Industry

Sources

Limitations. Seventeenth-century manufacturing meant the production of articles or material by physical labor or mechanical labor. Industry during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries was limited. Low population, few urban markets, undeveloped inland transportation, scarce labor and capital, and the Navigation Acts prevented extensive development. Colonists

preferred to commit energy and capital to agricultural endeavors and downplayed consumerism. The manufacturing that did occur relied on simple tools in modest settings. Most colonial artisans toiled in workshops attached to their homes. The family was the primary unit of production, with the master craftsman assisted by his wife, children, and an occasional apprentice. These dispersed shops were located primarily in New England and Pennsylvania, where staple crops did not dominate the export economy. In contrast to the staple crops that were essential to the extended empire, colonial manufacturing was important to scattered local settlements.

Leader. Philadelphia was the leading manufacturing center during the colonial period, followed by New England. In spite of the focus on agriculture a range of small industries developed, especially in alcohol and leather. With increased access to West Indian molasses in 1717, sixty-three distilleries ran full-time in Massachusetts. Beer was the beverage of choice until the Scots-Irish introduced distilled spirits. As late as 1721 Pennsylvania shipped beer as far south as Charleston. Eventually the production of New England rum surpassed that of beer and cider. Nearly every farmer on the frontier had a still. Tanning proved a profitable venture, providing leather to shoemakers, saddlers, and harness makers in larger towns and villages. Pennsylvania, supplying most of the tanned leather and shoes for southern trade, was first among colonies in leather production.

Shipbuilding. The Navigation Act of 1651 limited colonial commerce to English and colonial vessels and stimulated colonial shipbuilding. As shipbuilding became the leading industry in Massachusetts in 1660, Edward Johnson noted, “Many a fair ship had her framing and finishing here, besides lesser vessels, barques, and ketches; many a Master, beside common Seamen, had their first learning in this colony.” Pennsylvania also developed a thriving shipbuilding trade, and its ships earned a reputation for speed and beauty.

Textiles and Other Industries. By 1750 inhabitants of Pennsylvania were making nine-tenths of their own cloth from materials produced on their own farms. They produced mostly wool but also worked with flax to make linen. Their industry affected the larger economy by giving employment to dyers, fullers, cardmakers, combmakers, spinners, and weavers. On a much smaller scale artisans produced bricks and tiles, pottery, clocks, silver, pewter, and gold artifacts.

Mills and Furnaces. Gristmills and sawmills emerged as the first industries that required a separate facility. They employed a larger workforce, required more substantial investment in plant and equipment, and depended in large part on water power. They supplied flour and lumber for both local and foreign trade. Other such structures housed ironworks, glassworks, paper mills, and powder mills. Small iron forges and furnaces multiplied in Pennsylvania because of abundant ore and water power. By 1750 Pennsylvania had taken first place in the manufacture of iron.

Fishing. The town of Marblehead, Massachusetts, protested against an export tax in 1669 because “Fish is the only great stapple which the Country produceth for forraine parts and is so benefitiall for making returns for what wee need.” New England fishing fed the West Indies and Mediterranean countries. Codfish in those northern waters were unsurpassed for salting and drying. New Englanders produced three grades of fish for export. Dun fish, buried to dry and mellow, was the highest grade that merchants exported to Spain, Portugal, and France. The middling grade was easy to transport, keep, and prepare. It was the favorite winter food of colonial farmers. Merchants exported the third, and lowest, grade to the West Indies along with pickled mackerel and bass. The real profit was in distribution, not production. Merchants such as Thomas Hancock earned more money by distributing dried fish and other New England manufactured goods than by simply selling them at home. They split their exports roughly into thirds: foodstuffs, fish, and wood products.

Whaling. A resourceful Christopher Hussey fitted a vessel in 1715 to hunt sperm whales and tow them back to a Nantucket port. Ships sailing out of Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Martha’s Vineyard sought whales that swam freely in the northern waters of the Atlantic. Whales were a valuable commodity that provided raw materials for the colonies to process and sell to domestic and overseas markets: ambergris for perfume, whalebone for stays and stiffeners, oil for lamps, and spermaceti for candles.

Sources

Jack P. Greene and J. R. Pole, Colonial British America: Essays in the New History of the Early Modern Era (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984);

Stephen Innes, ed., Work and Labor in Early America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988);

James T. Lemon, The Best Poor Man’s Country: A Geographical Study of Early Southeastern Pennsylvania (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972);

Marcus Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700-1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).