The consumer culture of the Middle Atlantic, 1760-1820

William and Mary Quarterly

Volumn 62, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 577-624

  Clemens, Paul G E ^a  

^a RUTGERS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 48449101472     PISSN: 00435597     EISSN: 1933-769     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3491442     Document Type: Review

References (74)

1. The best introduction to the literature on this topic is Cary Carson, Ronald Hoffman, and Peter J. Albert, eds., Of Consuming Interests: The Style of Life in the Eighteenth Century (Charlottesville, Va., 1994), see esp. the chaps, by Lois Green Carr and Lorena S. Walsh, T. H. Breen, and Cary Carson
2. See also John E. Crowley, The Invention of Comfort: Sensibilities and Design in Early Modern Britain and Early America (Baltimore, 2001)
3. T. H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence (Oxford, Eng., 2004)
4. On the Middle Atlantic, see Paul G. E. Clemens, "Afterword: Material Culture and the Rural Economy: Burlington County, New Jersey, 1760-1820," in Land Use in Early New Jersey: A Historical Geography, ed. Peter O. Wacker and Clemens (Newark, N.J., 1995), 263-96
5. Among other sources that use probate inventories to study material culture, I have found the following most useful: Jack Michel, "'In a Manner and Fashion Suitable to Their Degree': A Preliminary Investigation of the Material Culture of Early Rural Pennsylvania," Working Papers from the Regional Economic History Research Center 5, no. 1 (1981): 1-83
6. Jackson Turner Main, Society and Economy in Colonial Connecticut (Princeton, N.J., 1985)
7. "Forum: Toward a History of the Standard of Living in British North America," William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 45, no. 1 (January 1988): 116-70, which includes contributions by Lorena S. Walsh, Lois Green Carr, Jackson Turner Main, and Gloria L. Main
8. Lois Green Carr and Lorena S. Walsh, "Changing Lifestyles and Consumer Behavior in the Colonial Chesapeake," in Carson, Hoffman, and Albert, Of Consuming Interests, 59-166
9. Edward S. Cooke Jr., Making Furniture in Preindustrial America: The Social Economy of Newtown and Woodbury, Connecticut (Baltimore, 1996)
10. In arguing that scholars can trace an evolution in consumption patterns for semidurable household possessions between the prerevolutionary era and the 1820s, I have excluded from the analysis what were clearly the two other major areas of consumer spending: textiles and foods (esp. alcohol, tea, and spices). On textiles, see Adrienne D. Hood, "The Material World of Cloth: Production and Use in Eighteenth-Century Rural Pennsylvania," WMQ 53, no. 1 (January 1996): 43-66
11. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, "Wheels, Looms, and the Gender Division of Labor in Eighteenth-Century New England," WMQ 55, no. 1 (January 1998): 3-38
12. Next to cloth and clothing, the most important consumer good was probably alcohol; for an excellent introduction to the topic, see David Hancock, "'A revolution in the trade': Wine Distribution and the Development of the Infrastructure of the Atlantic Market Economy, 1703-1807," in The Early Modern Atlantic Economy, ed. John J. McCusker and Kenneth Morgan (Cambridge, 2000), 105-53
13. John J. McCusker, "The Business of Distilling in the Old World and the New World during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: The Rise of a New Enterprise and its Connection with Colonial America," ibid., 186-224
14. Prices and descriptions come from Alfred Coxe Prime, comp., The Arts and Crafts in Philadelphia Maryland and South Carolina, 1721-1800: Gleanings from Newspapers ([Topsfield, Mass.], 1929), 194-99
15. Prime, comp., The Arts and Crafts in Philadelphia Maryland and South Carolina, 1786-1800: Gleanings from Newspapers ([Topsfield, Mass.], 1932), 209-14
16. British exports are listed in Great Britain, Public Record Office, Customs 3, import-export ledgers, 1696-1780. I used microfilm copies at the McKeldin Library, University of Maryland, College Park, and from the University of Michigan Library. Though Helen Comstock primarily surveys the more elegant surviving examples of eighteenth-century looking glasses, her work also includes a useful discussion of those who made and sold looking glasses (Comstock, The Looking Glass in America: 1700-1825 [New York, 1968])
