Of the People
Chapter 5:
The Eighteenth-Century World
1700–1775
Common Threads
>> What were the some of the choices that individual men and women
made in the eighteenth century— for example, where to live, how to
work, what to purchase, what to believe—and how did those choices
affect their society?
>> How did such choices make everyday life more democratic? What
were the forces that worked against such democratization?
>> How were free Americans able to become wealthier even without
significant technological innovations?
>> How did the consumer revolution affect American society and
culture?
>> As the colonial population became more diverse and complex, with
separate regional cultures and an increasing variety of beliefs and
religious practices, were there other experiences that colonial
Americans had in common? Is it possible yet, on the eve of the
American Revolution, to talk about a common American experience
or culture?
THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY WORLD
1700-1775
• Overview
– The Population Explosion of the Eighteenth
Century
– The Transatlantic Economy: Producing and
Consuming
– The Varieties of Colonial Experience
– The Head and the Heart in America: The
Enlightenment and Religious Awakening
AMERICAN PORTRAIT
George Whitefield: Evangelist for a Consumer Society
“Whitefield embodied the great contradictions of his age
without threatening the political or economic order that
sustained them….Whitefield’s strategy was to criticize
the individual without attacking the system.”
– What was new and unique about Whitefield’s preaching?
• Style
• Message
• Popular Following
– Why was Whitefield such a hit sensation in the colonies?
• Social Conditions
The Population Explosion of the
Eighteenth Century
“This population boom was both the product of American
prosperity and the precondition for its further growth.”
• The Dimensions of Population Growth
– Scope and scale
– How did this expansion alter British North American society?
• Ethnic makeup
• Economic activity: consumerism
• Bound for America: European Immigrants
– Who were the European immigrants?
• Origins
• Destinations
– Occupations
The Population Explosion of the
Eighteenth Century
• Bound for America: African Slaves
– The People
• Origins
• Destinations
• Conditions: Captivity, Transport, and Occupations
– What fueled the dramatic expansion of slavery in British North
America?
• The Great Increase of Offspring
– General characteristics
• Euro-American
• African American
– Circumstances (18th century)
• Marriage practices
• Health
The Transatlantic Economy:
Producing and Consuming
“In the eighteenth century, as the colonies
matured, they became capitalist societies, tied
increasingly into an Atlantic trade network.”
• The Nature of Colonial Economic Growth
– What factors fueled this growth?
•
•
•
•
Population
Environment
Labor Productivity
What role, if any, did technological innovations play?
– Who (what industries) benefited the most from this
economic activity?
• The least?
The Transatlantic Political Economy:
Producing and Consuming
• The Transformation of the Family Economy
– How did the family structure the economic activity of British
North America?
• Men: Husbands and Fathers
• Women: Wives, Mothers, “Deputy Husbands”
• Children: Sons and Daughters
• Sources of Regional Prosperity
– Economic regions of British North America
• South: Tobacco, Cereals (Rice), and Indigo
• Middle: Grains (Wheat)
• North: Agriculture, Furs/Hides
– How did labor compare?
• How did slave life compare in the Chesapeake versus South
Carolina?
– Where was wealth concentrated in each of these regions?
The Transatlantic Political Economy:
Producing and Consuming
• Merchants and Dependent Laborers in the
Transatlantic Economy
– Shipbuilding in New England
– Major Port Towns: Boston, Newport, New York,
Philadelphia, and Charleston
• An affluent merchant class
• Consumer Choices and the Creation of Gentility
– What new “liberty” emerged for colonists as a result of
the British mercantilist system?
• Consumer Choice
– Consumer Revolution
• Causes
• Social Impact
The Varieties of Colonial Experience
“Although the eighteenth-century industrial and
consumer revolutions tied the peoples of the North
Atlantic world together, climate, geography, immigration,
patterns of economic development, and population
density made for considerable variety.”
• Creating an Urban Public Sphere
– Scale and Scope of Urban Expansion
– The Wealthy Class
– Urban Dwellers
• Social Life
• Attitudes: Identity and Politics
• The Diversity of Urban Life
– How did the urban poor and black slaves react to the economic
stratification of urban life?
– What new racial laws emerged in New York and Charleston?
• Why did they emerge?
The Varieties of Colonial Experience
• The Maturing of Rural Society
– Pressures of Population Expansion
• In rural New England, what new social patterns emerged in
response?
• The World That Slavery Made
– White World versus Black World
– How did the two worlds interrelate?
• Sexual Relations
• Hostilities
– e.g., The Stono Rebellion, 1739
• Georgia: From Frontier Outpost to Plantation Society
– What was the plan for Georgia?
• James Oglethorpe’s Contribution
– What was the long-term reality of the colony?
The Head and the Heart in America:
The Enlightenment and Religious Awakening
“Although the movements might seem fundamentally
opposite…both criticized established authority and valued the
experience of the individual. Both contributed to the humanitarianism
that emerged at the end of the century, and both were products of
capitalism.”
• The Ideas of the Enlightenment
– How did the Enlightenment alter Europeans’ view of the world, and of
knowledge in general?
• What was the impact on “traditional” sources (institutions) of knowledge,
such as the Bible (church)?
• The Enlightenment and the Study of Political Economy
– John Locke
– Adam Smith
• Enlightened Institutions
– Libraries for the Public
– How did Enlightenment optimism impact organized religions?
The Head and the Heart in America:
The Enlightenment and Religious Awakening
• Origins of the Great Awakening
– Ripe Conditions for an Awakening
• The Grand Itinerant: George Whitfield
– How did the Awakeners shake up the religious establishments of
the colonies?
• Cultural Conflict and Challenges to Authority
– What was the widespread appeal of the Awakening?
• What the Awakening Wrought
– What was the new denominational divide created by the
Awakening?
• Conclusion
– How did these two intellectual movements relate?
• What became the distinguishing characteristic of American life as a
result?
– Individualism
THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY WORLD
1700-1775
• Revisiting the Common Threads
>> What were the some of the choices that individual men and women
made in the eighteenth century—for example, about where to live,
how to work, what to purchase, what to believe—and how did those
choices affect their society?
>> How did such choices make everyday life more democratic? What
were the forces that worked against such democratization?
>> How were free Americans able to become wealthier even without
significant technological innovations?
>> How did the consumer revolution affect American society and
culture?
>> As the colonial population became more diverse and complex, with
separate regional cultures and an increasing variety of beliefs and
religious practices, were there other experiences that colonial
Americans had in common? Is it possible yet, on the eve of the
American Revolution, to talk about a common American experience
or culture?