Midnight Ride, Industrial Dawn

by Robert Martello

46. Quoted in Goss, Life of Colonel Paul Revere, pp. 400–401.

  47. Brigham, Paul Revere’s Engravings, pp. 19–21, 122–123; Goss, The Life of Colonel Paul Revere, p. 404; Triber, A True Republican, p. 119. Goss and other authors imply that Revere helped to set up and possibly operate the mill, but Triber correctly points out that the source materials do not credit Revere for any service other than designing it.

  48. Quote taken from Goss, Life of Colonel Paul Revere, pp. 405–406; general information in Triber, A True Republican, p. 127; Forbes, Paul Revere and the World He Lived In, pp. 321–322; and Robert B. Gordon, American Iron, 1607–1900 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p. 202.

  49. Wood, Radicalism of the American Revolution, pp. 247–248, 176–177; Peskin, Manufacturing Revolution, pp. 57–59; Foner, Tom Paine and Revolutionary America, p. 27; Merrill Jensen, The New Nation (New York: Vintage Books, 1950), pp. 184, 219–220; Walton and Shepherd, Economic Rise of Early America, p. 181; Nettels, Emergence of a National Economy, p. 25.

  50. Jensen, The New Nation, pp. 85–89, 129–130; Middlekauff, Glorious Cause, p. 548.

  CHAPTER THREE: Mercantile Ambitions and a New Look at Silver (1783–1789)

  1. Paul Revere to John Rivoire (his cousin), October 6, 1781, in “Loose Manuscripts 1746–1801,” Revere Family Papers (hereafter RFP), microfilm edition, 15 reels (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1979), reel 1.

  2. Revere to John Rivoire, October 6, 1781, “Loose Manuscripts 1746–1801,” reel 1, RFP.

  3. Adams quote taken from Samuel Adams letter to John Adams, July 2, 1785, cited in Allan Kulikoff, “The Progress of Inequality in Revolutionary Boston,” William and Mary Quarterly 28, vol. 3 (July 1971): 375. Also see Jeannine Falino, “‘The Pride Which Pervades thro every Class’: The Customers of Paul Revere,” in New England Silver & Silversmithing, ed. Jeannine Falino and Gerald W. R. Ward (Boston: University Press of Virginia, 2001), p. 152; Stuart Bruchey, The Roots of American Economic Growth, 1607–1861 (New York: Harper, 1965), pp. 200–201; Kulikoff, Progress of Inequality, pp. 399, 406, 408, 409; Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1991), pp. 227, 341; Drew R. McCoy, The Elusive Republic (New York: W. W. Norton, 1980), p. 107; Gordon S. Wood, “The Enemy is Us: Democratic Capitalism in the Early Republic,” Journal of the Early Republic 16, no. 2 (Summer 1996): 301.

  4. Sons of artisans enjoyed more social mobility than many other groups, with some becoming merchants. Kulikoff, “The Progress of Inequality,” p. 406.

  5. Edwin J. Perkins, The Economy of Colonial America, 2nd ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), p. 123; Thomas Cochran and William Miller, The Age of Enterprise: A Social History of Industrial America (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1961), p. 3; Carl Bridenbaugh, Cities in Revolt: Urban Life in America, 1743–1776 (London: Oxford University Press, 1955), pp. 274–275; Kulikoff, “The Progress of Inequality,” p. 406; Barbara McLean Ward, “Boston Artisan Entrepreneurs of the Goldsmithing Trade in the Decades before the Revolution,” in Entrepreneurs: The Boston Business Community, 1700–1850, ed. Conrad E. Wright and Katheryn P. Viens (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1997), p. 29.

  6. Deborah Anne Federhen, “Paul Revere, Silversmith: A Study of His Shop Operation and His Objects” (master’s thesis, University of Delaware, 1988), pp. 55–57.

  7. Ward, “Boston Artisan Entrepreneurs,” pp. 25–27, 37; Patrick M. Leehey, “Reconstructing Paul Revere; an Overview of his Ancestry, Life, and Work,” in Paul Revere—Artisan, Businessman, and Patriot (Boston: Paul Revere Memorial Association, 1988), p. 30; Deborah A. Federhen, “From Artisan to Entrepreneur: Paul Revere’s Silver Shop Operations,” in Paul Revere—Artisan, Businessman, and Patriot (Boston: Paul Revere Memorial Association, 1988), p. 85; Federhen, Paul Revere, Silversmith, p. 35.

  8. Federhen, Paul Revere, Silversmith, p. 58.

  9. November 13, 1783 letter to Frederick Geyer, “Letterbook 1783–1800,” reel 14, vol. 53.1, RFP.

  10. June 30, 1783 letter to Frederick Geyer, “Letterbook 1783–1800,” reel 14, vol. 53.1, RFP.

  11. Leehey, “Reconstructing Paul Revere,” p. 30; June 30, 1783 letter to Frederick Geyer, “Letterbook 1783–1800,” reel 14, vol. 53.1, RFP.

  12. Revere’s quote taken from November 11, 1785 letter to Frederick Geyer, “Letterbook 1783–1800,” reel 14, vol. 53.1, RFP. See also letters written to Frederick Geyer on December 25, 1783, April 15, 1784, and August 5, 1784, and Perkins, The Economy of Colonial America, p. 126.

  13. The tremendous quantity of circulating currency did help America to shift from the barter to a market economy amid widespread economic turbulence. Paul A. Gilje, “The Rise of Capitalism in the Early Republic,” Journal of the Early Republic 16, no. 2 (Summer 1996): 174; Curtis P. Nettels, The Emergence of a National Economy, 1775–1815 (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1962), p. 25; John McCusker and Russell Menard, The Economy of British America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), pp. 366–370; Gary M. Walton and James F. Shepherd, The Economic Rise of Early America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980), pp. 181–185.

  14. Most craftsmen and shopkeepers considered the extension of credit to their customers a risky but essential component of their business. Two New York bakers estimated that they lost between 2.5 and 5 percent of their income to uncollected debts, which proved very costly over time. Similarly, payments in bank notes could prove worthless in the years of bank uncertainty. Howard B. Rock, Artisans of the New Republic (New York: New York University Press, 1984), pp. 163–165; Bridenbaugh, Cities in Revolt, pp. 275–276.

  15. Quoted in Merrill Jensen, The New Nation (New York: Vintage Books, 1950), pp. 190–191.

  16. Massachusetts tried to rapidly repay its debt with high taxes, and the state’s tax burden increased fivefold or more. Taxpayers had to sell property and equipment to pay taxes and auctions frequently took place, leading to the Shays’ Rebellion protest in 1786. Even though this rebellion was suppressed, it achieved its aims by causing lawmakers to reduce taxes. Winifred Barr Rothenberg, “The Invention of American Capitalism: The Economy of New England in the Federal Period,” in Engines of Enterprise: An Economic History of New England, ed. Peter Temin (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000), p. 73. Also see Walton and Shepherd, Economic Rise of Early America, pp. 199–200; Jensen, The New Nation, pp. 185–187; Nettels, Emergence of a National Economy, pp. 47–48, 60–61; Wood, Radicalism of the American Revolution, p. 249; Ronald Schultz, “The Small Producer Tradition and the Moral Origins of Artisan Radicalism in Philadelphia 1720–1810,” Past and Present, no. 127 (May 1990): 105; Ronald Schultz, The Republic of Labor: Philadelphia Artisans and the Politics of Class 1720–1830 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 116–117.

  17. Federhen, “Artisan to Entrepreneur,” p. 85.

  18. A Massachusetts protective tariff passed in July 1785, prohibiting the import of 58 types of goods entirely and taxing others at 5 to 15 percent. Following this victory the Association of Tradesmen and Manufacturers took their cause to the rest of the nation, drafting a circular letter that they first sent to colleagues in all seaport cities, who passed it on to other areas. The circular letter helped to draw America’s mechanics closer together in a common cause. Lawrence A. Peskin, Manufacturing Revolution: The Intellectual Origins of Early American Industry (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), pp. 71–73, 82.

  19. Mechanic ideology can be best described as neo-mercantilism, advocating four main elements: a positive balance of trade, an active state to direct the economy, a balanced and self-sufficient American economy, and a concern for the public welfare over individual gain. Peskin, Manufacturing Revolution, p. 75. Also see Gary Kornblith, “Artisan Federalism: New England Mechanics and the Political Economy of the 1790s,” in Launching the “Extended Republic”: The Federalist Era, ed. Ronald Hoffman and Peter J. Albert (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1996), pp. 258–259, 263–267; Schult
z, Moral Origins of Artisan Radicalism, p. 85.

  20. Annals of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association (Boston: Press of Rockwell and Churchill, 1892), p. 10. This anecdote is also mentioned in Edwin Griffin Porter, Rambles in Old Boston (Boston: Cupples, Upham, and Company, 1887), pp. 98–99. These oft-quoted words are probably the creation of Daniel Webster, who related this story in an 1843 speech in Andover.

  21. Jayne E. Triber, A True Republican (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998), pp. 156–158; Peskin, Manufacturing Revolution, pp. 87–88; Silvio A. Bedini, Thinkers and Tinkers: Early American Men of Science (New York: Scribner, 1975), pp. 261–262.

  22. April 26, 1789 and January 24, 1791 letters from Fischer Ames to Paul Revere, “Loose Manuscripts 1746–1801,” reel 1, RFP. Also see Triber, A True Republican, pp. 160–162. This appointment eventually went to scientist and statesman David Rittenhouse, a friend of Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson.

