Midnight Ride, Industrial Dawn

by Robert Martello

  For a brief statement, this passage reveals much about Revere’s priorities. Following a description of his father and his silverworking origins, we now find him at a crossroads, as he had just returned to his old profession after a five-year absence during the Revolutionary War. Much had changed in these five years, for his country as well as for himself. This letter made no mention of the Midnight Ride that ensured his everlasting fame, or the many technical endeavors he undertook, or the promise of life apart from British rule. Instead, Revere distilled his entire Revolutionary service into an allusion to his rank as an artillery officer. Unsurprisingly, the letter glossed over the details of his less than glamorous discharge and court-martial still in progress. And at the end, he “thought it best” to return to silverworking when other opportunities ended—hardly an enthusiastic return to an interrupted profession.

  The letter continued:

  I did intend to have gone wholly into trade, but the principal part of my Interest, I lent to Government, which I have not been able to draw out, so must content my self, till I can do better. I am in middling circumstances and very well off for a Tradesman. I am forty seven years old. I have a wife + 8 children alive, my Eldest daughter is married, my oldest son since has learned my trade. Since we left the army [he] is now in business for him self. I have one brother + two sisters alive.2

  The description ended on a positive note. His large family, his oldest daughter’s marriage, and his son’s success all pleased Revere and secured his identity as a traditional patriarch; he was especially happy that his son could continue his father’s legacy independently. However, the happy tone of this passage is undermined at several points. Two uses of the word alive, even intended as positive statements, allude to the constant presence of death in the early American household. By 1781, Revere and three of his siblings were the only survivors of his father’s twelve children and he had already lost four of his own twelve offspring: could he see the future he would sadly learn that only five of his sixteen “little Lambs” would outlive him. He also, perhaps unintentionally, glossed over the passing of his first wife by referring to Rachel as simply “a wife”—in this case, his second.

  Prior to the discussion of his family, Revere offered a telling reflection upon his own place in postcolonial American society. His silverworking activities, apparently, were not his occupation of choice, because he really wanted to go “wholly” into trade. Because he had tied up many of his funds in government bonds and other securities he had to return to his earlier craftwork, at least until he could “do better”—clearly not a ringing endorsement of his artisan heritage. Revere further qualified his success as a silversmith by claiming he was well off “for a Tradesman,” revealing the awareness that, in comparison with other professionals, he had not even begun to approach the summit of the social pyramid. He described his circumstances as “middling,” an accurate though unflattering assessment. Revere’s tepid assessment of his artisan status reminds us of his underlying ambition: he would never accept a skilled laborer’s fixed status in the middle of the social hierarchy. In the new America, he could be so much more.

  America’s post-Revolutionary period featured virtually unrivaled social, economic, and political changes, and Revere longed to take advantage of these newfound opportunities. The new economic landscape created a tremendous upheaval: abundant quantities of dubious new currency, speculation in land and imported goods, and swings in the credit market enabled vast fortunes to be made or lost. The removal of the political restraints that the Patriots’ propaganda had lambasted for so many years produced a new feeling of liberation that inspired new aspirations and endeavors. And the alteration of traditional privileges and institutions yielded a complex, society-wide reconfiguration of individual status, property distribution, and financial opportunities, one that many ambitious former colonists like Revere sought to exploit. Class divisions and societal attitudes toward elitism and labor changed after the Revolution. Social mobility for many white, male, and usually “middling” or better workers increased for a period following the Revolution in part because of new job opportunities, more specialization in many fields, growing geographical mobility, urbanization, and industrialization. Social mobility had its limits, of course, and anyone attempting to cross into the uppermost tiers of society encountered all sorts of impediments. While certain individuals had more geographic and economic mobility after the Revolution, this mobility had a darker side, evident whenever workers lost their jobs due to economic downturns or changes in their trade. Society, and especially urban society, became more stratified at the end of the eighteenth century, with ever-widening divisions between the visible super-wealthy minority and a growing population living at the poverty level. In keeping with Revolutionary rhetoric, artisans, businessmen, and “common” people gradually began to distrust and even condemn some of the trappings and attitudes of the gentry, while paradoxically going to great length to duplicate the upper class’s material comforts. Samuel Adams lamented the erosion of social deference as well as the excessive consumption of luxuries in 1785 when he wrote, “You would be surprizd to see the Equipage, the Furniture and expensive Living of too many, the Pride and Vanity of Dress which pervades thro every Class, confounding every Distinction between the Poor and the Rich.” As a result of these new attitudes, success through ambition, talent, and hard work became the birthright of a new generation of Americans. Hereditary social classes started giving way to a class system theoretically based on economic divisions, justified in the sense that society’s leaders should be the most gifted and successful, with wealth serving as the clearest gauge of one’s merit and status.3

  To say that Paul Revere subscribed to these new sentiments would be an understatement, since nearly every aspect of his life embodied the rising expectations of the most dynamic members of society. He believed in the need for hierarchical leadership but wanted to select leaders according to their integrity and effectiveness, as opposed to their heritage. As his early story has illustrated, Revere’s identity as a master craftsman placed him in the company of ambitious and independent men hoping to advance their social and economic position while serving the needs of their country. He joined other groups such as St. Andrew’s Masonic Lodge and the militia in the continued move toward combining service and status.4 By 1781, he longed for even larger changes.

