An

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An Empire of Goods Eighteenth Century British
North America
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• (71) Between 1607 and 1763, Americans gained
  control of their political and economic
  institutions. To what extent and in what ways do
  you agree or disagree with this statement?
• (78) Although the thirteen American colonies were
  founded at different times by people with
  different motives and with different forms of
  colonial charters and political organization, by
  the Revolution the thirteen colonies had become
  remarkably similar. Assess the validity of this
  statement.
• (89) In the two decades before the outbreak of
  the American Revolutionary War, there was a
  profound shift in the way many Americans thought
  and felt about the British government and their
  colonial governments. Assess the validity of
  this statement in view of the political and
  constitutional debates of these decades.
• (95) For the period before 1750, analyze the ways
  in which Britains policy of salutary neglect
  influenced the development of American society as
  illustrated in the following
• Legislative assemblies Commerce Religion

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I. Introduction Anglicization and Americanization

• 2 v. diff. social systems in 17th (NE VA) not
  caused by slavery, rather slavery result diff.
  and then reinforced
• How did these come together as Americans to fight
  in Rev?
• To become American had to become more English
  (Anglicization) had much to do w/18th century
  city

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II. Population Growth and Diversity

• 1700 250,000 colonists (Tenochtitlan 1520)
• Pop. explodes after 1700 more rapid than any
  other western society
• Doubles every 25 years
• 1) low mortality (less disease, abundance food)
• 2) immigration (Scotch-Irish, Germans)
• 3) high birth rate (natural increase)

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A. Change in Colonial Immigration Policy

• English migration continues but
• 1) discouraged except lowest orders? increasingly
  need workforce
• 2) encourage immigration from outside England
  offer easy naturalization
• Scotch-Irish N. Ireland Protestants
• Germans Pennsylvania Dutch (Deutsch)
• Both come for opportunity
• Bring religious and ethnic diversity

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B. Changing Demography

• 1776 ½ South non-English? real cultural and
  social problems
• S-I resent Eng in particular and authority in
  general? frontier squatters
• Germans resisted acculturation (esp. Amish and
  Mennonites)

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• New immigrants want/need move West for land
• Land taken up by first immigrants
• Maintain culture/religion
• Effect growth (pop and territory), diversity,
  dispersal
• Conflict w/Indians (Doc B)
• So, how come together as Americans?

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III. Commerce and the Colonial City

• Society overwhelmingly rural (95), but by AR 20
  urban center over 3,000
• Big 3 Boston (15,000), NYC (25,000),
  Philadelphia (40,000)
• (others along coast, esp. in North)

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A. Empire of Goods

• Trade (ocean-going commerce) foundation
  urbanization, colonial wealth, and Anglicization
• Merchants bought raw materials from interior
  (esp. food)? Caribbean for molasses? back to make
  rum? slaves? Caribbean
• Also fur trade and ship building

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• English send woolens, hardware, and esp. luxury
  goods
• 1740-1770 360 rise English exports to colonies
  (esp. to cities)
• These goods linked together wide variety of
  people (rich, poor, rural, urban, European,
  Indian, African) into shared consumer culture
• McRoyal with Cheese

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B. Colonial Cities

• Gap btwn rural and urban in 18th nothing by
  modern standards (hogs running wild in NYC)
• BUT would be shock to backcountry farmers or
  small townspeople

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• Urban diversity (class, racial, ethnic)
• Luxury
• Vice (brothels, thieves)
• Anonymity (that aided vice)
• Filth
• Traffic
• Fires
• New institutions
• Prisons
• Alm houses (poor)

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• Greater cultural stimulation
• Book shops
• Libraries
• Theaters
• Social clubs

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IV. Provincialism and the Anglicization of
Colonial Culture

• A. Provincial Culture
• Colonial culture was provincial not
  self-contained, draw from larger, superior
  center, following fashions and fads (Danville and
  SF/Oakland)
• Esp. at top of society Doc C
• Overseas trade made this possible Boston and
  Phila. closer contact London than some English
  cities

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• Ships carried ideas, news (sometimes more
  valuable than goods)
• Colonial cities resembled England architecture,
  furniture, fashions, taverns

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B. Phases of Social Development

• 1. Social simplification demands of survival?
  disorientation adaptation to new environment
  (except NE)
• 2. Social elaboration creolized variants?
  adaptation to changes but mixed w/elite demands
  to resemble England
• 3. Social replication (Anglicization) elites
  drive recreation of English society
• Diff. Regions developed at diff. rates and in
  diff. ways, but all tending along same trend

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V. 18th Century Boston

• Increase Mather (major Puritan minister) Boston
  the land of the dying impact of commerce
• New elite of imperial bureaucrats elaborate
  homes slaves (conspicuous consumption)
• Wealthy colonial merchants follow suit

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• Slackening of Congregationalism? some returning
  to Anglican Church (to fit in with imperial
  elite)
• Growing opulence Georgian mansions, paintings
  (esp. John Copley)
• Theater didnt do well (Puritanism) but growing
  number private companies

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• By American Revolution, Boston boasted a private
  society committed not only to religion but also
  commerce, theater, art and architecture, and the
  finer things in life.
• E.g. Paul Revere, silversmith

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VI. From Anglicization to Americanization

• This life not lived by all
• Only 5 in cities, and only small of this lived
  this life
• BUT process overflowed cities and rich
• Visitors, newspapers, empire of goods (T.H.
  Breen)
• More English became, more had in common (across
  space and class)
• Boston more like Williamsburg, VA, and vice versa

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• Identification w/all things English (esp. rights
  Doc E) ironically led to questioning of things
  English (esp. opulence)
• Begin to celebrate American simplicity and see
  selves as different from (and superior to)
  English (Doc D)