17. More generally, see Benjamin Goldberg, The Mirror and Man (Charlottesville, Va., 1985)
18. The British Customs 3 import-export ledgers confirm that 1768-72 were good years in book importing specifically for New York, Philadelphia, and the Chesapeake (Virginia and Maryland), though the nonimportation movement shut the trade down in 1767-68. On the pace of domestic publishing, see Rosalind Remer, Printers and Men of Capital: Philadelphia Book Publishers in the New Republic (Philadelphia, 1996), 15, 30, and for aggressive marketing strategies, 125-48
19. For American reading tastes in the new Republic, see Cathy N. Davidson, Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America (New York, 1986), 15-37. Note, in particular, her persuasive discussion of the role of subscription libraries in the dissemination of fashionable literature (29)
20. The crucial cautions come in Elizabeth Carroll Reilly and David D. Hall, "Part 2: Customers and the Market for Books," in Amory and Hall, History of the Book in America, 387-99
21. See also an earlier study, William L. Joyce et al., eds., Printing and Society in Early America (Worcester, Mass., 1983)
22. This Interpretation draws on Michael A. Bellesiles, Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture (New York, 2000)
23. Bellesiles used probate record manufacturing censuses militia lists, and newspaper advertisements to argue that early America did not have a gun culture. Few early Americans, he concluded, owned guns, and those that did often could not use them effectively. People used fists knives, swords, bayonets, and bows and arrows to carry out violent attacks more often than guns; see esp. chaps. 3, 5-6, 8, and 445-54. This article deals with cultural implications of ownership patterns, but where the studies overlap, this probate analysis furnishes general support (though different figures) for his claims (see his probate statistics, 445). For a critique of Bellesile's work, see Robet H. Churchill, "Guns and the Politics of History," Reviews in American History 29, no. 3 September 2001): 329-37. Drawing conclusions from the placement of items in the inventories is difficult, yet guns were almost never listed with clothing, watches, and currently at the head of an inventory but placed, presumably, alongside items in the same part of the house
24. The basic source for Franklin stoves is Samuel Y. Edgerton Jr., "Heating Stoves in Eighteenth Century Philadelphia," Bulletin of the Association for Preservation Technology 3, nos. 2-3 (1971): 15-104 (quotation, 64)
25. See also Edgerton, "Supplement: The Franklin Stove," in I. Bernard Cohen, Benjamin Franklin's Science (Cambridge, Mass., 1990), 199-211
26. On clocks, see David S. Landes, Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the Modern World, rev. ed. (Cambridge, Mass., 2000)
27. On clocks in Fairfield and Chester, see Penrose R. Hoopes, Connecticut Closkmakers of the Eighteenth Century (Rutland Vt., 1975)
28. Arthur E. James, Chester County Clocks and Their Makers, 2d ed. (Exton, Pa., 1976). On mass-produced clocks, see John Joseph Murphy, "Entrepreneurship in the Establishment of the American Clock Industry," Journal of Economic History 26, no. 2 (June 1966): 169-86 (dealing primarily with Eli Terry). The 1820 manufacturing figure is from Murphy (184), but checked in the United States 1820 Census of Manufacturers, National Archives microcopy 279, roll 4 employed 66 men and 13 women and sold some 8,450 clocks annually (176)
29. Clock values come from annual time series for each county of inventory item values. In shillings the Kent value of a clock went from 194 (1759-75), to 248 (1789-98), to 304 (1810-19); in Fairfield, the values were 134, 136, 99; in Chester, 184, 177, 263. The 1820 Census of Manufacturers valued wooden clocks at $4.50, brass and wooden clocks at $14.00, and brass clocks at $30.00 (United States 1820 Census of Manufacturers, National Archives, 176). Comparable prices for brass clocks can be found in Penrose R. Hoopes, Shop Records of Daniel Burnap: Clockmaker (Hartford, Conn., 1958), 52, 56