  After drying the ink on his cousin’s letter, Revere returned to his daily shop routine, perhaps without consciously realizing how much his attitude about his role as a tradesman had changed since his pre-Revolutionary days. Up to this point silverworking provided a badge that connoted skilled status and qualified him for leadership positions among working men. Yet at the culmination of the Revolution this badge started to lose its luster. Since the field of silverworking had not changed in this short time, the differences lay in Revere himself. Ever since he put aside his tools to begin the Midnight Ride he had held lesser leadership positions, led his lodge, carried and interpreted intelligence reports, commanded men in battle, and trafficked with the leaders of society. He had gone as far as any practicing artisan could hope—farther, in fact, than almost all of them. If being an artisan no longer helped him rise, perhaps he needed to become something different.

  Quest for Gentility: The Would-be Merchant

  Reacting to the possibility of postwar social and economic advancement, Revere attempted to establish himself as a merchant and become a gentleman, a social rank that still held a huge appeal. To succeed as a merchant he needed to greatly expand the scale of his business and gain a broader awareness of consumer trends, while shifting his personal role from production to sales. He soon learned that mercantile activities invited stress and risk under the best of conditions, let alone the perilous postwar economy.

  The growth of a colonial consumer society coincided with the appearance of layers of middlemen eager to satisfy the full range of postwar material needs. Buying and selling became a way of life for many individuals who took
on different roles. Merchants sat atop the heap, as international wholesalers possessing enough capital to speculate in other commodities such as land, and they might sell to customers and other traders as well. Shopkeepers occupied the next level of the trade hierarchy, serving as general retailers who bought from merchants and sold to local residents. Subcategories of shopkeepers, such as grocers, tobacconists, and ironmongers, answered more specialized demands, while traveling salesmen, often known as hucksters and peddlers, carried their goods between cities and rural areas. As consumption increased, shopping districts with growing expanses of store windows and new retail shops arose in larger towns and cities. Many artisans doubled as specialized shopkeepers in the daily process of selling their wares, accruing various goods as barter payments for their own products and reselling them to other customers.5

  Recognizing the potential for profit, Revere hoped to make retailing his primary occupation. He had some experience with overseas orders: as a silversmith he bought raw materials and other goods from overseas suppliers and sold occasional wares to Boston acquaintances who had moved abroad. On several occasions these dealings defied British law when he imported tools that Britain considered contraband. For example, in 1783 and 1784 Revere imported files, scissors, iron chapes, melting pots, borax, pumice stones, copper scales and weights, iron binding wire, saws, hand vices, hand lathes, shears, awls, and many other types of equipment. He always purchased more tools than he personally used because he sold or bartered many of them to other metalworkers.6 So it might have seemed a small leap for Revere to deemphasize his work on silver items and thereby spend more time importing and reselling a wider selection of goods.

  Revere entered the retail profession on a small scale in the early 1780s, using profits from his silver shop to set up a “hardware store” that sold local and imported goods. In many cases master artisans continued their successful craft shops even after diversifying into other fields such as property speculation or trade. Successful artisans often took on more of a managerial role to minimize the taint of manual labor, but many could not bring themselves to abandon a profitable high-profile craft shop. A steady income from silver sales proved extremely valuable to the many silversmiths—not just Revere—who aspired to lofty merchant status. Between 1783 and 1789, he withdrew hundreds of pounds of cash from the silversmith shop as he experimented with new commodities, and one shop inventory in 1785 reveals 12 pages of in-shop goods with a total value of more than 1,186 pounds. He almost exclusively imported his merchandise from England, including practical items such as wallpaper, pewter tableware, iron kitchen and fireplace implements, looking glasses, paper and related writing items, as well as luxuries such as nutmeg and other spices, raisins, rice, and silk handkerchiefs.7 An advertisement placed in the December 10, 1785 issue of the Massachusetts Centinel portrayed his growing retail business:

  Imported and to be Sold, by Paul Revere, Directly opposite Liberty-Pole, A General assortment of Hardware, consisting of Pewter, Brass, Copper, Ironmongery, Cutlery, Jappaned and Plated Wares, Among which are a few neat Brass Sconces, of one, two, and three branches, 3-pint plated Coffee-Urns, and Goblets, Very neat japanned Tea-Trays, in sets Brass Candlesticks, Looking-Glasses, Patent-Jacks, Carving Knives, &c. &c. &c. All which will be sold at the lowest advance for cash. The Gold and Silver-Smith’s business carried on in all its Branches.8

  Revere’s choice of words reveals the continued prominence of the Liberty Pole, a revolutionary icon, as well as the juxtaposition of his new retail trade with his silver shop’s ongoing presence. In addition, Revere’s comment regarding the “lowest advance for cash” hints at the nationwide shortages of specie that soon played a major role in his financial well-being.

