The Standard of Living in the Colonial Chesapeake Author(s): Lois Green Carr and Lorena S. Walsh Reviewed work(s): Source: The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 45, No. 1 (Jan., 1988), pp. 135-159 Published by: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1922219 . Accessed: 14/08/2012 22:45 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

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The Standard of Living in the Colonial Chesapeake Lois Green Carr and Lorena S. Walsh

W rt

HEN emigrating Englishmen of the seventeenth century

crossed the Atlantic for the Chesapeake, they had to accept a different standard of living. By one criterion, nutrition, the changes improved their position. Heights are often used as a measure for adequacy of nutrition, and the work of Robert W. Fogel and his students has shown that, by the mid-eighteenth century, Americans-including those in the South-were several inches taller than their British counterparts. Furthermore, there was little rise in the heights of Americans from I7I0 to I750-an indication that this achievement of stature was a product of the seventeenth century. This fact strongly suggests that seventeenth-century immigrants ate better than did Britishers who remained at home. Although Indian corn, the staple of the Chesapeake diet, has nutritional deficiencies, when sufficient meat or fish or other protein is added, they are overcome. All the evidence we have, from livestock holdings in inventories, from archaeological excavations, from court records, and from a variety of contemporary comments, indicates that meat and fish were plentiful and that servants as well as masters partook.1 More plentiful and nutritious food than was available in England must have produced the increased heights. By other criteria, however, seventeenth-century Chesapeake inhabitants fared less well than did those who did not cross the Atlantic. For one thing, despite improvements in diet, life expectancy in the Chesapeake was lower than in most parts of England. Quite apart from the seasoning v

v

Ms. Carr is Historian at the St. Mary's City Commission; Ms. Walsh is a research fellow at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. 1Fogel, "Nutrition and the Decline in Mortality since I700: Some Additional Preliminary Findings," National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series, Working Paper No. i802 (i986), 40-42, hereafter cited as Fogel, "Nutrition"; Kenneth L. Sokoloff and Georgia C. Villaflor, "The Early Achievement of

ModernStaturein America,"SocialScience History,VI (i982),

453-48i;

Henry M.

Miller, "Meat, Bones, and Colonists: An Archaeological Perspective on Diet in the Colonial Chesapeake, i620-I745," in Lois Green Carr, Philip D. Morgan, and Jean B. Russo, eds., Colonial ChesapeakeSociety(Chapel Hill, N.C., forthcoming); Gloria L. Main, TobaccoColony: Life in Early Maryland, i650-I720 (Princeton, NJ., i982), 20I-202. Fogel has found that the diet of pregnant women and the feeding of children under age four have the main impact on heights ("Nutrition," 45-70).

136

WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY

deaths of immigrants, recurrent bouts of malaria weakened men and women for other diseases, and unfortunately malaria is not subject to check by improved nutrition.2 Less serious, but doubtless noticed by immigrant inhabitants, was a difference in the level of household comforts. James P. P. Horn has noted that at equivalent stages of wealth, seventeenth-century Englishmen in the Vale of Berkeley had larger, more weatherproof, and better furnished houses than did settlers in St. Mary's County, Maryland. Labor costs were too high in the Chesapeake to allow even the rich a large and well-built house. In England, furthermore, poor families usually had bedsteads to keep mattresses off the floor, tables, and furniture for sitting, but in Maryland and Virginia many households-not just those of the poor-did entirely without some or all such conveniences.3 How seventeenth-century Chesapeake immigrants viewed these differences is not clear. From our point of view, they had improved their diets, yet, as Gloria Main and others have pointed out, some newcomers found it difficult to adjust to maize instead of English grains and, in the early days, to water instead of beer or cider for drink.4 Whether inhabitants really minded the low-quality housing and sparse furnishings is open to question. Certainly, they did not give improvement any priority. Chesapeake inhabitants were busy acquiring land, establishing farms, and generally increasing capital stocks rather than purchasing or producing consumer goods or even expending labor on more comfortable houses.5 Furthermore, given the short life expectancies of immigrants, about the time a man might feel well enough established to improve his housing or purchase additional furnishings he was likely to die. Couples generally did not have time to improve their domestic environment. As Chesapeake settlements aged, some differences with England began to disappear. Native-born inhabitants had more immunity to local diseases and hence lived longer than their immigrant parents had. As farms became well established, planters thought more of creature comforts. But what is 2Fogel, "Nutrition," 65; Lorena S. Walsh and Russell R. Menard, "Death in the Chesapeake: Two Life Tables for Men in Early Colonial Maryland," Maryland E. A. Wrigley, Populationand History HistoricalMagazine, LXIX (I74), 2II-227; (New York, I 969), 96- I 00. 3 Horn, "Adapting to a New World: A Comparative Study of Local Society in England and Maryland, i650-I700," in Carr, Morgan, and Russo, eds., Colonial ChesapeakeSociety. 4Main, TobaccoColony, chap. 7. 5See Lois Green Carr and Lorena S. Walsh, "Inventories and the Analysis of Wealth and Consumption Patterns in St. Mary's County, Maryland, i658-I777,"

