Student questions for "Consumer Revolution and American Identity"
As you read through the materials for this lesson, keep in mind this central question:
What role did consumer products play in American culture in the 1700s?
I. Introduction (Student Essay) Read through this essay. It will provide you with important background information about consumer spending in the decades preceding the American Revolution.
II. Secondary & Primary Sources Document list:
Document 1: Table 3.2 "Conjectural Estimates of Income in the Thirteen Continental Colonies, 1650-1774"
Document 2: T. H. Breen, Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 115.
Document 3: Patricia Cleary, Elizabeth Murray: A Woman's Pursuit of Independence in Eighteenth-Century America (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000), 224.
Document 4: Bridenbaugh, Carl, ed. Gentleman's Progress, The Itinerarium of Dr. Alexander Hamilton 1744. (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1948), 55.
Document 5: Painted Corner Cupboard, Accomack County, Virginia, Yellow Pine, 1750-1760, Collection of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, as reproduced in T. H. Breen, Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 46.
Document 6: Ethel Armes, comp. and ed., Nancy Shippen, Her Journal Book (New York: B. Blom, 1968), 173.
Document 7: Elizabeth Murray, "Trade Bill," [ca 1750].
Document 8: "To the Publisher of the Boston Evening Post," Boston Evening Post