30. Fairfield clock numbers come from the Connecticut Grand Lists, 1797-1825, RG 8, Item 186, Connecticut State Library, Hartford (microfilm). The first lists are from 1796, with 1797 additions. Ratable lists for specific towns (from which the Grand Lists were compiled) have been located for Fairfield, Danbury, Stratford, and Newtown; these lists add detail to the overall picture but do not alter the interpretation. A published list, taken from town ratable returns, of Fairfield clock owners in 1805 (before mass-produced wooden clocks were available) appears in Winthrop D. Warren and Christopher B. Nevins, Clocks and Clockmakers of Colonial Fairfield: Connecticut, 1736-1813 (n.p., 1993), 694-95
31. For 1810, see Tench Coxe, A Statement of the Arts and Manufactures of the United States of America (Philadelphia, 1814)
32. repr. in Thomas C. Cochran, ed., The New American State Papers, vol. 1, Manufactures (Wilmington, Del., 1972), 160-410
33. Desks, like clocks, also were a marker of status. In Fairfield, 57 percent of the fashionable owned desks and only 15 percent of other householders did. In Kent, 69 percent of the comfortable and fashionable households had desks, but only 34 percent of the middling; in Chester, these figures were 50 percent (comfortable and fashionable) and 24 percent (middling). On Connecticut desks, see Cooke, Making Furniture, 151-89
34. Charles F. Montgomery, A History of American Pewter (New York, 1973), 8. For the years 1768-72, the average annual importation of pewter through Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York was approximately 227 tons. In the boom years (after nonimportation) of 1771-72, New York alone imported more than one hundred tons each year (Customs 3, import-export ledgers)
35. For an overview of ceramics, see Ivor Noël Hume, A Guide to Artifacts of Colonial America (New York, 1969), 98-145, 276-85
36. Kenneth L. Ames and Gerald W. R. Ward, eds., Decorative Arts and Household Furnishings in America, 1650-1920: An Annotated Bibliography (Winterthur, Del., 1989), 179-219
37. esp. "English Ceramics in America," by George L. Miller and Ann Smart Martin (201-19); Robert Hunter, ed., Ceramics in America (Hanover, N.H., 2001)
38. George L. Miller, Ann Smart Martin, and Nancy S. Dickinson, "Changing Consumption Patterns: English Ceramics and the American Market from 1770 to 1840," in Everyday Life in the Early Republic, ed. Catherine E. Hutchins (Winterthur, Del., 1994), 219-48
39. On earthenware (Winterthur, Del., 1994), 219-48. 1750-1800: An Inventory Survey," Magazine Antiques 94, no. 4 (October 1968): III
40. and Stephen Israel, "Ceramics from the John Hicks Site, 1723-43: The Material Culture," in Ceramics in America, ed. Ian M. G. Quimby (Charlottesville, Va., 1973), 103-39
41. Gloria Seaman Allen, "Ceramics in Maryland," American Ceramic Circle Journal 6 (1988): 53-104
42. On the styles and influences, see F. H. Garner and Michael Archer, English Delftware, 2d ed. (London, 1972), 6-44, esp. 16, 21, 37
43. and the photographic catalog in Louis L. Lipski, Dated English Delftware: Tin-Glazed Earthenware, 1600-1800, ed. Michael Archer (London, 1984)
44. The most comprehensive study of the origins of English stoneware is Arnold R. Mountford, The Illustrated Guide to Staffordshire Salt-Glazed Stoneware (London, 1971)
45. See also Noël Hume, Guide to Artifacts, 114-23
46. Geoffrey Wills, English Pottery and Porcelain (Garden City, N.Y., 1969), 67-89
47. Ivor Noël Hume, "The Rise and Fall of English White Salt-Glazed Stoneware: Part 1," Magazine Antiques 97, no. 2 (February 1970): 248-55
48. Stone, Little, and Israel, "Ceramics from the John Hicks Site"; Marley R. Brown III, "Ceramics from Plymouth, 1621-1800: The Documentary Record," in Quimby, Ceramics in America, 41-74
49. James J. F. Deetz, "Ceramics from Plymouth, 1620-1835: The Archaeological Evidence," ibid., 15-40
50. Allen, American Ceramic Circle Journale 6
51. Wills, English Pottery and Porcelain, 99-105
52. Ivor Noël Hume, "The Rise and Fall of English White Salt-Glazed Stoneware: Part 2," Magazine Antiques 97, no. 3 (March 1970): 408-13
53. Noël Hume, "The What, Who, and When of English Creamware Plate Design," Magazine Antiques 90, no. 2 (February 1972): 350-55 (quotation, 353). The phrase "creamware revolution" comes from Martin, "'Fashionable Sugar Dishes, Latest Fashion Ware.'"
