Explores literacy sponsorship at an academy that schooled young Native American men near Lexington, Kentucky in the early 19th century. Presents case studies based on the correspondence of two advanced students who turned their literacy lessons toward a critique of their living and learning conditions. Notes the students embraced liberatory…

From 1910 to 1935 a campaign was waged in the southern United States to eradicate adult illiteracy. This program was primarily based on volunteers, and it revolved around night, summer, or cotton mill schools that were often termed Opportunity Schools. Many parallels can be drawn to current efforts to address the problem of functional illiteracy…