Why be illiterate?

[Silvana Siddali]

Re: Why be illiterate?

I wanted to add: there's no hard statistical evidence for African American (free or enslaved) literacy. Some educational historians believe that black literacy rates rose by more than 400 percent after the Civil War, but that's based on the assumption that only about ten percent of slaves, and about fifty percent of free black people, were able to read and write. Considering that it was illegal in most slave-owning states to teach slaves to read & write, however, it's impossible to know with certainty.

[lrbrightwell]

Re: Why be illiterate?

I have a copy my GGrandfather's confederate parole and military records along with his brother (Josiah and James Brightwell). Neither could read or write. Both were farmers and 21 when they enlisted in Capt Paris' Battery (Staunton Hill Virginia Artillery). Josiah was born in 1842. My grandfather who was born in 1891 and died in 1950 could not read or write because all records(WWI and WWII draft restration) have an"X" in the signature with an annotation of his mark on them. Being not able to read or write may not have been important at the time to small Virginia farmers. My own father only went to the 8th grade. (1930's and 40's) He said that he had to quit to help with the farm. They all lived on the same area of Charlotte County, VA. In fact I was born about a mile from where they all grew up. I believe their wives were the literate ones of the family.
Roger Brightwell, 1st Neb Vol Inf

[Army30th]

Re: Why be illiterate?

My experiences come from two instances of Civil War period ancestry, and the others from the 1st half of the 20th century. My GG grandfather who was paroled from Point Lookout, MD could write his name, I have his oath of allegiance. There are no other marks present except the signature and the date. My other GG grandfather who finished his service as a prison guard at Salisbury, NC could also write his name. I have copies of pay vouchers that he signed. No marks, just like the other document mentioned before. Both of these men were originally from Wilkes County North Carolina, born in 1834 and 1835.

Skip ahead to the 20th century. My Grandfather on my mother's side, born 1904, could not read or write but he could do basic math (in his head) and count money. He could not recognize his own name, even if it was shown to him. Never attended school. He worked as a logger, bootlegger, and lastly at American Scientific building table tops for laboratory furniture. His wife could read but not his second child. She was never in school long enough to learn (always had to skip to help raise the other kids when they were born), and was also deaf. 7 of the other 8 kids have degrees (some double majors) and most are teachers. This man was also from Wilkes County.

My grandfather on my father's side, born 1911, also never attended school. He learned to read and write from his wife who had a sixth grade education. However, he was an anomaly. He had the innate ability to figure board feet from standing timber, do intricate mathematical computations (but could not explain to you how or why), build houses (including his own), do automotive machine work, and worked every day of his adult life in at least two jobs. He was from Cabarrus County and his wife from Wilkes County.

I know quite a few people would be first to quickly debunk "wikipedia" as a reference, but the article on History of Education in the United States seems to fall right in line with the ideas presented in this forum: A huge educational disparity between Northern and Southern states; learning left to the family, church, community and apprenticeship model; educational opportunities afforded to one's social stature.

[JimKindred]

Re: Why be illiterate?

Folks,

This is a good topic of discussion but please keep the examples within or prior to the Civil War period. Thanks

[Chip]

Re: Why be illiterate?

There are some excellent sources on the history of literacy out there, but most of them examine New England -- which of course is not representative (since there was so much more emphasis on education in the NE states than in most other parts of the country.)

"In 1850, Georgia had 318 teachers and 9,059 pupils. During this time period, only eight states in thirty-one had more students than Georgia."
Oscar H. Joiner, A History of Public Education in Georgia 1734-1976 (Columbia, South Carolina: The R. L. Bryan Co., 1979), p. 19

The assumption that literacy was much more of a rarity in the South is more of a subjective perspective than one backed up by historical data.

Also, in the area of Georgia where I currently live, the house slave population in general was very literate.

[Hank Trent]

Re: Why be illiterate?

"In 1850, Georgia had 318 teachers and 9,059 pupils. During this time period, only eight states in thirty-one had more students than Georgia."
Oscar H. Joiner, A History of Public Education in Georgia 1734-1976 (Columbia, South Carolina: The R. L. Bryan Co., 1979), p. 19

The assumption that literacy was much more of a rarity in the South is more of a subjective perspective than one backed up by historical data.

I think it's backed up pretty well by historical data.

Here's some data from the 1840 census, which discusses the ratios, rather than absolute numbers, from Progress of the United States in Population and Wealth in Fifty Years, 1855, at http://books.google.com/books?id=aGsoAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA145

The ratios show a notably higher illiteracy rate in Georgia and the south in general, compared to New England, the middle states and the "northwest" (what we'd call the eastern midwest). The numbers in the table are expressed as "1 out of ..." so for example, 1 out of 169.9 white people were illiterate in New England, while one out of 11.4 white people were illiterate in the south and 1 out of 13.2 were illiterate in Georgia.

