Naively, I would think the same. But in the first part of AOTD, Neil Postman argues pretty convincingly that America in the 18th and 19th centuries was the most literate, bookish society on Earth and in the later parts of the book that that heritage was lost with the invention of the telegraph, radio, and later TV.

In other words, TV and the internet as technologies are not "neutral" in their effect on society, they have actually made us dumber in a real sense.

They were still speaking of subset of americans. One should look up the literacy rates of poor white or black americans of the time to get a better understanding of where the headspace of the average person might have been. There is a reason why politicians had to campaign by actually visiting and orally presenting their positions.

What do the historians of that era actually say about it ?