In our group discussion we focused on the trends found in early European literacy.
Crude Literacy in Europe from 1600-1850
If you signed your name, you were literate, if you marked an X for your signature you were illiterate. Self-reported literacy rates were seen on censuses in the United States. Catholics were typically less literate than Protestants. Commercial areas were more likely to be literate than industrial areas; child labor kept children from being in school, so they were less likely to be literate. At the beginning literacy was biased toward upper-class, urban males. The structure of schooling in the area also sometimes influenced literacy; a strong school infrastructure would often lead to higher literacy rates, regardless of religion of that area.