248 Introduction 



As a field for a study in economic history no region offers better 

 opportunities than do the three states of southern New England 

 at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Here we find an "eco- 

 nomic province," a territory of uniform life based upon a uniform 

 physical environment, peopled by a homogeneous race, with com- 

 mon descent, common traditions, and common institutions. This 

 uniformity of conditions gives the student the great advantage of 

 being able to draw general conclusions for the whole region from the 

 evidence presented in typical localities. He has, moveover, the 

 advantage of investigating an approximately static condition in 

 economic life. For at least a generation, there had been practi- 

 cally no change in the manner of life of the inhabitants in most of 

 the towns. In many of the older towns there had been little change 

 in 50 or 100 years. The process of pioneering was finished, prac- 

 tically all of the land which was then considered available had been 

 brought under cultivation; in the current phrase, these states were 

 "fully settled." But a great change was impending; soon the fa- 

 miliar, stereotyped ways of doing things, traditional habits of life 

 and of thought were to suffer modification and in a few generations 

 were to disappear almost entirely. The revolutionary force was 

 to come from the rise of manufactures and the growth of a non- 

 agricultural population in the inland towns. It is peculiarly inter- 

 esting and instructive to examine the economic and social life of 

 these communities at this critical stage in their history. 



The general plan of the essay may be outlined as follows: In the 

 first place an analysis of the occupations of the inhabitants of the 

 inland townships will be undertaken. Not only will the relative 

 importance of each trade, business, and profession be determined, 

 but also the nature of the relations existing between each and the 

 agricultural industry will be considered. In other words, this por- 

 tion. Chapter I, will be devoted to a study of the extent of the Divi- 

 sion of Labor in the inland townships. 



The second step. Chapter II, will be to determine how far the 

 inland communities thus described were typical of the whole region 

 of southern New England. A search will be made for industrial 

 and commercial towns and the commercial relations between these 

 and the purely rural towns will be considered. 



In Chapters III and IV an attempt will be made to find out how 

 far these rural communities engaged in commerce with the inhabi- 

 tants of regions outside New England. An investigation will be 

 made of the extent of the demand for foodstuffs in the Southern 



