I don’t think anyone would ever call Kaestle’s article about the history of literacy and readers short. The man is quite thorough. However, I found one area where I thought he could have done some more explanation: the Protestants. On page 22 of the article, Kaestle goes into depth about how someone being literate or illiterate was possibly related to whether or not they were a member of this religious group, but he never explains why. So, as someone who is spending a lot of time reading Puritan and Protestant writings in another class, I thought I would break it down for everyone.
Okay. Let’s rewind to around 1517. A man named Martin Luther penned a document called “The Ninety-Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences.” And then he posted this treatise on the doors of a church in Wittenburg. And then the Protestant Reformation happened (yes, I may have ignored details for the jump from writing to reformation, but I’m trying to be brief).
Here’s what you need to know: the protestants were upset at the church because it was filled with corruption, clergy who paid for their positions, and was focused more on the pomp and circumstance part than the part about God. The Protestants were the people who protested this. They wanted to cut down on the elaborate churches and the meaningless excess. For the Protestants, faith was about you, the bible, and God.
Which brings us to why literacy was so gosh-darn important for them. Since the Protestants emphasized that people should explore God through scripture, it’s no surprise that a great number of the group were literate. This included women as well. Kaestle’s notes on literacy in New England being quite high in the 17th and 18th centuries makes perfect sense, because at that point in American history that region was mostly settled by Protestants.
So not only can we thank the Protestants for America’s insane work ethic, but we can also give them a big round of applause for spreading literacy around Europe and the colonies. Four [gospels] for you, Protestants. You go [to church], Protestants.