54. On Wedgwood, see Neil McKendrick, "Josiah Wedgwood and Thomas Bentley: An Inventor-Entrepreneur Partnership in the Industrial Revolution," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 14 (1964): 1-33
55. On Staffordshire, see Lorna Weatherill, The Pottery Trade and North Staffordshire, 1660-1760 (Manchester, Eng., 1971)
56. On the buildup of demand, see Cary Carson, "The Consumer Revolution in Colonial British America: Why Demand?" in Carson, Hoffman, and Albert, Of Consuming Interests, 483-697, esp. 495-524
57. For an overview of the world marketing system, see Peter N. Stearns, Michael Adas, and Stuart B. Schwartz, World Civilizations: The Global Experience, 2d ed.(New York, 1996) 2: 148-71
58. On East India trade, see K.N. Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company: 1660-1760 (Cambridge, 1978), esp. 406-10
59. Kristof Glamann, Dutch-Asiatic Trade: 1620-1740, 2d ed. (The Hague, Netherlands, 1981)
60. On Near Eastern porcelain, see Chaudhuri, Asia before Europe: Economy and Civilisation of the Indian Ocean from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge, 1990), 333-36
61. On the Chinese production of porcelain, see Janet L. Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony: The World System, A.D. 1250-1350 (New York, 1989), 316-51
62. Michael Dillon, "Transport and Marketing in the Development of the Jingdezhen Porcelain Industry during the Ming and Qing Dynasties," Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 35, no. 3 (August 1992): 278-90
63. R. J. Charleston, ed., English Porcelain: 1745-1850 (London, 1965), 17-27
64. Regina Lee Blaszczyk, "Ceramics and the Sot-Weed Factor: The China Market in a Tobacco Economy," Winterthur Portfolio 19, no. 1 (Spring 1984): 7-19
65. Charleston, English Porcelain, 18-19
66. Geoffrey A. Godden, British Porcelain: An Illustrated Guide (New York, 1974), 21-25
67. Jonathan Goldstein, Philadelphia and the China Trade, 1682-1846: Commercial, Cultural, and Attitudinal Effects (University Park, Pa., 1978)
68. Christina H. Nelson, Directly from China: Export Goods for the American Market, 1784-1930 (Salem, Mass , 1985)
69. Stephen K. Victor, "'From the Shop to the Manufactory': Silver and Industry, 1800-1970," in Silver in American Life: Selections from the Mabel Brady Garvan and Other Collections at Yale University, ed. Barbara McLean Ward and Gerald W. R. Ward (Boston, 1979), 23-32
70. Martha Gandy Fales, Joseph Richardson and Family: Philadelphia Silversmiths (Middletown, Conn., 1974), 77-91, 165-66
71. Frances Gruber Safford, Colonial Silver: In the American Wing (New York, 1983), 33-38
72. Deetz, "Ceramics from Plymouth," furnishes a useful periodization for the use of ceramics in New England through the revolutionary era. His periodization ends where this work begins. Marley R. Brown III's piece in me same volume evaluates Deetz's interpretation of archaeological evidence in light of probate inventory records from Plymouth (Brown, "Ceramics from Plymouth," 41-74)
73. See also Ann Smart Martin, "Magical, Mythical, Practical, and Sublime: The Meanings and Uses of Ceramics in America," in Hunter, Ceramics in America, 28-46
74. See, for example, Duke de La Rochefoucault Liancourt, Travels through the United States of North America, Canada, in the Years 1795, 1796, and 1797 ... (London, 1799), 3: 536-67