Since a large majority of the population was totally illiterate, this bullshit factoid must have originated with someone for whom Blacks, Women, and Indians are untermenschen. Shane Mage <<<<<>>>>>
don't know about cross-national ranking of early u.s. newspaper reading, and maybe i don't know about early u.s. literacy rates either, but i think that some historical research indicates percentage a good bit higher than 'total' illiteracy among 'large majority'...
several hundred thousand copies of paine's _common sense_ were sold within months of publication, guesstimates are that up to three times as many folks may have read the pamphlet as copies were passed around, recall seeing figure suggesting that about 750,000 folks may have read _common sense_ during initial year of its appearance in print, if so, that would have been about 25% of mid-1770s population...
also recall reading that literacy rates among both men and women in pennsylvania were above 50%, but then, memory may not serve me very well... mh