Learning to Read and Write in Colonial America: Literacy Instruction and Acquisition in a Cultural Context

ILLUSTRATIONS

ILLUSTRATIONS Figures Figure 1. Title page of The Indian Primer or The First Book, 1720 67 Figure 2. Marginalia in a 1685 Indian Bible 76 Figure 3. A hornbook 83 Figure 4. Dialogue between a master and his scholar in Edmund Coote, The English Schoole-Maister, 1596 91 Figure 5. Word lists, picture alphabet, and verses, A through F, from the New-England Primer, 1727 102 Figure 6. Picture alphabet and verses, G through S, from the New-England Primer, 1727 102 Figure 7. Picture alphabet and verses, T through Z, and facing page from the New-England Primer, 1727 103 Figure 8. Portrait of Samuel Sewall 116 Figure 9. Engraving of portrait of Cotton Mather 121 Figure 10. Frontispiece to The Book of Common Prayer . . . Translated into the Mohawk Language, 1787 167 Figure 11. The first reading lesson from Thomas Dilworth, A New Guide to the English Tongue, 1771 230 Figure 12. Portrait of Phillis Wheatley 246 Figure 13. Penmanship exercise written in 1748 by William Palfrey, aged about seven 288 Figure 14. Penmanship exercise written in 1754 by William Palfrey, aged about thirteen 289 Figure 15. Page on fractions from a Virginia tutor’s “Arithmetic Book, 1751–1766” 295 Figure 16. Frontispiece and title page of The History of the Holy Jesus, 1748 303 Figure 17. The alphabet in The Child’s New Play-Thing, 1750 315 Figure 18. Woodcut, 1775, of “Goody Two-Shoes” teaching herself to read 326 Figure 19. Excerpt from the diary of Anna Green Winslow, 1771 336 Figure 20. First attempt at composition by Lucy Gaines, 1776 357 x Illustrations Graphs Graph 1. Rates of Signature Literacy among Men as Reported for the Atlantic World, 1650 to 1810 384 Graph 2. Rates of Signature Literacy among Women as Reported for the Atlantic World, 1650 to 1810 385 Graph 3. Extant Editions of Primers Printed in Colonial America and the United States, 1695 to 1790 388 Graph 4. Extant Editions of Spelling Books Printed in Colonial America and the United States, 1695 to 1790 390 Graph 5. Production of Imprints in Colonial America and the United States, 1700 to 1790 391 Graph 6. Records of the North American Imprints Program (NAIP) Compared with English Exports, 1710 to 1780 392 ...