In other words, according to the census, the percentage of illiterate people was 10 times higher in Georgia and the south, than in New England in 1840.

It's interesting that the number of students in college was suprisingly steady across the regions, with Georgia at 1/655, close to the average of 1/874. However, the southern states fared most poorly in primary school attendance, with Georgia at 1/26.2, pretty close to the southern average of 1/24.9, compared to an overall average of 1/7.69 and a New England average of 1/3.8.

The report suggests the following explanation:

These diversities are attributable to several causes, but principally to the difference in density of numbers, and in the proportion of town population. In a thinly-people country, it is very difficult for a poor man to obtain schooling for his children, either by his own means, or by any means that the State is likely to provide, but where the population is dense, and especially in towns, it is quite practicable to give to every child the rudiments of educaiton, without onerously taxing the community. This is almost literally true in all the New England States and New York, and is said to be the case in the kingdom of Prussia. It is true that, in the Northwestern States, and particularly those which are exempt from slaves, the number of their elementary schools is much greater than that of the Southern or Southwestern States, although their population is not much more dense; but, besides that, the settlers of those States, who were mostly from New England or New York, brought with them a deep sense of the value and importance of the schools for the people, they were better able to provide such schools, in consequence of their making their settlements, as had been done in their parent States, in townships and villages.

The 1850 figures on page 33 point up an odd omission in the Joiner book's choice of data. Here's a link to the page:

http://books.google.com/books?id=aGsoAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA33

The 1850 figures match the number of pupils cited by the Joiner book, 9,059. However, that's only the number of pupils in academies, not the total. The pupils in primary schools, where students learn to read and write, far outnumbered the pupils in academies.

There were 32,705 pupils attending primary schools in Georgia in 1850. However, that number is dwarfed by many other states, which had pupils well into the hundreds of thousands.

Illiteracy is also noted in the 1850 data. Georgia had more illiterate people than primary school pupils, while the New England states had 10 times as many pupils as illiterates.

I think the census data pretty well supports a significantly higher illiteracy rate and lower education rate in both Georgia and the south.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[Chip]

Re: Why be illiterate?

Hank,

Most southern scholars do not consider census records as being valid when accounting for the specific characteristics of the social, economic, educational, and tenancy issues of the antebellum period in the southern states.

The white yeoman class had a much better literacy rate than the census records would indicate. The numbers of those who were considered to be poor whites simply does not match up with the ratios that are shown on any of the census records, including the 1860 sampling. (Frederick A. Bode and Donald E. Ginter put the number at less than 5% of the population.)

[ElizabethClark]

Re: Why be illiterate?

May I ask why census records are not considered valid for that region and that era?

[Hank Trent]

Re: Why be illiterate?

Most southern scholars do not consider census records as being valid when accounting for the specific characteristics of the social, economic, educational, and tenancy issues of the antebellum period in the southern states.

The white yeoman class had a much better literacy rate than the census records would indicate. The numbers of those who were considered to be poor whites simply does not match up with the ratios that are shown on any of the census records, including the 1860 sampling. (Frederick A. Bode and Donald E. Ginter put the number at less than 5% of the population.)

But you used a statistic apparently taken from the same source of records that I did, based on census-like polls compiled at the same time as the census. Unfortunately, the author interpreted it wrong to draw a faulty conclusion, since he missed the fact that the number was only students at academies, a small subset, and he failed to include students at primary schools, who made up the majority. So his conclusion "During this time period, only eight states in thirty-one had more students than Georgia," is incorrect.

But apparently the statistic was good enough to rely on when it seemed to support your point.

So, now that the conclusion from that statistic has been corrected, to show that Georgia was in fact far down in the number of students, why is it suddenly not good enough to be reliable?

Could you provide the primary sources that Bode and Ginter used and how they interpreted them? As we can see, it doesn't hurt to double-check secondary sources back to their origin. :)

Edited to add: I just realized, are you saying that Bode and Ginter put the illiteracy percentage at 5% for all southerners, rich and poor, or at 5% for the poor whites only? Let's say it's 5% for poor whites only, and let's say, hypothetically, that every single rich white in the south could read and write, and that rich whites made up 60% of the population. That would mean that out of every 100 southerners, you'd have 40 poor whites, 2 of whom were illiterate, for a 2 percent illiteracy rate. That's about as generously as I can interpret the claim.

That's still over three times the illiteracy rate in the New England states, according to the book I linked in the previous post. So it would still bear out the premise that illiteracy was higher in the south than the north.

