Editing Literacy (section)

===Industrialization===
{{Further|Industrial Revolution}}
In the 19th century, reading would become even more common in the United Kingdom. Public notes, broadsides, handbills, catchpennies and printed songs would have been usual street literature before newspapers became common. Other forms of popular reading material included advertising for events, theaters, and goods for sale.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Street literature |url=https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/street-literature |access-date=2022-04-22 |website=British Library}}</ref> In the late 19th century, gas and electric lighting were becoming more common in private homes, replacing candlelight and oil lamps, enabling reading after dark and increasing the appeal of literacy.<ref name="British-Library-Victorian-Readers" />

In his 1836/1837 ''Pickwick Papers'' Charles Dickens's said that:
{{blockquote|even the common people, both in town and country, are equally intense in their admiration. Frequently, have we seen the butcher-boy, with his tray on his shoulder, reading with the greatest avidity the last "Pickwick"; the footman (whose fopperies are so inimitably laid bare), the maidservant, the chimney sweep, all classes, in fact, read "Boz".<ref name="British-Library-Victorian-Readers">{{Cite web |title=Victorian readers |url=https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/victorian-readers |access-date=2022-04-22 |website=British Library |archive-date=19 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220219045156/https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/victorian-readers |url-status=dead }}</ref>}}

From the mid-19th century onward, the [[Second Industrial Revolution]] saw technological improvements in paper production. The new distribution networks, enabled by improved roads and rail, resulted in an increased capacity to supply printed material. Social and educational changes increased the demand for reading matter, as rising literacy rates, particularly among the middle and working classes, created a new mass market for printed material.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Print culture |url=https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/print-culture |access-date=2022-04-22 |website=British Library}}</ref> Wider schooling helped increase literacy rates, which in turn helped lower the cost of publication.<ref name="British-Library-Victorian-Readers" />

Unskilled labor forces were common in Western Europe, and, as British industry improved, more engineers and skilled workers who could handle technical instructions and complex situations were needed. Literacy was essential to be hired.<ref name="Hamerow-1998">{{Cite book |last=Hamerow |first=Theodore S. |title=The birth of a new Europe: state and society in the 19. century |year=1998 |publisher=University of North Carolina Pr |isbn=978-0-807-84239-3 |location=Chapel Hill |pages=148–174}}</ref> A senior government official told Parliament in 1870:
{{blockquote|Upon the speedy provision of elementary education depends our industrial prosperity. It is of no use trying to give technical teaching to our citizens without elementary education; uneducated labourers—and many of our labourers are utterly uneducated—are, for the most part, unskilled labourers, and if we leave our work–folk any longer unskilled, notwithstanding their strong sinews and determined energy, they will become overmatched in the competition of the world.<ref name="Hamerow-1998" />{{rp|159}}}}

The skills of reading and writing are not the same. In Spain, the total rate of literacy between 1841 and 1860 was constant at almost 25%: in 1841 most of the literate could read but not write, but by 1860 most could read and write.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Frago |first1=Antonio Viñao |title=The History of Literacy in Spain: Evolution, Traits, and Questions |journal=History of Education Quarterly |date=1990 |volume=30 |issue=4 |pages=573–599 |doi=10.2307/368947 |jstor=368947 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/368947 |issn=0018-2680}}</ref>