  A combination of personal and nationwide shortcomings prevented Revere from making his living as a merchant. Investment capital shortages became a major impediment to mercantile success. He did not have large quantities of specie or other liquid forms of wealth, in part because some of his funds remained tied up in irretrievable government securities for years, so he attempted to compensate by aggressively seeking credit from overseas merchants. Revere had ties with several British merchants and hoped they might loan him some of the value of his purchases until he had time to sell those goods for a profit. Unfortunately his contacts chose not to extend sufficient credit, probably because he lacked collateral and had a workingman’s reputation that did not inspire trust in his ability to repay debts. At one point when an overseas purchaser failed to accept Revere’s securities for a loan, he sent 340 Spanish dollars to cover the debt and quickly asserted the importance of his honor: “I should think very little of my self if I attempted to deceive any man in matters of this kind.”9 Honorable though this was, cash payments were not a sustainable business practice.

  Revere also tried using his silver shop’s steady income to guarantee a loan, as illustrated in an earlier letter to the same London purchaser: “You may depend that I shall pay the strictest attention to making you remittance and flatter my self, I shall be able to give you full satisfaction, as my dependance for a living will chiefly depend on the Goldsmith business, which will be carried on by my son, under my inspection.”10 Revere’s earlier letter to his cousin mentioned his son’s being in “business for him self,” and this letter qualifies that description by illustrating the continuing professional relationship between father and son. While Paul Jr. certainly supervised shop operations in his father’s absence, Revere also kept a close watch on the operation. More important, silverworking income served as his “dependance for a living” even while he functioned as a merchant, because he still had a large stake in the proceeds of the shop. This is the first indication of Revere’s facility with diversification: sons, beginning with Paul Jr., took over some of his established operations while he applied his energy to the newest one, in this case mercantile dealings. Revere had already taken the first step toward a new paradigm of business operation, serving as a manager and owner rather than the chief skilled laborer. Despite steady income from a silverworking shop, Revere experienced repeated lifelong difficulties in securing lines of credit.

  In addition to insufficient investment capital, inexperience also hindered Revere’s ability to succeed as a merchant. Some of his letters indicate a lack of specific instructions for his London agents: “I could wish that the goods may be fashionable, tho’ at the same time I should not prefer the extremes of fashion, as a medium will best answer here . . . Where I have not mentioned the number and peices of articles but the amounts of what I wish to have purchased, I must beg your kind advice; as your aquaintance with the business of this Town will enable you to give better directions than I am able to.”11 One can imagine the difficulty a merchant would have in filling this indecisive request, and as a result Revere did not help his merchandise stand apart from that of the many other local retailers. In his defense, many retailers depended on the purchasing advice of others, since the slow rate of information and merchandise flow across the Atlantic produced huge lags between orders and shipments, in comparison to more rapidly changing fashions and prices. This time lag hurt Revere on many occasions, demonstrated in numerous letters complaining of shipments arriving too late for the fall market, or seasonal fall goods arriving in spring, resulting in “a prodigeous damage to me in my business.” The best merchants sent instructions that gave some freedom to trusted local representatives who could then exercise judgment within larger parameters. But many merchants, including Revere, had trouble finding a capable and honest foreign merchant to work for them. In this case family and personal contacts proved vital, and outside his silver shop and local community, Revere stood alone.12

  The final, and perhaps most important, reason for Revere’s mercantile difficulties relates to the nation’s oppressive economic climate. The mid-1780s were a terrible time to request a loan or attempt to sell merchandise. The war had interrupted a period of colonial economic growth, and disruptions to commerce forced America back into a less
efficient mode of limited trade, inconsistent local markets, and self-sufficient local production. The large military purchases made by the American, British, and French armies partially offset these depressed conditions, but the cessation of military spending at the end of the war deprived local producers of a major source of income, paving the way for the financial doldrums of the 1780s. Currency mismanagement added to the crisis, as the Continental Congress and state governments issued massive quantities of paper money, largely in the form of bills of credit printed by Revere and many others, in order to pay their creditors and soldiers. Governments eventually issued more than $400 million of colonial currency by 1781, and inflation had reduced $167 of these paper dollars to the value of $1 of specie.13

  After the end of the war, British and other European merchants flocked back to American ports in ships laden with trade goods in order to attempt to recapture their lucrative colonial markets. Americans welcomed this opportunity to correct wartime deficits and raise their standard of living with prestigious high-quality conveniences and luxuries. American merchants and shopkeepers quickly exhausted their supply of specie and continued making large purchases on credit, borrowing from overseas merchants and extending loans to their own customers. More than 75 percent of American purchases relied upon credit, and a “network of debt” blanketed the country.14 The flood of imports led to a speculative bubble that soon burst. One trader observed in 1783 that New York had imported enough goods to last seven years. Merchants faced with overstocks had to lower prices and eventually call in the loans they had extended to the many retailers who had purchased them on credit, who then called in the loans made to their customers. By 1784, the glut of goods, scarcity of specie, and unredeemable loans took their toll, producing a contraction of credit, bankruptcies, forced auctions, and a depressed economy, described vividly in one eyewitness account: