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Towards a Meaning of Literacy: Literacy and Social Structure in Hamilton, Ontario, 1861

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Harvey J. Graff
Harvey J. Graff*
Affiliation:
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto
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Extract

Despite its relevance to many kinds of historical study, literacy does not feature very often in historical discussion, and when it does appear a certain vagueness surrounds its meaning.

Type
Approaches to Research
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 12 , Issue 3: Education and Social Change in English-Speaking Canada. , Fall 1972 , pp. 411 - 431
Copyright
Copyright © 1972 by New York University 

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References

Notes

1. Schofield, Roger, “The Measurement of Literacy in Pre-Industrial England,“ in Literacy in Traditional Societies, ed. Goody, Jack, (Cambridge, 1969), p. 312.Google Scholar

2. See Stone, Lawrence, “Literacy and Education in England, 1640–1900,“ Past and Present, no. 42 (February 1969), pp. 61–139; Cipolla, Carlo, Literacy and Development in the West (Hammondsworth, 1969); and Schofield, “The Measurement of Literacy.”CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. Sutherland, Gillian, “The Study of the History of Education,“ History 54 (February 1969), 59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. For example, such sources as the Papers of the Central Society of Education of London, contemporary English volumes, Mary Carpenter's Reformatory Schools, Baines, Edward’ The Social, Educational, and Religious State of the Manufacturing Districts, Pole's, Thomas, A History of the Origin and Progress of Adult Schools (all reprinted: New York, 1969), the Journal of Education for Ontario, and the Annual Reports of the Chief Superintendent of Education for Upper Canada.Google Scholar

5. Webb, R. K., “Working Class Readers in Early Victorian England,“ English Historical Review 65 (July 1950): 333–51, and “Literacy Among the Working Classes in Nineteenth Century Scotland,” Scottish Historical Review 33 (February 1954): 100–14; Cipolla, , Literacy and Development; Schofield, “The Measurement of Literacy”; Stone, “Literacy and Education.”CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. Stone, , “Literacy and Education“; Ariès, Philippe, Centuries of Childhood (New York, 1962); Dore, R. P., Education in Tokugawa Japan (London, 1967); Sanderson, Michael, “Social Change and Elementary Education in Industrial Lancashire,” Northern History 3 (April 1968): 131–53; Thernstrom, Stephan, Poverty and Progress (Cambridge, 1964); Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class (New York, 1963); Hobsbawm, E. J. and Rudé, George, Captain Swing (New York, 1969); McClelland, D. C., “Does Education Accelerate Economic Growth?” Economic Development and Cultural Change 14 (April 1966): 257–78; Anderson, C. A., “Literacy and Schooling on the Development Threshold,” in Education and Economic Development, ed. Anderson, C. A. and Bowman, M. J., (Chicago, 1965), pp. 347–62.Google Scholar

7. Goody, Jack and Watt, Ian, “The Consequences of Literacy,” Literacy in Traditional Societies, ed. Goody, Jack, (Cambridge, 1969) and Bantock, G. H., The Implications of Literacy (Leicester, 1966).Google Scholar

8. Webb, R. K., “Literacy Among the Working Classes in Nineteenth Century Scotland,“ Scottish Historical Review 33 (February 1954): 114.Google Scholar

9. Thompson, , The Making of the English Working Class, p. 394; see also pp. 350–400.Google Scholar

10. Stone, , “Literacy and Education,“ p. 71, passim.Google Scholar

11. Talbott, John E., “The History of Education,“ Daedalus 100 (Winter 1971): 141.Google Scholar

12. Dore, R. P., Education in Tokugawa Japan (London, 1967), p. 292.Google Scholar

13. See Goody, Jack, ed., Literacy in Traditional Societies (Cambridge, 1969).Google Scholar

14. These cards form part of the data bank in preparation for the Canadian Social History Project under the direction of Katz, Michael B. of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and the University of Toronto.Google Scholar

15. Rather, one is dependent on the existence of an accurate census that inquired about the possession of literacy skills.Google Scholar

16. Webb, , “Working Class Readers,“ p. 344.Google Scholar

17. Analysis of those assessed by total annual value in 1851 indicates that those falling below the fortieth percentile could be considered poor. There is no apparent reason to suggest a large degree of change in the decade that included a depression; see Katz, Michael B., “Social Structure in Hamilton, Ontario,“ in Thernstom, Stephan and Sennett, Richard, Nineteenth-Century Cities (New Haven, 1969), p. 212.Google Scholar

18. See Katz, Michael B., “Occupational Structure and Occupational Rank,“ Working Paper No. 14, September 1970, for an explanation of the scheme, and Graff, H. J., “Towards a Meaning of Literacy: Literacy and Social Structure in Hamilton, Ontario, 1861” (A.M. thesis, University of Toronto, 1971), p. 51 for complete detail on the ranking of Hamilton's illiterates.Google Scholar

19. The city of Hamilton was divided into five administrative wards in 1861, but fifteen subdivisions (districts) were created by the Canadian Social History Project for analytic purposes as the larger areas may conceal differences.Google Scholar

20. Katz, Michael B., “Changing Patterns of School Attendance, 1851–1861,“ Working Paper No. 26, May 1971.Google Scholar

21. Thernstrom, Stephan, Poverty and Progress (Cambridge, 1964), p. 22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22. Cipolla, , Literacy and Development, p. 74.Google Scholar

23. Harrison, J. F. C., “Education in Victorian England,“ essay review, History of Education Quarterly 10 (Winter 1970): 490.CrossRefGoogle Scholar