Describe the developments in the nineteenth century that increased the number of new readers among children, women and workers in Europe.

The following developments were responsible for increase in the number of new
readers among children, women and workers in Europe in the nineteenth century:
(i) Compulsory primary education: In the late nineteenth century, primary education became compulsory’. School textbooks were produced. A children press was set up in France in 1857. The press published new works as well as old fairy tales and folktales. Anything unsuitabl for children or vulgar was not included in the books.
(ii) women as readers and writers: Penny Magazine was published between 1832 and
1835 in England. It was aimed primarily at the working class and women. There were manuals teaching proper behavior and housekeeping. Novels were written in the nineteenth century by women like Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, George Eliot. Such writings increased the reading interest among the women in the nineteenth century.
(iii) Lending libraries and workers: Lending libraries became instruments for educating white-collar workers, artisans and lower-middle class people. In due course of time, when the working day was shortened from the mid-nineteenth century., workers had sometime for self-improvement and self-expression. They wrote political tracts and autobiographies in large numbers.