This is a blog of the postdoctoral researcher’s project ‘The Benefits of Literacy in Everyday Life: The impacts of improved literacy on the opportunities for social advancement in remote local communities (c. 1800–1930)’, funded by the Academy of Finland (2011–2014).
In this research project I will use some sample communities to analyze how the improvement of functional literacy and its powerful development at the end of the 19th century (in comparison with the situation in the early 19th century) had the effect of increasing the information capital of the Finnish-speaking peasants and why this had major impacts on the activities of individuals and the structures of the remote local community.
The aim of this project is to consider why the newly learned skills so significantly changed the formation of intangible capital in local relations. At a formal Finnish written language was developed and the status of Finnish as a language for use in official documents and in literature alongside Swedish became stronger, the hierarchical class society was gradually disappearing, and it became possible also for members of the lower social groups to improve their literacy skills and in that way to enhance their social position.
