Literacy in the Colonial Era

Early Immigrants

The first English immigrants brought with them their own literacy, schoolbooks, and a printing press. In 1642, the Massachusetts colony passed a “Poor Law” decreeing that all heads of families and masters of apprentices should have the children under their roof taught to read as well as acquire a practical skill. Later, laws legislated that boys (but not girls) must also learn to write. In 1647, Massachusetts passed a schooling law requiring towns of over fifty families to support a schoolmaster to teach writing and reading to all who attended (in practice, boys). By 1712, legislators in all the New England colonies except Rhode Island had passed similar laws.

These seventeenth-century Congregationalist New Englanders agreed upon the purposes of literacy instruction. Reading was essential, mainly for religious reasons. In a culture that believed in infant depravity, it was crucial to teach children to read the Bible by themselves in hope of achieving their salvation. In contrast, writing (defined as penmanship, not composition) was vital for economic reasons: good handwriting was a practical asset for men from blacksmiths to ministers. The corresponding economic skill for women was sewing; elite girls were taught writing, but only as a genteel accomplishment.

Instruction after 1750

The town-supported schools of New England were exceptional. In the middle colonies, White children attended schools sponsored by various Protestant denominations, including Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, and Mennonites. In the South, poor families joined together to pay for a schoolmaster, and wealthier ones hired a male tutor.

Schooling continued to be denominational or private across the colonies, but around 1750, literacy instruction began to improve, thanks in part to a rapidly improving standard of living and an influx of imported goods. Minimal literacy standards were raised: Between 1748 and 1771, Virginia, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Massachusetts all revised their Poor Laws to require that poor girls as well as boys be taught to write.

Spelling books, which offered more explicit reading instruction than primers, were imported from England in the 1730s and reprinted on American presses, becoming the child's introduction to reading. The most successful of these was Thomas Dilworth's A New Guide to the English Tongue, first printed in England in 1740 and in America in 1747. After 1750, children could read a wider range of books: Genres expanded from religious and courtesy books to advice books and even the new children's books being printed by the London printer John Newbery, designed to amuse children rather than convert them. Access to writing instruction improved: Imported stationery materials became widely available, and nonelite fathers, as part of their aspirations for gentility, paid for private writing instruction for their daughters.

Methodology and Texts for Literacy

Literacy was taught through the “alphabet method.” Reading, writing, and spelling all proceeded from the smallest units (letters) to the largest units (sentences).

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