1. Chapter 5: The Eighteenth-Century World 1700–1775
Of the People
Chapter 5:
The Eighteenth-Century World
1700–1775

2. 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?

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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?

8. 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?

9. 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

10. 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?

11. 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?

12. 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?

13. 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

14. 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?