Chapter 3 of Amusing Ourselves to Death: Typographic America

Chapter 3 begins with Postman relating the story of the Dunkers. The Dunkers, a minor religious sect in the United States, are the singular instance of a religious sect refusing to write down their principles, because their principles should be able to change over time. Writing down religious doctrines would bind the Dunkers in a way that would leave them "entrapped" for all time. The colonists in the New World were intensely preoccupied with their own literacy, most coming from very literate parts of England. More than that though, education was of God, keeping Satan at bay. Additionally, Americans didn't have to create their own literary tradition from scratch. They had a whole library to import from the motherland. Everyone, rich and poor, had access to reading, and so read everyone did. In this society, Thomas Paine's Common Sense sold better than any book today possibly could; only an event like the Super Bowl could attract such numbers.The printing press received quicker success in America than home in England, as the British royalty did not try to stop it as it did in its own cities of Liverpool and Birmingham.

Americans did quickly establish their own tradition no matter their history. The newspaper, Postman says, greatly changed the typographic game. Benjamin Harris published the first in Boston in 1690. The Boston News-Letter, Boston Gazette, and New England Courant followed in the thirty years after. Proportionally speaking, Americans had far more newspapers per head than England did. Pamphlets and newspapers quickly replaced books as the primary outlet for Americans to read. By the 1800s, America was an incredibly print-based culture. Charles Dickens was treated as a celebrity upon his arrival there in 1842. Lecture halls reinforced this culture, with writers frequenting the Lyceum circuit. The printed word dominated American culture totally.

Were pamphlets the soundbites of colonial times?
Did Americans pay such attention to the printed word just to spite the Old World?
In what ways did the Lyceum movement influence more modern academic lectures?