Understanding the Writing Revolution of the Late Nineteenth Century

The History of the Book has over-stressed the history of print at the expense of the study of manuscript culture. It has equally privileged the history of reading over the history of writing. Equilibrium needs to be restored in both of these domains. This article argues for the importance of manuscript culture in the modern era, and pursues this notion through an explanation of the “writing revolution,” seen as an enormous increase in the volume of writing produced by ordinary people, and at the same time as the spread of writing as an everyday cultural practice to lower social strata including peasants. This expansion and democratisation of writing practices were stimulated both by mass emigration to the Americas, and by the First World War. The article discusses the need to nuance the concept of the writing revolution, both in chronological and geographical terms. It goes on to stress the importance of transformations in postal culture, which made the expansion of writing possible, ‒in particular correspondence became cheaper and more accessible. In the final section, the article suggests some of the wider implications of the writing revolution for other sub-disciplines of history.