Rural Economy in New England 379 



Age of Homespun to th^.-future industrial development of New 

 England, this characteristic of mechanical ingenuity was perhaps 

 the most important^ The stage of self-sufficiency was in many ways 

 a period of prepa:ration for the coming era. The land had all been 

 cleared and settled; a considerable amount of capital had been 

 accumulated in the commercial towns, ready for investment in new 

 enterprises which might prove more successful than commerce; 

 stable and efficient legal and political institutions had been organized; 

 and finally the population had been trained in habits of frugality, 

 economy and industry. But it was the presence of inventive in- 

 genuity which seems to have aided the growth of manufacturing in 

 New England more than any of these. The ability to devise a means 

 to an end; to invent and perfect all sorts of tools and appliances, was 

 originally turned to account only in more efficiently supplying the 

 needs of the household or the surrounding community. When, 

 however, the growing prosperity of the cotton planters in the Southern 

 states opened a market for manufactured goods; when the ingenious 

 farmer-mechanics of the inland towns of southern New England 

 learned that they could get a living, and a much better living than 

 that derived from agriculture by the sale of the fruits of their skill 

 over a wide area, then this inventive ingenuity became utilized in the 

 establishment and development of numberless enterprises and showed 

 itself as a most valuable asset in industrial progress. - ^ 



ious contrivances in satisfying their own wants, these t^e communities differed 

 widely in the advantages of education, of communal life and perhaps also in the 

 inborn qualities of their people. Neither the colonists of the South African re- 

 public, nor the rural folk of the Tennessee mountains enjoyed the widespread 

 common-school education with its consequent high level of intelligence, nor the 

 close association in village communities, both of which must have favored the de- 

 velopment of intellectual talents of all sorts, — among them inventiveness, — among 

 the Yankee farmers. It may be also that the original settlers of New England, 

 coming as they did largely from urban districts in the mother country, transmitted 

 to their descendants a superior knowledge of the technical processes of the 

 ordinary crafts, and perhaps certain favoring physiological and psychological 

 characteristics. 



More important than these considerations, in my opinion, is the fact that the 

 commercial isolation of the New England towns was not as complete as that of 

 the other two communities mentioned. For their foodstuffs, the farmers of the 

 inland towns of southern New England had practically no market. For small 

 manufactured wares, however, there was a market in the coast towns and in 

 the Southern states. Consequently in the production of wooden-ware and tin- 

 ware, of hats and shoes, of buttons, clocks and other Yankee notions for these 

 markets, opportunity was given for the full fruition of that mechanical ingenuity 

 which germinated in the favoring atmosphere of the self-sufficient farms. 



