UMass Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press

E. Jennifer Monaghan

Explores how people in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century America acquired the ability to read and write

An experienced teacher of reading and writing and an award-winning historian, E. Jennifer Monaghan brings to vibrant life the process of learning to read and write in colonial America. Ranging throughout the colonies from New Hampshire to Georgia, she examines the instruction of girls and boys, Native Americans and enslaved Africans, the privileged and the poor, revealing the sometimes wrenching impact of literacy acquisition on the lives of learners.

"While much has been written on the history of literacy, the subject of learning to read and write during America's Colonial era has not received in-depth treatment. Monaghan seeks to remedy that situation with this truly impressive treatise, which has been exhaustively researched over the last 20 years. Following a chronological progression from 1620 through 1776, Monaghan offers a comprehensive analysis of Colonial literacy instruction that ranges throughout the Colonies and covers a broad variety of demographic groups and educational settings. She describes the separate motives behind the teaching of reading (largely meant to facilitate religious education) and of writing (which had more practical and secular purposes). In a refreshingly readable style for such a scholarly work, Monaghan studies the relationships between rates of literacy and other measures of Colonial culture, making rich use of primary sources to offer accessible and enlightening case histories. Illustrated with contemporary portraits and writing samples, this volume will no doubt become indispensable to those studying the history of literacy education. While covering the past, it is relevant to current debates about literacy. Highly recommended."

Library Journal

"A book of extraordinary range, depth, and clarity. . . . Learning to Read and Write, the only survey of its subject, is an essential text for historians of literacy, of gender, and of early America. Broad in scope and deep in research, it will inspire both within and beyond these fields."

New England Quarterly

"This thoroughly engaging book is rich in detail and innovative in approach. The real testament here is that at the end of 381 pages of text, readers are left longing for more.

William and Mary Quarterly

"A very important book. Its publication is reason for celebration. . . . Literacy specialists will especially be gratified, but all historians of early America will profit from this richly researched work by a scholar with an exceptionally deep grasp of both the primary sources and the secondary literature."

Journal of American History

"Monaghan's book provides an extensively researched and comprehensive foundation for understanding how different groups of colonial Americans acquired the literacy skills that enabled them to interact with the printed word."

Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

E. Jennifer Monaghan is professor emerita of English, Brooklyn College, The City University of New York.

American History
504 pp., 20 illus.
$28.95s paper, ISBN 978-1-55849-581-4
New in paperback March 2007

A volume in the series Studies in Print Culture and the History of the Book
Published in association with the American Antiquarian Society

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