HistoricalMethods,XIII

(i980),

8i-i04;

Walsh, "UrbanAmenities and Rural

Sufficiency: Living Standards and Consumer Behavior in the Colonial Chesapeake, I643-1777," Journal of EconomicHistory, XLIII (I983), I09-I I7; and Carr and Walsh, "Consumer Behavior in the Colonial Chesapeake," in Cary Carson, Ronald Hoffman, and Peter J. Albert, eds., Of ConsumingInterests:The Style of Life in the Eighteenth Century (Charlottesville, Va., forthcoming).

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particularly interesting is that, differences aside, ideas of what was a desirable life-style changed in both England and her colonies over the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and affected contemporary perceptions of what the standard of living should be. This is our primary topic here. Increasing comfort, attractiveness, and even elegance in living quarters and dress, more arrangements for individual use of space and utensils, increased emphasis on manners and social ceremony, and a desire to be fashionable-all summed up by the word gentility-appeared first in England, but soon crossed the Atlantic. By the I770s, European observers of wealthy Chesapeake households were impressed by their gentility and the speed with which shifts in fashions generated in London appeared on Chesapeake plantations. As in England, furthermore, such changes had reached more than the rich. Genteel behavior and its artifactswere used to reinforce social distinctions but were also used to bridge them. The trappings of gentility began to penetrate the households of middling planters as they aspired to achieve gentle status, and such items as tea had even reached the households of the poor. Lorena Walsh has described our sources-probate inventories-and some of the methods we have used to analyze them. We chose four Chesapeake counties, Anne Arundel, St. Mary's, and Somerset in Maryland, and York in Virginia, selected for varying economies and demographic beginnings that might have produced varying histories of changes in consumer behavior.6 Our Amenities Index, which Gloria Main has described and is shown in Table I, provides the most easily grasped picture of change. Figure iA shows overall progress in acquisition of these amenities based on mean index scores over time. The graph indicates little change during the seventeenth century; the mean remained at about a two-item score. After the turn of the century, mean scores increased 6Anne Arundel County in Maryland and York County in Virginia were homes of provincial capitals and offered urban-ruralcontrasts. They differed in the kind of tobacco grown, York planters concentrating on the sweet-scented variety sought for the London market, those of Anne Arundel on the less valuable oronoco. Planters in both eventually added corn as an export crop. St. Mary's County, Maryland, was more closely tied to tobacco than any other place we have studied, whereas Somerset County, on Maryland's lower Eastern Shore, was least committed to this crop. Somerset had little good tobacco soil and poorer marketing connections than had the other three counties and early developed a much more diversified economy. There were also demographic differences. St. Mary's and York were settled in the i63os, but the population of St. Mary's grew throughout the I7th century, whereas that of York stagnated from the i66os through the late i69os. Anne Arundel was created in the early i65os and Somerset in the mid-i66os, but both were founded by organized migrations from Virginia. Clayton Torrence, Old Somerseton the EasternShoreof Maryland: A Study in Foundations and Founders (Richmond, Va., I935); Aubrey C. Land, Colonial Maryland: A History (Millwood, N.Y., i98I), 49. Their early populations were more dominated by families than were those of St. Mary's or York, although influxes of ex-servants soon diluted this characteristic.

