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> Literacy rates in the 1800s were low.

Not all that low. Even in 1870, 80% of the US population were literate (and nearly 90% of the white population).

https://nces.ed.gov/naal/lit_history.asp

And although now we've pushed literacy up from 80% to 90-something percent, I wonder whether literacy is actually lower than it was in the 1850s. More people are literate, but those who are literate are on average less literate, because we've pushed our educational standards down in an effort to pick up those last 20%.

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