  23. Leehey, “Reconstructing Paul Revere,” p. 31; Triber, A True Republican, pp. 160–161.

  24. The specific time and mechanism of the origin and spread of a market economy in America is a complex topic that is still a matter of some scholarly debate. Many of the capitalist conditions listed above appeared haltingly or in unusual ways. For example, paper money first appeared during the war, but vanished after the passage of the new Constitution. By this point, bank notes (greatly in excess of the assets of the issuing banks) had become quite prominent. This subject is covered in great detail throughout the Summer 1996 issue of the Journal of the Early Republic (vol. 16, no. 2). Also see Bruce Laurie, Artisans into Workers (New York: Hill and Wang, 1989), pp. 15–19; Gilje, “Rise of Capitalism,” pp. 176–177; Wood, Radicalism of the American Revolution, p. 135.

  25. The high-volume production of standardized forms of goods started taking place in other trades, such as hat, pin, and pottery making in Europe by the 1700s, prior to the use of machinery. Self-reinforcing cycles of production and demand led to the expansion of industrialization at greater levels after 1789, as illustrated in the following chapters. Paul A. Gilje, “Identity and Independence: The American Artisan,” in American Artisans: Crafting Social Identity, ed. Howard B. Rock, Paul A. Gilje, and Robert Asher (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), p. xiv; Gilje, “Rise of Capitalism in the Early Republic,” p. 162; Jonathan Prude, “Capitalism, Industrialization, and the Factory in Post-revolutionary America,” Journal of the Early Republic 16, no. 2 (Summer 1996): 242–245; Peskin, Manufacturing Revolution, pp. 61- 63; James R. Farr, Artisans in Europe, 1300–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 55–56; Robert B. Gordon and Patrick M. Malone, The Texture of Industry (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 87, 227, 237; Otto Mayr and Robert C. Post, eds., Yankee Enterprise: The Rise of the American System of Manufactures (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1981), p. xii; Brooke Hindle and Steven Lubar, Engines of Change: The American Industrial Revolution, 1790–1860 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1986), p. 153; David S. Landes, The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 1–2.

  26. Taken from Table E in Federhen, Paul Revere, Silversmith, p. 92.

  27. Federhen, Paul Revere, Silversmith, pp. 36–37.

  28. Federhen, Paul Revere, Silversmith, p. 6.

  29. Federhen, Paul Revere, Silversmith, pp. 48–54, 77–79.

  30. Silver merchandise recorded in an undated entry (between August 30 and September 17, 1783), “Boston Wastebook 1783–1797,” reel 5, vol. 2, RFP. Also see Federhen, Paul Revere, Silversmith, pp. 58, 81; Walter Licht, Industrializing America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), pp. 16–17; Gilje, “Rise of Capitalism in the Early Republic,” pp. 162–165; Winifred Barr Rothenberg, From Market-Places to a Market Economy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), pp. 243–244; Rothenberg, “Invention of American Capitalism,” pp. 107–108; Rock, Artisans of the New Republic, p. 242; T. H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 120–121; W. J. Rorabaugh, The Craft Apprentice (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 68; Billy G. Smith, “The Vicissitudes of Fortune” in Work and Labor in Early America, ed. Stephen Innes (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), pp. 246–247; Jonathan Prude, The Coming of Industrial Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 90, 109–110, 201.

  31. John Marshall Phillips, American Silver (New York: Dover, 2001), p. 109; Graham Hood, American Silver, A History of Style, 1650–1900 (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971), pp. 162, 166; Janine E. Skerry, “The Revolutionary Revere: A Critical Assessment of the Silver of Paul Revere,” in Paul Revere—Artisan, Businessman, and Patriot (Boston: Paul Revere Memorial Association, 1988), p. 53.

  32. The colonial consumption of tea increased to incredible levels after the war, aided by the opening of Chinese trade to American ships in 1784, and Revere’s business records illustrate his ability to tap into this trend. In addition to the 54 teapots he produced after the war, Revere made 50 pairs of sugar tongs, 58 creampots, 18 sugar bowls, and 21 teapot stands, among other. Falino, “Customers of Paul Revere,” pp. 157–158; Federhen, Paul Revere, Silversmith, pp. 44–45.

  33. Federhen, Paul Revere, Silversmith, pp. 63–65.

  34. Skerry, “Revolutionary Revere,” p. 53; Federhen, “Artisan to Entrepreneur,” p. 77.

  35. Artisans using mechanized equipment often found ways to maintain their older methods of skilled work while exploiting power machinery’s assets and thereby avoiding much of the physical toil. Gordon and Malone, Texture of Industry, p. 354.