I38

WILLIAMAND MARYQUARTERLY

steadily until they approached or exceeded a five-item score. Scored amenities increased two and a half times. These changes were region-wide, and the timing was the same in all the counties studied, despite economic and demographic differences. Furthermore, as Figures 2 and 3 make clear, inhabitants at all levels of wealth participated. The rich, those with more than ?225 in movable wealth, rose soonest and achieved the highest scores, but even people with estates worth less than ?uo-tenants and small landowners without bound labor-were showing progress by the I73OS.7

When broken down by item, the index also tells us something about the characteristics of social groups, at least insofar as they can be defined by wealth. Table II shows the data for rural Anne Arundel County. Some kinds of objects were always luxuries confined primarily to the households of the rich. In this selection of items, these were time pieces, pictures, and silver plate. On the other hand, table knives and forks and fine earthenware, the social props for genteel dining, were confined to the rich at first, but by the I770S were considered desirable and affordable by some well down on the economic scale. In addition, tea and tea ware, not included in the index but shown in the table, were nonessential items that showed major increase even in estates worth less than ?5o. The social definition of what was a luxury had evidently changed. Of the remaining items-coarse ceramics, linens, books, and spices-the first three were the most likely to appear in the inventories of the poor. With minor exceptions, the other three counties show similar results.8 7All values have been put into constant pounds, using a commodity price index created with prices from the inventories. In an earlier study, which focused on St. Mary's County, we selected cutting points for wealth as follows: at ?50 because this was close to the median until the I73os, at ?225 because amenities scores jumped at this point across the whole colonial period, and at ?490 because inventoried wealthholders worth more were the top 5 to io% over the whole period. Decedents worth less than ?5o almost never owned slaves, but many were landowners. Those worth ?5o-225 increasingly owned slaves and usually land. Those worth ?226+ almost always owned both land and slaves and many were officeholders. As we have extended the work to other counties, these characteristics have continued to appear, making these wealth divisions appropriate to continue. However, in Anne Arundel and York, fewer poor men were inventoried in proportion to the whole than in St. Mary's and Somerset, creating a range for the group worth more than ?490 of about 7 to 20% of inventoried wealthholders. In some parts of the analysis we have further divided the middle group into two subgroups, ?5o-94 and ?95-225. 8 In Anne Arundel, coarse ceramics, linens, books, and spices all show differences across wealth, but only the ceramics show increase over time. There were regional differences among poor estates. Those of St. Mary's and Somerset showed increases not only in ceramics but in linens, spices, and books. In St. Mary's this increase brought the poor to the level of rural Anne Arundel and rural York, but Somerset was different. This was an area that early developed home industries in spinning yarn and weaving cloth, and it was also the home of a substantial population of Quakers and Presbyterians, both groups that emphasized Bible

