Not just the highly educated. Welsh miners formed study groups to read Austen and Dickens. Scottish shepherds built lending libraries. Watchmakers & cabinetmakers taught themselves Greek and Latin. The loss of working-class autodidact culture is one of history's great tragedies. - ThreadSky

sketchesbyboze.bsky.social • 1 day ago

Not just the highly educated. Welsh miners formed study groups to read Austen and Dickens. Scottish shepherds built lending libraries. Watchmakers & cabinetmakers taught themselves Greek and Latin. The loss of working-class autodidact culture is one of history's great tragedies.

Comments

lidiaferrari.bsky.social•1 day ago

And they didn’t even need AI!

arjm5184.bsky.social•1 day ago

Want to say this reminds me of Richard Hoggarts “uses of literacy”

jwolf.bsky.social•1 day ago

My mother and her siblings were all voracious readers and seekers of knowledge in general. One of my maternal uncles, who farmed and never lived more than 10 miles from the house where he was born in rural South Dakota was a daily NYT subscriber.

tobebooks.bsky.social•1 day ago

I put a library in a working class school and it did gang busters. Working class history not being taught is one of our countries greatest shames. The other is Quaker history. Both show the huge impact well informed, organised, marginalised communities can have.

ejm0092.bsky.social•1 day ago

That explains the Monty Python sketch with the Welsh miners.

untimelygamer.bsky.social•1 day ago

I agree with your point about working-class reading culture, but I take issue with the point the OP made. I don't think the well-read among the elites in previous centuries necessarily read more than dedicated readers today.

jubbacca.bsky.social•1 day ago

My great aunt had to quit school to help out on the family farm. But she would charge neighbor kids a quarter to write their book report for them, assuring herself a constant stream of both free books and pocket money.

passeriform.bsky.social•1 day ago

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5chQlZbqQnM

debsmith14.bsky.social•1 day ago

When I was in Key West, I saw an exhibit of paintings that showed people working in cigar factories. The companies hired readers to read them books and newspapers while they worked!

debsmith14.bsky.social•1 day ago

https://fla-keys.com/keysvoices/marios-magic/

okiedharmabum.bsky.social•1 day ago

Being fond of my own voice, I've always wanted that job.

sketchesbyboze.bsky.social•1 day ago

In his book The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes, Jonathan Rose writes of an uncle, a Bronx garment worker who "spent much of the Great Depression reading classics in translation from The Merchant of Venice to Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea.”

daophos.bsky.social•1 day ago

Why did he read English-language works “in translation”?

sketchesbyboze.bsky.social•1 day ago

he read them in Yiddish.

daophos.bsky.social•1 day ago

That wasn’t clear in your post 😉

sketchesbyboze.bsky.social•1 day ago

The working-class culture of self-education began to die when governments and corporations realized that educated people are a threat to big business. It's not an accident. They want a world where the rich read books while the rest of us are hypnotized by devices.

janelebak.bsky.social•1 day ago

There was also an academic shifting of "literature" from something everyone enjoyed to something only the learned few could enjoy. If the general population read it, it was low class. This also discouraged reading. And then they moved poetry from the language of the people to being incomprehensible.

libraryephemera.bsky.social•1 day ago

Both sets of my grandparents weren't able to go as far as they wanted with their formal education and modeled this so well with their grandchildren. Being curious about the world and culture. Seeking out great ideas.

schwerdt.bsky.social•1 day ago

This describes my grandparents as well.
Much has been lost.
Who supports real investment of intellectual energy in curiosity these days?

libraryephemera.bsky.social•1 day ago

All isn't lost, but it happens more on an individual level than systemically. My kids have teachers who send books home with them. There are a ton of science and free cultural events. What's missing is the tie-in with culture as a means of class empowerment.

magickitten.bsky.social•1 day ago

My Welsh nanna (1922-1999) and her sisters were the first of her family to go on to higher education and I remember her telling me how thrilled her parents were because they were really dedicated to learning. They read widely, had a really detailed understanding of news and politics…

magickitten.bsky.social•1 day ago

…and these were people who were railway workers, gardeners, domestic servants - 100% working class.

magickitten.bsky.social•1 day ago

…and that was totally normal. Of course the decimation of public services by Thatcher in Wales and the North East in particular did huge damage, attempting to destroy both the access to learning resources and the self worth of the people who might want to use them

seaewenext2sday.bsky.social•1 day ago

Oooo can’t wait to tuck into this.

dogsdadbod.bsky.social•1 day ago

Yeah but what use are they in dissecting the multi-seasonal drama between Paige and Craig, huh?

tippedbeaker.bsky.social•1 day ago

Blue collar auto-didact here. I ain’t going anywhere.

kittenvontitten.bsky.social•1 day ago

Keeping it alive as one ceaselessly autodidactic college dropout.

okiedharmabum.bsky.social•1 day ago

I might just have to borrow "ceaselessly autodidactic"!

marthaajax.bsky.social•1 day ago

Do you know this institution in NYC? Fantastic building, collections, and library.

https://generalsociety.org

okiedharmabum.bsky.social•1 day ago

I'm just a few years older than my siblings, but those years of reading BEFORE the TV entered our home made all the difference in the world.

maybecabers.bsky.social•1 day ago

Also inclined towards artistic expression - as in the case of the Pitmen Painters (quote:)
"The Ashington Group of mainly mine workers evolved out of a 1934 art appreciation class led by Robert Lyon at the Workers Education Association (WEA)"

An actual association.
The Ash' Group ran for 50 years.

rothesaytowncat.bsky.social•1 day ago

'how better read,' not 'how much more well read🙈'

Fixed it for him

evssimon.bsky.social•1 day ago

My father had no formal qualifications. Left school at 14 to work tinplate, working class Swansea. His bookshelf included Shaw, Dickens and Wilde. He loved opera. An English teacher who acted all the characters inspired him. Libraries enabled him.

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply