much from the beginning of the present contest. During this time we have manufactured within our families the most necessary articles of clothing. Those of cotton will bear some comparison with the same kinds of manufacture in Europe; but those of wool, flax, and hemp are very coarse and unpleasant; and such is our attachment to agriculture, and such our preference for foreign manufactures, that, be it wise or unwise, our people will certainly return as soon as they can to the raising of raw materials, and exchanging them for finer manufactures than they are able to execute themselves." 1 The following picture of an early plantation in Virginia reminds one of an old English manor that was just beginning to lose its self-sufficiency: "Worthy Captaine Matthews, an old Planter of above thirty yeers standing, one of the Counsell, and a most deserving Common-wealths-man, I may not omit to let you know this Gentlemans industry. "He hath a fine house, and all things answerable to it; he sowes yeerly store of Hempe and Flax, and causes it to be spun; he keeps Weavers, and hath a Tan-house, causes Leather to be dressed, hath eight Shoemakers employed in their trade, hath forty Negroe servants, brings them up to Trades in his house: He yeerly sowes abundance of Wheat, Barley, &c, The VVheat he selleth at four shillings the bushell; kills store of Beeves, and sells them to victuall the ships when they come thither : hath abundance of Kine, a brave Dairy, Swine great store, 1 Edition of 1801, p. 323. and Poltery [poultry]; he married the daughter of Sir. Tho. Hinton, and in a word, keeps a good house, lives bravely, and [is] a true lover of Virginia; he is worthy of much hononr [-our]." 1 1 In the northern colonies there was a special development of fishing, lumbering, and shipbuilding. The so-called manufacturing was done chiefly in the household, and, as in England, closely allied with agriculture. Brissot de Warville, in his "New Travels in the United States of America, performed in 1788," says, "Almost all these houses are inhabited by men who are both cultivators and artisans; one is a tanner, another a shoemaker, another sells goods, but all are farmers" (p. 127). Tench Coxe, in his "View of the United States, 1787-1794" says: "Those of the tradesmen and manufacturers who live in the country, generally reside on small lots and farms from I acre to 20: and not a few on farms from 20 to 150 acres; which they cultivate at leisure times, with their own hands, their wives, children, servants, apprentices, and sometimes by hired laborers. . . . This union of manufacturing and farming is found to be very convenient in the grain farms, where part of almost every day and great parts of every year can be spared from the business of the farm and employed in some mechanical handicraft or manufacturing busi 1 From an anonymous letter written in "Source-Book of American History," p. 91. 1648, printed in Hart's For a picture of plan tation life in later times, see "The Old South," by Thomas Nelson Page, New York, 1892, pp. 143 ff. ness (p. 378). In Maryland, in the eighteenth century, the parson had his glebe, the lawyers and doctors had their farms. “The mechanics, fishermen, bay sailors, and petty tradesmen took a turn in the tobacco fields at planting time or helped in the wheat harvest, or in pulling and husking corn." 1 Both countries, too, offer illustrations of another characteristic of the handicraft stage: the substitution of a money for a barter economy. The earliest of the kings in England after the Conquest received their dues from manors in kind, but Henry I found it possible to collect them in money. So, in America, the earliest taxes were paid in commodities. The following quotation from the "Records of the Colony of New Plymouth" for the year 1677 will be of interest: "The court voated that barly shalbe paied for the rate this yeer att three shillings a bushell. The proportions aboue entered [i.e. amount assessed to each town] are to be payed, two ptes of three thereof in wheat, and barly, and butter, or siluer, the wheat att 4° a bushell, the barly att three shillings a bushell, and the butter att fiue pence a pound, this first payment to be made att or before the first of October next after the date heerof, and the other third pte to be payed in Indian corne and rye, the Indian corne att three shillings a bushell, and the rye att three shillings and six pence a bushell." 2 The early colonial period also offers some parallel to English conditions in the minute regulation of 1 Scharf, "History of Maryland," Vol. II, p. 58. economic affairs by the government. The Boston town records show that the price and size of a loaf of bread was repeatedly fixed by public authority. Competition was not relied upon to fix a price. In the records of 1635 there is a resolution: "That Mr. William Hutchinson, Mr. William Colborne and Mr. William Brenton shall sett pryces upon all cattell comodities, victuals and labourers and Workmen's Wages and that noe other prises or rates shalbe given or taken." 1 The absence of the idea of a competitive price is further shown by the following incident, related by Governor Winthrop in his Journal: A keeper of a shop in Boston was fined two hundred pounds because he took above six pence in the shilling profit. "After the court had censured him the Church of Boston called him also in question where (as before he had done in the court) he did with tears acknowledge and bewail his covetous and corrupt heart, yet making some excuse for many of the particulars which were charged against him." This gave the occasion to Mr. Cotton to lay down the rules for trading, the first of which was: "A man may not sell above the current price (i.e.) such a price as is usual in the time and place, and as such who knows the worth of the commodity would give for it if he had occasion to use it, as that is called current money which every man will take, etc." 2 1 Second Report of the Record Commissioners of Boston, p. 5. 2 "Governor Winthrop's Journal," printed at Hartford, 1790, p. 188; Reprint of 1853, pp. 377-381. These slowgoing methods of the handicraft system, where every man worked for himself with his own tools, or for other persons who were not far above him in the social scale, began to give way to the factory system in England in the last quarter of the eighteenth and in America in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Of course, there is no intention of saying that they were entirely superseded, for many of the characteristics of one stage in industrial development are carried over into the next. In the garment trade the eighteenth century methods are being displaced with extreme slowness, and in many lines some hand-work will find a permanent place. The names we give to the various stages merely designate what is dominant in each stage. VI. The Industrial Stage It The use of power manufacture, made possible by the great mechanical inventions in the latter part of the eighteenth century, brought about that far-reaching and rapid change in our industrial life which is known as the Industrial Revolution. ushered in the era of capitalism, the wage system, and the extensive use of credit. It now became necessary for the laborers to leave their homes. and assemble in factories to use the expensive machinery which each one could not own for himself. To an increasing extent, those supplying the factors of production become separated. In a particular business one set of persons might |