Slaves could read?
I know this is a very old post from way back in October, but it stuck out to me. Looking online, I see alot of conflicting estimates about literacy going that far back, if you have something definitive let me know.
Regardless, any estimate near 90% must be excluding slaves as they represented like 17% of the total population back then, according to the internet anyway.
Some probably could. It’s also possible/likely that they didn’t record those sorts of things and count “citizens” or something similar.
It was certainly excluding slaves.
I think one of the Ten Commandments is, “Thou shalt not pump your own gas.”
Are we sure it even includes women?
found some info:
Kevin Lockridge used legal records to create “tentative conclusions” regarding this topic in his book, Literacy in Colonial New England:
Among white New England men, about 60 percent of the population was literate between 1650 and 1670, a figure that rose to 85 percent between 1758 and 1762, and to 90 percent between 1787 and 1795. In cities such as Boston, the rate had come close to 100 percent by century’s end.
Note that these values primarily represent white men, as literacy was determined using legal records, and women and slaves at the time were rarely involved with things like property management and transactions.
It’s a little earlier than 1800s, but the documentation issues would be similar, at least early 1800s.
I believe it did include women, as I think that girls were educated alongside boys in colonial America. I may be mistaken though.
At least in New England, the purpose of public education was originally for religion. Even if women weren’t often involved in business, they were expected to read the bible.
As someone living in a country where self service is at 100% for pumping gas this is extra insane. Especially coupled with some of the comments on the FB post… There is nothing hard about pumping gas. Alas I will admit if I had the choice I would let someone else pump it for me.
Oregonians and using gas pumps
Burgerland lulz
Can we re-title the thread “Stupid shit you see on Quarter To Three Forum about stupid shit you see on Facebook”
I mean I would with the weather of late, but otherwise I’d rather save the money. Which is what everyone in my state decided about 30 years back and why those places don’t exist any more. Most places have a handicapped pump where you can push a button and have someone come help you with it if required.
Closing to go fishing I can understand; here, hunting and fishing, snowmobiling, boarding, and skiing are all considered legitimate excuses for contractors not working, people not showing up for work, etc.
I grew up in the South where so-called Blue Laws limited what could be open on Sunday, and pretty much prohibited all alcohol sales on that day. Even grocery stores were not allowed to open on Sunday when I lived in Mobile, Alabama, in like 1972, though they shortly thereafter changed that.
I always wondered, if we closed the stores on the Sabbath, then there’d be no shopping from Friday at sundown through Sunday at midnight. But then I realized, oh, it’s only the Christian Sabbath they are talking about, not the rest of us heathens.
Definitely. The Puritans were patriarchal and women did not have full equality, but they could be church members, which meant they had political power of a sort, and they definitely had protections in the law in terms of things like domestic assault and abuse, and even limited property rights, more so than in many places in the 17th century. And they certainly were literate, as for radical Protestants in particular reading the Bible was essential.
I can’t even read that.
Get off my lawn!
Headline: Clintons Worship Satan!
Many stores in the Netherlands used to be closed on Sunday as a general rule. I think there are some general papers on economy that mandatory closures (such as on Sundays) tend to benefit small business, since it keeps costs down on days that usually see little traffic or profit anyway. People can’t shop on Sunday, so they go on Saturday or Monday, and if you are a small business, it means not having to staff the store on those days.
I’m sure there was an interesting paper comparing liquor stores between two states, one with blue laws and without, but for the life of me, I can’t find it right now.
There is a small movement afoot to bring back the “Closed on Sundays” thing for retail shops. Not for a religious reason, but because they believe that workers should get a single day off during the week.
Apparently there is a sizable population out there that works 7 days a week and basically never sees a “weekend”.
I’m not sure how that would work in a free market, but Chick Filet seems to be doing OK.
I’ve bumped into this movement more than once. The primary issue I have is if it’s the one day you have off, that’s normally the day people do their errands such as going shopping.
The Blue laws still exist in a number of states back east, entire counties shut-down on Sundays.
I don’t consider those shove a baby back up a vagina stupid, like the stuff you usually see here, but the mom and pop stores not competing against the big retailers I believe was the original idea… make it more fair.
I had no idea Oregon had the full-service gas thing too, I thought that was just New Jersey craziness. My mind boggles at the comments in that FB thread…are people really that clueless about pumping their own gas? Sweet Jesus, no wonder the country is so fucked.
True personal story : My son’s lacrosse team (high school, SW Ohio) played in a tournament in Long Island, NY in the summer of 2016. We decided to go with the team and cheer them on during the three day tournament, then make a vacation out of it and see NYC and some other sights in the week after the tournament. While exploring NYC (which we all loved), we stayed in New Jersey at the Element Hotel in Harrison-Newark (fantastic hotel, awesome apartment-like rooms at a good rate and on the same block as the train station…highly recommend if you’re ever exploring NYC yourself and don’t want to pay ridiculous NYC hotel rates). Anyway, on the way out of town we needed gas, so I stopped at a gas station somewhere just off the highway right before you cross back over into New York.
We pull up and there are men standing around all the pumps. These guys are not wearing uniforms, just various types of street clothes, and they’re mostly younger, Hispanic and heavily tattooed. Not knowing anything about New Jersey full-service laws, I’m a little taken aback by the scene, especially since we were obviously not in the nicest of neighborhoods. My kids are like “OMG Dad, what’s happening!? Are they gang members?! Should we get out of here?!” and even my wife is like “Where the hell did you take us? This does not seem right at all?!” I pull up to a pump and start to get out, and one of the guys walks over and kind of gently blocks my door by standing right next to it. He says something like “Cash or Card?”, and I take a good look around and realize these guys are all pump attendants…and that there is no self-service. Even then, my first thought was “I really don’t want to hand over my credit card to this guy”…I had a brief vision of him just smiling and running off with it. So I handed him a $20 bill and he put gas in my car…and I just drove off. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to tip him, he didn’t come back to the door, so I guess not. It was all just so surreal and confusing. It was the first time I’d seen Full Service at a gas station since I was like 8 years old.
Anyway, my sincere apologies to the fine gentlemen working that gas station off the Turnpike somewhere in New Jersey, as I am absolutely sure my entire family and I looked like terrified Midwestern white people from some cliché movie scene. It wasn’t your fault, and we’re not really as clueless (or racist!) as we seemed, it was the Full Service thing that threw us totally out of our comfort zone! =)