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The index has also enabled us to summarize differences between rural and urban life-styles. Figure 4 and Table III show that at all levels of wealth, people who died in Annapolis scored higher than did country dwellers, and the same was true for Williamsburg and Yorktown in Virginia. The reasons, of course, are not far to seek. Town living revolved more around clock time and offered many more opportunities for social intercourse than country living did. One might suppose that the development of these towns and their urban ways was a cause of the spread of amenities in the countryside, but Figures 2 and 3 suggest not. In all wealth groups, the entirely rural counties reached higher scores than did the rural parts of York and Anne Arundel. The local towns were too sparsely populated and had too few commercial connections with a hinterland to be a main source of metropolitan influence. Urban influences undoubtedly did affect Chesapeake behavior, but these influences were English, not local. London was the metropolitan center. Neil McKendrick and others have described the explosion of fashion and luxury spending in the English upper classes and the imitations becoming evident among lower groups as the eighteenth century progressed.9 The Chesapeake gentry had a model to which they could and did aspire, and they, in turn, provided models for lesser planters. Crucial to these developments were new methods of English manufacture that were making a variety of goods more plentiful and improved transportation networks that were helping to bring down the costs of carrying goods to markets, including markets in the Chesapeake.10 Changes in merchandizing were also part of the picture, as McKendrick and Lorna Weatherill have made clear for England." Evidence from Chesapeake account books and correspondence shows that by the I730S and I740S storekeepers were making efforts to display merchandise attractively and to appeal especially to women customers. Customers, in turn, were reading. Here religious books and linens ultimately reached between one-half and two-thirds of poor estates-twice the level found anywhere else. See Carr and Walsh, "Consumer Behavior," in Carson, Hoffman, and Albert, eds., Of Consuming Interests.On the character of Somerset see Lois Green Carr, "Diversification in the Colonial Chesapeake: The Economy of Somerset County, Maryland, in Comparative Perspective," in Carr, Morgan, and Russo, eds., Colonial Chesapeake Society. 9McKendrick, John Brewer, and J. H. Plumb, The Birth of a ConsumerSociety: The Commercializationof Eighteenth-CenturyEngland (Bloomington, Ind., I982). 10Phyllis Deane and W. A. Cole, British Economic Growth, i688- I959 (Cambridge, I972), 50-63; Charles Wilson, England'sApprenticeship, I603-I763 (New York, I965), chap. I4; B. A. Holderness, Pre-Industrial England: Economy (London,I976), chaps.4, 5;JamesF. Shepherdand Gary and Society,1500-I750 M. Walton, Shipping, Maritime Trade, and the EconomicDevelopmentof Colonial North America (Cambridge, I972), chap. 5. 11McKendrick, Brewer, and Plumb, Birth of a Consumer Society; Lorna Weatherill, "The Business of Middlemen in the English Pottery Trade before I780," Business History, XXVIII (I986), 5I-76.

I40

WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY

insisting that goods be new and fashionable. A proliferation of stores, furthermore, helped to keep prices competitive.12 All these changes brought English metropolitan influences to every corner of Chesapeake society. Equally significant in the Chesapeake was the fact that planters could acquire at least small amounts of genteel equipment without much altering their spending patterns. Among the rich, as seen in Figure 2, the value of consumer durables had begun to level out or decline everywhere by I720, yet, except in rural York County, amenities scores continued to rise. A decade later a similar pattern had started among the bottom and middle groups. (See Figure 3.) Into the I770s, rural people at these levels in all four counties steadily raised their standard of consumption as revealed in scores, in most cases substantially. Yet their inventories show level, decreasing, or only slightly rising value in stocks of consumer goods. This outcome is in part, at least, the result of our scoring method, which measures only entry into acquisition of amenities, not the amount or quality of the goods. One tin fork in an inventory counts as much as several cases of silver forks. However, this very aspect of our method has an advantage. It highlights the fact that families did not have to make significant changes in the way they allocated basic resources in order to adopt new ways of enjoying life. A poor planter might pay four pence for a knife and fork, a shilling for a Bible, or nine pence for a delft mug-all indicators of changes in behavior or tastes-without noticeably increasing the overall value of the family's consumer durables. A number of particularly local conditions-demographic and economic-also affected Chesapeake consumer behavior.13 Time does not permit discussion of these, and we will confine ourselves to one point. A person's wealth was the most important determinant of where he or she would score on the amenities scale. Consequently, the structure of wealth was of prime importance for the ability to buy and hence for merchants' incentives to send more than necessities to the Chesapeake. Had the society consisted of a few very rich and otherwise only the very poor, the demand for amenities would have been insufficient. As it was, there were no great gaps in the wealth structure that marked off the rich from the poor. Middling planters, furthermore, were 30 to 45 percent of the inventoried population, and while the proportion of this group in the living population was undoubtedly much smaller, in combination with those who were richer they offered a sizable market. Although the increasing spread of amenities is clear, we should not exaggerate its overall impact. At the end of the colonial period, a sizable proportion-at least 40 percent and probably much more-of the propertied Chesapeake population had less than ?5O of movable wealth.14 12 These changes are detailed in Carr and Walsh, "Consumer Behavior," in Carson, Hoffman, and Albert, eds., Of ConsumingInterests. 13These are laid out ibid. 14 Although inventories suggest that inventoried wealthholders with movable

