Philadelphia
In 1771, Philadelphia was one of the largest North American port cities, international hub of commerce and point of entry for immigration into North America.
Philadelphia was a busy colonial port city whose textures and rhythms of
urban life rendered it rather different from the other two locations, and distinct
from other cities in the North American and West Indian colonies as well.
Philadelphia’s heavy reliance on immigration and settlement for labor and its
active role in both local and international trade meant that it experienced levels of
demographic churn and religious diversity as a commercial hub and entrepot for
those seeking work, unlike other, landbound urban centers in the colonies or Britain,
apart from metropolitan London.
Though only about 3.5 percent the size of metropolitan London, Philadelphia offered a comparable degree of ethnic, racial, linguistic, and religious diversity, while also experiencing significant inflows of immigration along with high mortality rates.
Evidence for literacy, especially signature literacy, for Philadelphia in the colonial period is quite scanty because of the limitations of the evidence, but Grubb estimated 81.6 percent male literacy for the city between 1773-5, while Monaghan and others continue to cite Lockridge’s findings for New England women that women’s literacy remained substantially below that of men throughout the colonial period. Though the precise numbers in this pre-census era remain a matter of some debate, assuming a figure between Salinger et al.’s estimated total of 23,566 for 1769 and their estimated 27,645 for 1772, we arrive at about 27,000 for the target year.
Philadelphia’s prominence as a regional hub disseminating knowledge and news to the rest of the colonies helped it develop an economy based as much on knowledge and information as on manufacturing and trade.
