The books were not just for show. The gentility had to read. They read a lot. Being a member of the 18th century American gentry class required refinement and education. Refinement was what separated you from ordinary farmers. The best way to demonstrate politeness and good manners was to read. The more you read, the better demonstration you could make of these values.

One of the most popular genres of 18th century literature was something called the courtesy book. Courtesy books were just manuals that taught you how to have good manners. The earliest courtesy book published in America appears to have hit the stores in 1715, but even before this there were hundreds of European examples for the colonial gentry to choose from. The existence of the courtesy book shows us the connection between reading and the re-creation of genteel culture.

The private library was not primarily an example of conspicuous consumption. You bought books to read them. The bigger the library, the more sensibility and taste you could claim, but only if you could prove through conversation and manners that you had learned from them. Many members of the American gentility had themselves depicted in portraits with books in their hands.

If you buy a lot of books, you need a bookcase to put them in. One study of estate inventories has shown that nine times as many households had bookshelves in the 1840s as compared to the 1750s. What's interesting is that Americans seemed to be more focused on the volume of reading than a rigid set curriculum. Read whatever you want, but read as much as you can.

In the first half of the 19th century we have a "print revolution," fostered by a number of technological and marketing advances. The cost of paper and books went way down. By the 1830s, Americans were publishing about 1,000 titles every year. This allowed book-reading to explode among the middle classes. Husbands and wives read to each other. Among those of the first generation after the Revolution, it was simply not acceptable for a middle-class woman to be unrefined and ignorant. The more books a woman read, the better marriage material she became. By the 1830s, the literacy rate among American women was the highest in the world.

Moral reformers were also huge beneficiaries of the print revolution. Bibles and religious tracts flooded America. In 1816 alone, the American Bible Society printed 10,000 Bibles. In 1829, The ABS and the American Tract Society together pushed out 300,000 Bibles.

Let's look at newspaper numbers: 1801--200 American newspapers. 1810--375. 1835--1,200.

For "mechanics" (the working classes), we have a huge proliferation of public libraries in the first half of the 19th century. Reformers believed that it was a good idea for workers to read as much as possible, as the education would better enable them to articulate their arguments in the public sphere. There were also circulating libraries tied to churches and school districts.

Sources: Richard L. Bushman, The Refinement of America; and Charles Sellers, The Market Revolution. Neither of these are focused specifically on print or reading.

It's almost impossible to know whether Jefferson read all books donated. But in my opinion, he probably did. However, let's stick to facts. We do know that our Founding Fathers and other colonists were avid readers. We know that Hamilton made copies of Plutarch and Demosthenes. Adams made copies of Sallust. Jefferson was such a fan of Greek literature that he often quoted it in his letters. So much so, that Adams once complained about it: "Lord! Lord! What can I do, with So much Greek?"

Perhaps to better explain how much these men (and most colonists/early Americans) read, we can look at the requirements for entering university. These men were expected to be well versed in many subjects before they were accepted for formal learning. the most obvious is that they had to be masters of English. However in these times, children would be taught subjects like history, poetry, trivium (rhetoric, logic and grammar), and quadrivium (astrology, geometry, arithmetic) from an early age.

For instance, we know that Jefferson learned French, Latin and Greek from Reverend William Douglas. He gained admittance to William & Mary at the age of 16. As quoted from their own website: "By the time he came to Williamsburg, the young scholar was proficient in the classics and able to read Greek and Latin authors in the original, a practice he continued throughout his life."

James Madison was required to write Latin while having a thorough knowledge of Latin and Greek grammar. He was also required to translate Virgil, Cicero, and to have translated the Greek gospels for admittance to the College of New Jersey (Princeton). By this time however, he had already read a plethora of classic works from Plato (like Phaedrus) and Herodotus among many, many others.

We also know that Alexander Hamilton was required to be a master of Latin and Greek grammar. He was to read at least three orations of Aeneid and Cicero and he had to translate the first 10 chapters of the Gospel of John to Latin from Greek before admittance to King's College (Columbia University).

In reference to Harvard, Dr. Charles C Rounds once proclaimed (p. 118): "When any scholar is able to fully read Tully or any like classical Latin author ex tempore and make and speak true Latin in verse and prose and decline perfectly the paradigms of nouns and verbs in the Greek tongue, then he may be admitted to the college, nor shall any claim admission before such qualification."

Connor Boyack best describes the disconnect between early American education and our modern college experience in his book Latter Day Responsibility, Choosing Liberty Through Personal Accountability: the required material was not taught in college but applied in formal learning. We see criticism of this come after the revolution like with Noah Webster in 1788: "These are excellent specimens of good sense, polished stile and perfect oratory; but they are not interesting to children. They cannot be very useful, except to young gentlemen who want them as models of reasoning and eloquence, in the pulpit or at the bar."

A great example of how the literature these men read was utilized is the Federalist Papers. There are constant "tricklings" of Greek and Latin influence hidden throughout. Madison once referenced the importance of ancient influence by stating: "Is it not the glory of the people of America, that, whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the objections of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their experience?"

But I will end this before this turns into a book. The point of all of this is that these men read, a lot. Not only did several them find it amusing to read the classics, they were required to do so in pursuing their goals. I also have to include an excerpt from a letter written to Adams from Jefferson in which he eloquently describes his passion for reading:

my repugnance to the writing table becomes daily & hourly more deadly & insurmountable. in place of this has come on a canine appetite for reading. and I indulge it. because I see in it a relief against the taedium senectutis; a lamp to lighten my path thro’ the dreary wilderness of time before me, whose bourne I see not. losing daily all interest in the things around us, something else is necessary to fill the void. with me it is reading, which occupies the mind without the labor of producing ideas from my own stock.

For more on colonial education and heritage focusing on this topic, I like Education of the Founding Fathers of the Republic - Scholasticism in the Colonial Colleges by James Walsh. Pretty cut and dry but it covers a lot involving what our founders were learning throughout their years. There is also Thomas Jefferson, the Classical World, and Early America edited by Peter Onuf and Nicholas Cole. Another good one is The Founders and the Classics: Greece, Rome, and the American Enlightenment by Carl Richard. And finally, Heritages From Our Founding Fathers by Charles Linsdey Grant.

Also remember that Jefferson's library was thought to be the largest private library in the U.S. at the time. So, maybe Jefferson read them all, but his contemporaries probably read fewer, but not by much for some of them, I am sure.