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The Pre-Industrial Revolution in America: A Field for Local Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

George S. Gibb
George S. Gibb
Affiliation:
Department of Business History, Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration.
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Extract

It was the topography of a trout stream which first set my thoughts in the direction of local business history, and then led to broader fields of research. Mill ponds and crumbling masonry are more or less traditional parts of the New England landscape. I should be willing to pass them over with the customary casual notice, were it not that increasing familiarity with some of Massachusetts' “backwoods” country began to reveal what looked like a remarkable pattern of local development. There was a positively idyllic stage of research when, with fly rod in hand, I examined the dams and sluiceways on half a dozen local streams, and pondered the archeological evidences of antique industry. Many questions came to mind. Too early for a place in the Industrial Revolution, too numerous to fit neatly into the colonial-agrarian pattern — what system of economy did these ruins represent ? Might they not stand apart, a system of their own, drawing from the earlier and nourishing the later? The phase of inquiry succeeding superficial curiosity led to local libraries and county records. It seemed wise to concentrate initial research efforts in one area, and on one representative watercourse.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , October 1946 , pp. 103 - 116
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1946

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References

1 White, George S., Memoir of Samuel Slater (Philadelphia, 1836), p. 85Google Scholar.

2 Ibid., p. 106.

3 Clark, Victor S., History of Manufactures in the United States, 1607-1860 (Washington, D. C., 1916), pp. 163–164Google Scholar.

4 Middleborough, Massachusetts. Dow, George F., The Arts and Crafts in New England, 1704-1775 (Topsfield, Mass., 1927), p. 266Google Scholar.

5 Coxe, Tench, A View of the United States of America (Philadelphia, 1794), p. 144Google Scholar.

6 Clark, op. cit., p. 164.

7 Bishop, James L., History of American Manufactures (Philadelphia, 1868), vol. i, p. 96Google Scholar.

8 Sources of the Newton material as follows: Stone, Orra L., History of Massachusetts Industries (Boston, 1930), vol. i, p. 894Google Scholar; Drake, S. A., History of Middlesex County (Boston, 1880), vol. ii, pp. 235–237Google Scholar; Jackson, Francis, A History of the Early Settlement of Newton (Boston, 1854)Google Scholar; Smith, S. F., D.D., History of Newton, Mass. (America and Logo Type Co., 1880)Google Scholar; Middlesex County Registry of Deeds, deeds 80–26,27; 84–205; 121–312; 134–401.

9 Sources of the Fall River material as follows: Fall River, Its Rise and Progress, 1803-1875, B. Earle & Son, Fall River, 1875: Earl, H. H., Centennial History of Fall River, Mass. (N. Y., 1877)Google Scholar; Map of Fall River about 1800, prepared from data from various sources to accompany report of Watuppa Ponds and Quequedian River Commission, 1915.

10 Clark, op. cit., p. 175.

11 Transactions of the A. S. M. E., 1881, vol. ii, p. 104.

12 Bishop, op. cit., vol. i, p. 388.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid., vol. ii, p. 13.

15 Coxe. op. cit., p. 441.