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While planters at this level had increased their amenities scores, the mean was still less than three items out of twelve. Such families still lived in small, poorly equipped houses with at most two rooms and a loft and a wooden chimney.15 Family members might enjoy a cup of tea or eat with a fork, luxuries unknown to their grandparents, but living conditions were still primitive. On the other hand, forks or tea are indications of changes in cultural attitudes that were permeating all society, and we need to ask whether such changes were a cause or an effect of the rising standard of consumption. To answer this question, we devised the Modern Index, described in Table I, which is confined to equipment which most Westerners now consider minimal for comfort and cleanliness: (i) a mattress; (2) a bedstead; (3) some bed linen; (4) a table; (5) one or more chairs; (6) pots for boiling and (7) equipment to prepare food in at least one other way; (8) some coarse ceramics; (9) table forks; and (io) some means of interior lighting. Figure iB shows that in rural Anne Arundel County, while this very rudimentary combination was of much greater concern to the affluent than to the poor, as late as the I770S not even all the rich had every item. People worth less than ?95-close to half of all inventoried decedents and a much larger group in the living population-on the average were missing four or more. Most important of all, there was little sign of change over time in the propensity of planters in any wealth group to improve their position. Yet inventoried planters at all levels of wealth increased acquisition of other kinds of nonessentials, as seen in Figure iA. The reasons cannot lie in less availability or much greater costs of the Modern Index items as opposed to those of the Amenities Index. The choices must have reflected a cultural change that did not reach many kinds of conveniences we now think essential. Counts of other kinds of goods, especially those connected with cleanliness, bear out this conclusion. The rich were more likely than the poor to own chamber pots, close stools, brooms, and scrub brushes, but these were far from standard even in gentry households. Toward the end of the colonial period signs of change became evident, especially in the number of well-to-do households that contained laundry equipment. An attractive appearance began to require greater cleanliness and neatness, and the introduction of such materials as cottons made washing and ironing a simpler procedure. But apart from this, there was no movement assets worth less than ?50 were a decreasing proportion of the total, by the I770S in all four counties they were still 30% of all, and those worth less than ?95 were 38 to 45%. Since poor people were less likely than the rich to go through probate, the proportion of all people who died in these wealth groups was larger; and given the age bias of the dying, wealthholders at these levels were a still larger proportion in the living population. 15On this kind of housing and its long survival as a type see Cary Carson et al., "Impermanent Architecture in the Southern American Colonies," Winterthur I35-I96. Portfolio, XVI (i98i),