  36. Karl Marx famously dissected the differences between tools and machines in his masterwork, Capital. Marx contended that machines include one or more tools among their components, and guide those tools with power sources and transmission devices. Marx analyzes how machines have the ability to displace and supersede human workers, and usher in the industrial revolution. This argument is advanced in Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1, chapter 15, particularly in section one. Dirk J. Struik, Yankee Science in the Making (New York: Dover Publications, 1991), pp. 175–176; Lindy Biggs, The Rational Factory (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 4–5; Landes, The Unbound Prometheus, pp. 1–2; Gordon and Malone, Texture of Industry, pp. 236, 354.

  37. James A. Mulholland, History of Metals in Colonial America (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1981), pp. 83, 88–89; Hood, History of Style, pp. 18–19; Federhen, “Artisan to Entrepreneur,” p. 77; Federhen, Paul Revere, Silversmith, pp. 41–42.

  38. Federhen, Paul Revere, Silversmith, pp. 43–44.

  39. Federhen, “Artisan to Entrepreneur,” p. 80; Federhen, Paul Revere, Silversmith, pp. 49–50.

  40. December 5, 1791 letter to Mess. George & William Burchell, “Letterbook 1783–1800,” reel 14, vol. 53.1, RFP.

  41. Federhen, Paul Revere, Silversmith, pp. 70–71, 73–74; Federhen, “Artisan to Entrepreneur,” pp. 87–88. Information pertaining to David Moseley can be found in reel 6, vol. 8, RFP, particularly in the “Moseley Estate” records and the “Cash and Memoranda Book, 1791–1801.”

  42. Janson quote from Rorabaugh, Craft Apprentice, p. 36. Also see Rorabaugh, Craft Apprentice, pp. 16, 20, 55; McCoy, The Elusive Republic, p. 92; Bernard Elbaum, “Why Apprenticeship Persisted in Britain but not in the United States,” Journal of Economic History 49, no. 2 (June 1989): 346; Sharon V. Salinger, “Artisans, Journeymen, and the Transformation of Labor in Late Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia,” William and Mary Quarterly 40, no. 1 (January 1983): 70.

  43. Wages were not standard. Some workers received piece rates, or day rates, or by the month. Carpenters received a day rate in the summer and a piece rate in winter when short days equated to less productivity. Wood, Radicalism, p. 185; Laura Rigal, The American Manufactory: Art, Labor, and the World of Things in the Ear
ly Republic (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001), p. 14; Nettels, Emergence of a National Economy, pp. 265–266; Salinger, “Transformation of Labor,” pp. 62, 64, 69, 72–73, 75, 83; Smith, “The Vicissitudes of Fortune,” pp. 239–242, 246–247.

  44. Leehey, “Reconstructing Paul Revere,” p. 26; Federhen, “Artisan to Entrepreneur,” p. 86.

  45. Federhen, “Artisan to Entrepreneur,” pp. 75, 86–88; Federhen, Paul Revere, Silversmith, p. 71.

  46. Other craftsmen joined him in this shift: in colonial woodworking, for example, many cabinetmakers assembled products from essentially mass-produced components. Stephanie Grauman Wolf, As Various as their Land (New York: HarperCollins, 1993), p. 179.

  47. Wood, “The Enemy is Us,” p. 304; Conrad E. Wright and Katheryn P. Viens, eds., Entrepreneurs: The Boston Business Community, 1700–1850 (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1997), pp. x–xi; Gilje, “The Rise of Capitalism,” pp. 172–175.

  48. Hamilton’s “Federalist program” consisted of three revenue laws derived from tariffs on foreign imports and a liquor tax; a Funding Act that required the federal government to pay all federal and state debts via tax revenues in a manner that restored faith in federally issued securities and America’s credit; a Bank Act that established the Bank of the United States, privately run but supported in part with federal funds, to expand the currency supply by issuing more bank notes than the coin in its possession; a Coinage Act that defined the sizes and values of new gold and silver coins; and a patent law that gave inventors fourteen years of monopolistic control over their products. Walton and Shepherd, Economic Rise of Early America, pp. 187–188; Nettels, Emergence of a National Economy, pp. 105, 110–123; Gilje, “Rise of Capitalism in the Early Republic,” pp. 176–177.

  49. Rorabaugh, Craft Apprentice, pp. 24, 59, 63–65; Jack Larkin, The Reshaping of Everyday Life, 1790–1840 (New York: HarperPerennial, 1989), pp. 53, 59; Gilje, “The Rise of Capitalism,” p. 170; Wood, Radicalism, p. 185; Wood, “The Enemy is Us,” p. 301; Nettels, Emergence of a National Economy, pp. 265–266; Bruce Laurie, “‘Spavined Ministers, Lying Toothpullers, and Buggering Priests’: Third-Partyism and the Search for Security in the Antebellum North,” in American Artisans: Crafting Social Identity, ed. Howard B. Rock, Paul A. Gilje, and Robert Asher (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), pp. 99, 105–106.