If the 5% figure is for southerners overall, rich and poor, that's over eight times the illiteracy rate in the New England states.

So even if the 5% figure is correct, you'd still need to show that the northern census records were wrong in the opposite direction, reporting illiteracy too low in the north while reporting it too high in the south.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[Chip]

Re: Why be illiterate?

The census records stood as a fairly accurate reflection of all classes of southerners until Frank L. Owensly started to observe conflicting information while he was conducting research for, "Plain Folk of the Old South," during the late 1940s. As he delved into various records on the county level, he noticed intact archived correspondence and legal documents associated with many yeoman class familes that directly conflicted with census records on a massive scale.

Bode and Ginter are just a couple of many researchers who have altered their statistical data to reflect the realistic plight of the yeoman class between 1830 and 1860 in regards to tennancy.
E.N. Boney in, "Southerners All," figuratively contends that, "...they understood the need for literacy in the fluid, competitive environment; so when given half a chance, they mastered the basics..."

The statistic that I quoted was at the only level at which any semblence of accuracy could be ascertained as it is associated with relatively reliable records.
In contrast, I have absolutrely no confidence in the 1 to 169 literacy rate that was quoted in terms of public education in the NE. No country or region in the world has ever attained that high of a percentage of literacy in real life terms.

Bode and Ginter studied the migration patterns of whites living in Georgia all the way up until the early 1880's, or what is commonly considered to be the conclusion of the recontruction era.

Researching the migration of those southerners who settled in southern Illinois prior to the Civil War, there is an observable contrast between much of the initial census information while living in Tennessee, Virginia and Kentucky in comparison to the information listed while living in Illinois. (Bell I. Wiley, personal notes, Emory University archives) Bell I. Wiley was fascinated by the fact that well over 30,000 men from the southern part of Illinois joined the Confederate armies.

[malachi]

Re: Why be illiterate?

Having been raised in the deep south, i have known people my whole life who were if not totally illiterate, functionally so. the bottom line is that most of them stayed home to help with the family farms out of the need to keep food on the table. with the exception of some modern medicines, my father who is now 87 grew up exactly like what i would think would be the majority of confederate soldiers. no electricity, no screens in windows, well digging, hog killing, mule plowing, cotton picking and most of the time, poor and hungry. he knew of many such cases of illiteracy as a boy, though he got through college with the g.i. bill. As a teacher, and as the son of teachers, i know that once a child is past a certain age, learning to read becomes exponentially harder. little brains are big sponges. Having tried to teach adults to read, it is more difficult to me than teaching smaller children. I can see farm families simply not seeing the worth of literacy at that time. i don't condon it but i do understand it. it made no real difference in their lives. at least not big enough of one to account for the working time they might be missing. just a thought!
john gregory tucker
aside from reading the bible, most would have no immediate need for education on the farm.

[Busterbuttonboy]

Re: Why be illiterate?

Mr J Tucker,
Mr Kindred already said once,"This is a good topic of discussion but please keep the examples within or prior to the Civil War period. Thanks"

Furthermore, "aside from reading the bible, most would have no immediate need for education on the farm." Unless you are purely subsistence farming - which is almost impossible and 100% impractical to do post 1608 on this Continent then out of necessity you are learning to read, write and do arithmetic (however limited) pertinent to selling your crops. The facts of life post 1608 dictate, and have been continually reinforced by scholars, historiographical trends and practicality that you are reliant to some degree if not almost completely by imported or ready made goods. That being said, needing to understand even at a basic level the factors, ratios and purchasing trends to trade or sell your goods to acquire others is a fact of life. This is one reason we see increasing levels of education places upon apprentices from 1610 on through the end of the American Civil War.

[Emmanuel Dabney]

Re: Why be illiterate?

Just to reinforce again what Drew cites from my fellow moderator, Jim Kindred...

This forum is about the Civil War era we are willing to stretch that in some cases back to the founding documents of America when necessary in research and debate and willing at times to go through Reconstruction era (late 19th century). However, in terms of this particular topic Beth, Liz and myself as civilian forum moderators would like to stick to a period of circa 1820-1865. Incidents of grandparents and great-grandparents born and living in the 1870s-1940s are not necessary or useful for this discussion as they mar the focus of educational pursuits of the circa 1830-1865 era with late Victorian/early twentieth century information.

Thank you!

[PogueMahone]

Re: Why be illiterate?

If you read the Tennessee Veterans Questionnaires, many of them describe growing up on a small farm, living in a cabin or small house, working in the fields daily, sometimes side-by-side with the slaves their fathers' owned, and attending school 3 or 4 months out of the year when the crop cycle or season allowed for it.