142

WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY

such as had occurred, for example, in equipment for drinking tea. There was also no sign of a desire to increase privacy and reduce crowding by acquiring separate beds for most family members. Richer households were usually larger than poorer ones, and from the beginning the rich had more beds than did others. But the mean number of beds per inventory did not increase across time in any wealth group. Through the eighteenth century all groups continued to spend more on bedding than on any other functional grouping of equipment. What was desired, however, was better beds, not more of them.16 These were not the areas of cultural change. It probably took the growing awareness of the connection between dirt and disease to produce the interest in cleanliness and sanitation that appeared in the early nineteenth century. The question remains, what fueled the movement toward gentility, the pursuit of fashion, and the escalation of luxury that characterized the eighteenth century? The pursuit of fashion and luxury had its roots in marketing techniques that appealed to drives for social emulation and competition. There was nothing new in emulation, of course. What was new was availability of new kinds of goods, a distribution system that enabled these goods to reach broad markets, and discoveries of how to advertise and display them in ways that appealed to buyers. Combine these changes with the drive for emulation, and pursuit of fashion and even luxury can arise as a social criterion for status. Since changing fashions create new markets, creating fashions becomes part of entrepreneurship and the process becomes self-perpetuating. The roots of gentility are more obscure. Pursuit of fashion and luxury, the economic and technological changes that encouraged them, and the social emulation and competition that underlay them all played a role in spreading the culture of gentility. But these do not explain the social choices that gentility represented-the emphasis on individualized furnishings used for social purposes, the elaboration of social equipment, the new forms of social ritual like the tea ceremony. Why Englishmen, either at home or in the colonies, developed the particular sets of attitudes toward household artifacts and their uses that gentility required is a question that needs much greater understanding than we, at least, presently have of how and why cultural change occurs. A final question asks whether the participation of Chesapeake planters in the new consumer culture checked investment in productive activity. The answer is no, although much more work is needed for a full demonstration. Everywhere the great bulk of movable property was in slaves and livestock. Over the seventeenth century consumer goods as a proportion of total wealth rose somewhat, a not surprising result in a society where most people started with very little property of any kind; but between i690 and I720 in all four counties this proportion began to See Walsh, "Urban Amenities,"Jour. Econ.Hist., XLIII (I983), Table I; Carr and Walsh, "Consumer Behavior," in Carson, Hoffman, and Albert, eds., Of ConsumingInterests,Table 5. 16

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fall. (See Table IV.) Planters were favoring labor and other productive assets over consumer goods even as they joined in the pursuit of fashion and genteel display. The new life-styles developing on both sides of the Atlantic were far from interfering with economic development. Indeed, if Neil McKendrick and others are correct, they were establishing the cultural foundations for demand that may have helped to fuel the industrial revolution.

TABLEI I. Amenities Index i. 2.

3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9. io. Watches or Clocks i i. Pictures I2.

I For convenienceand sanitation

Coarseearthenware Bed or table linen Table knives Table forks Fine earthenware Spices or signs thereof} Religious books Secularbooks Wigs Silver Plate

I

For refinementin convenienceand increasing elegance at table For varietyin diet For educationor use of leisure time For signs of luxury or display

II. ModernIndex

Mattress Bedstead 3. Bed linen 4. Table i.

2.

5. One or more chairs

6. 7. 8. 9. io.

A pot for boiling Meansof cooking in at least one other way Coarseceramics Table forks Meansof interiorlighting

