'Ordinary Writings': lower-class writing practices in the transition to mass literacy in Europe, 1800-1918

Historians have too easily assumed that the lives of poor and illiterate can never be directly known because they have left few written traces. This path-breaking project will demonstrate the contrary, in analysing a wide range of 'Ordinary Writings' - the improvised and ephemeral writings of the poor, semi-literate and hitherto silent people of history. The focus will be on transitions to mass literacy in France, Italy and Spain. The project will illuminate the democratisation of writing practices, the relationship between orality and literacy and ways in which the masses received or challenged ideas about national identity.