1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910815819803321

Autore

Bushman Richard L.

Titolo

American Farmer in the Eighteenth Century : A Social and Cultural History / / Richard L. Bushman

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New Haven, CT : , : Yale University Press, , [2018]

©2018

ISBN

0-300-23520-8

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource : illustration (black and white), maps (black and white)

Disciplina

630.973

Soggetti

Farm life - United States - History

United States Social life and customs 18th century

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Previously issued in print: 2018.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Preface -- Part One. farm thought -- 1. The Farm Idea. The Life Plans of Family Farmers -- 2. A Note on Sources. How Documents Think -- Part Two. North America, 1600-1800 -- 3. The Nature of the South. The Creation of Sectional Systems -- 4. Generation of Violence. A Population Explosion Ignites Conflict -- Part Three. Connecticut, 1640-1760 -- 5. Uncas and Joshua. The Acquisition of Connecticut -- 6. Sons and Daughters. Provision for the Young -- 7. Farmers' Markets. How the Exchange Economy Formed Society -- Part Four. Pennsylvania, 1760-76 -- 8. Crèvecoeur's Pennsylvania. Farming in the Middle Colonies -- 9. Revolution. Why Farmers Fought -- 10. Family Mobility. The Lincolns of Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois -- Part Five. Virginia, 1776-1800 -- 11. Founding Farmers. The Contradictions of the Planter Class -- 12. Jefferson's Neighbors. Economy, Society, and Politics in Post-Revolutionary Virginia -- 13. Learning Slavery. How Slaves Learned to Be Slaves and Whites to Become Masters -- Part Six. Approaching the Present -- 14. American Agriculture, 1800-1862 -- Notes -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

An illuminating study of America's agricultural society during the Colonial, Revolutionary, and Founding eras In the eighteenth century, three-quarters of Americans made their living from farms. This



authoritative history explores the lives, cultures, and societies of America's farmers from colonial times through the founding of the nation. Noted historian Richard Bushman explains how all farmers sought to provision themselves while still actively engaged in trade, making both subsistence and commerce vital to farm economies of all sizes. The book describes the tragic effects on the native population of farmers' efforts to provide farms for their children and examines how climate created the divide between the free North and the slave South. Bushman also traces midcentury rural violence back to the century's population explosion. An engaging work of historical scholarship, the book draws on a wealth of diaries, letters, and other writings-including the farm papers of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington-to open a window on the men, women, and children who worked the land in early America.