TABLE II INCIDENCE OF SELECTEDCONSUMER ITEMS, ANNE ARUNDEL COU

Total Estate Value

1655-

1665-

1664 N =8

1677 N=I03

I678I687 N=I0oo

I688-

1699 N=157

17001709

N= I63

1710-

1723-

173

1722

1732

17 N=

N=

I99

N= II5

Earthenware ?o-49 ?5o-94 ?95-225

50% 0 0

34% 39

35% 55

53 6o

7I

83

67

85

25

24

70

50

?226-490 ?49I+

0

?o-49 ?5o-94 ?95-225

0 0 0 0

?226-490

0

?49I+

25% 2I

49 77 82

34% 44

28% 48

42

5

68

63

88

6

64

59

79

8

83

8i

95

9

32%

4

Bed or Table Linen ?o-49 ?5o-94 ?95-225

75 I00

73

I9 44

I5 30

9 4I

32

2

87

75

76

93 67

83

I00 I00

79 84

66 8i

79 93

5 7

II I7

0 0

86

94

I00

II

I00

9

TableKnives

?226-490 i49I+

27

II

47 33

33 43

5 9 3

8 55

72

9 4

7 I5

5 i6

i8

i6

25

20

32

57

3 7

69

55

8

I

32

Table Forks ?o-49 ?5o-94 ?95-225

?226-490 ?49I+

0 0 0

0 0 0

0

3

0

0

0

8

0

0

0 0

5 3

27

5 0 7 I2 50

7 II II

25

33

27

57

7

65

55

8

5

i6

I7 3

Total

I655-

1665-

Estate

16 16

I677

Value

N =8

N = Io3

16781687 N =Ioo

I688-

1700-

1710-

I723-

I699

1 709

1722

1732

N =157

N = I63

N =r99

I733

I74

N =I5

N=

FineEarthenware ?o-49

0

?5o-94

0

0 0

?95-225

0

7

?226-490

0

0 0

?49I

+

0 0 0 0

3

2

0

3

0 0 0

0 0

4

0

8

I4

2I

3

14

9

27

30

5

5

22

I

8

Spices ?o-49 ?5o-94 ?95-225

?226-490

4

25

5

3 6

2

I

4

7

3 5

I00

I7

I4

50

27

i8 I7

22

2I

53

I5

48

I6 I4

67

43

55

77

62

23

30

I9

23

20

32

30 6o

46

34

48

59

42

50

57

68

42

53

83

6I

72

67 79

57

73

94

68 85

I00

?49I+

I7

43 50

Books:Religious ?o-49 ?5o-94

75 I00

?95-225

I00

?226-490

0

I00

?49I+

85

Books:Secular 5 7

0 0

0 0

5

0

36

6

4

?o-49 ?5o-94

0 0

2

0

2

0

0

0

?95-225

0

0

7

3

?226-490

0

0

0

0

0

?49I+

5

5 0 0 0 20

4

TABLE II

(CONTINUED)

