The democratic revolution that led to the founding of the American nation was accompanied by widespread emulation of aristocratic behavior. Sometimes the most ardent American democrats proved the most susceptible to the allure of European gentility. Thus young John Adams, while lampooning “the late Refinements in modern manners,” nevertheless advised his future wife, Abigail, to be more attentive to posture: “You very often hang your Head like a Bulrush, and you sit with your legs crossed to the ruin of the figure.” On his trip to Paris in 1778 on behalf of the Continental Congress, he denounced the splendor of the houses, furniture, and clothing. “I cannot help suspecting that the more Elegance, the less Virtue,” he concluded. Yet despite the exigencies of war, Adams purchased a lavish carriage. On returning to America, he bought a three-story mansion and furnished it with Louis XV chairs and, among other extravagances, an ornate wine cooler from Vincennes.
Among aristocratic circles in Europe, gentility was the product of ancestry and cultivated style; but in America it was largely defined by possession of material goods. Houses with parlors, dining rooms, and hallways bulged with countless articles of consumption: porcelain plates, silver tea services, woolen carpets, walnut tables. By the mid-eighteenth century the “refinement of America” had touched the homes of some Southern planters and urban merchants; but a half century later porcelain plates made by English craftsman Josiah Wedgwood and mahogany wash-stands by Thomas Chippendale were appearing even in frontier communities. Americans were demanding more goods than such craftsmen could turn out. Everywhere producers sought to expand their workshops, hire and train more artisans, and acquire large stocks of materials and labor-saving machines.
But first they had to locate the requisite capital, find ways to supervise large numbers of workers, and discover how to get raw materials to factories and products to customers. The solutions to these problems, taken together, constituted the “market revolution” of the early nineteenth century. The “industrial revolution” came on its heels.
World History
