacy!.Very soon after I went to live with Mr. and Mrs. "Auld, she very kindly commenced to teach me the