original passage: The folk of the 19th century, the social group identified in the original term "folklore", was characterized by being rural, illiterate and poor. They were the peasants living in the countryside, in contrast to the urban populace of the cities. Only toward the end of the century did the urban proletariat (on the coattails of Marxist theory) become included with the rural poor as folk. The common feature in this expanded definition of folk was their identification as the underclass of society.
original sentence: The folk of the 19th century, the social group identified in the original term "folklore", was characterized by being rural, illiterate and poor.
sentence2: Given the way folklore is described here, would the earliest known written record of a local legend be a reliable guide to how it had been told in its oldest incarnations?
sentence1: The folk of the 19th century, the social group identified in the original term "folklore", was characterized by being rural and poor, yet able to read and write. They were the peasants living in the countryside, in contrast to the urban populace of the cities. Only toward the end of the century did the urban proletariat (on the coattails of Marxist theory) become included with the rural poor as folk. The common feature in this expanded definition of folk was their identification as the underclass of society.