Wigs ?o-49

0

2

5

?5o-94 ?95-225

0 0

0 0

?226-490

0

0

5 0 0

0

?49I+

29

3 0 3 0 9

3 7 4 4

6 0 II

5 5 4

4

23

0

2

II

23

4 0

20

9

Clocks& Watches ?o-49 ?5o-94 ?95-225 ?226-490 ?49I +

0

0

0 0 I00

0 0 0 0

3 0 0 33 43

0 0 0 I5 27

2

0

0

2

4 4 0 44

0

0

0

5 I4

4 I4 55

IO I3 6i

3 0 8 7

0 6 7

42

Pictures ?o-49 ?5o-94 ?95-225 ?225-490 ?49I

0 0

0 4

0 0

0 0

7 0

7 33

+

67

29

0 0 0 0 27

2

0

4

0

4 0

5 9

II

I9

38

0

23

Silver Plate ?o-49

25

0

?50-94

0

4

3 5

5 3

?95-225

I00

I3

2I

?226-490

I00

47 67

67 86

35 69 9I

0 0

?49I

+

2

4

0

4

I5

II

6 4

29

II

25

25

29

50

83

87

36 85

70

38

Tea & Tea Services ?o-49

0

0

?50-94

0

0

3 0

?95-225

0

0

0

?225-490 ?49I +

0

0 0

0 0

2

0

0

0

0

0

5

4

0

0

3

4

I4

0 0

0 0

5 I9

0

36 58

45

TABLEIII

INCIDENCE OF SELECTEDCONSUMER ITEMS, ANNE ARUNDEL COU

Total Estate

I688-I699

1700-1709

1710-1722

1723-1732

I733-I744

I74

Value

N=4

N= I3

N=40

N=33

N=5I

N

Earthenware 67%

?o-49 ?5o-94 ?95-225 ?226-490 ?49I

50% I00

IOO

+

IOO IOO 0

27%

5?%

64 67 6o

50

I00

83 86 83

IOO 90

IOO

32%

67

Bed or Table Linen 67

?o-49

?5o-94 ?95-225 ?226-490 ?49I

50 Ioo

50

33

IOO IOO

+

40 82

40

42

75

67 8o

83

50 92

IOO

IOO

IOO

70

IOO

TableKnives ?o-49 ?5o-94 ?95-225 ?226-490 ?49I

67

Ioo

+

0

0

IOO

36

50

67

I7 40

0

IOO

20

2I

75 83

58

7I

67

0 IOO 70

Table Forks 0

?o-49 ?50-94 ?95-225

?226-490 ?49I

+

I00

0 0 IOO 0 0

0

20

2I

I7

75 83

0 50

6o

7I

IOO

67

36

I00

6o

TABLE III

Total Estate Value

I688-I699 N= 4

1700-1709 N= I3

1710-1722 N= 40

(CONTINUED)

I723-I732 N= 33

1733-1744 N= 5I

Fine Earthenware ?o-49 ?5o-94

0

?95-225

?226-490

0

+

?49I

0

I3

I0

2I

0

i8

0 0

0

25 83 86

67 88

67

8o

0

6o I00

0

Spices

?o-49

33

0 0

?5o-94

?95-225 ?226-490 ?49I +

50 I00

33

?o-49

?49I

+

0

0

0

33

33 7I

I3

0

67

67

6o

67

57 9I 67

33 I00

I0

33

0

?95-225

27

6o

I00

?5o-94 ?226-490

7

I00 I00

8o 67

Books:Religious 67

75

26 I00

67 72

63

67

70

92

Books:Secular

?o-49

0

?5o-94 ?95-225 ?226-490

0

?49I +

?o-49

0

0

9

0 0

0 0

0

8o

I7 I4

I3

0

67

33

40

33

I0

5

0 50

20 27 33

50 33

0

33

0

8o

29

0

0

5 8

Wigs

33

?5o-94 ?95-225 ?226-490

33

I00

17

N

Clocks& Watches 0

?o-49

?5o-94 ?95-225 ?226-490 ?49I

I00

0

7

0 0 0

9

100

+

0 25

I I

50

0

i8 46

29

67 88

i8

50

6o

Pictures 0

?o-49 ?5o-94 ?95-225 ?226-490

I7 0 0

100

?491 +

67 100

32

20

IO

36 33 6o 33

25

50

67 43

42

67

30

o00

Silver Plate 0

?o-49

?50-94 ?95-225

?226-490 ?491 +

I00

17 I00 50

20

0

25

27

25 I00 7I

0 58

75

67

90

83

67

I00

100

100

Tea & Tea Services 0

?o-49 ?50-94 ?95-225

?226-490 ?49I

+

0

0 0 0

0 0

0

I6

0 27

50

0

I7 40

67 7I

58

75

67

70

I00

I50

WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY

TABLE IV MEAN VALUE OF CONSUMER DURABLES AS PERCENTAGEOF MEAN TEV

Anne Arundel All

St. Mary's

Rural

I658-I664

io.6

io.6

i6.i

I665-I677 I678-I687 I688-I699

I7.6

I7.6

I7.3 I7.3 I4.5 I4.9

I7.3 I7.3 I3.9 I4.8

I6.5 I6.4

9.0

I3.0 ii.8

I700-I709 I7I0-I722 I723-I732

I733-I744 I745-I754

Somerset

York All

Rural

io.6

io.6

22.4

23.6 I5.6 I6.4 i8.6

I8.4

22.5

I9.I

I8.7

I2.6

I9.3

22.6

2I.4

20.3

I2.6

20.3

i8.6

I5.2

I2.7

I3.2

I7.6

20.4

I2.6

I3.5

I7.2

I9.3

I9.3

2I.0

2I.0

22.7

22.7

I8.4

I8.4

I755-I767

9.8

9.3

I3.6

I5.6

I0.5

I0.3

I768-I777

8.9

9.0

ii.8

I5.7

I3.5

I4.I

Note: The figures use a semi-logarithmic scale to show rates of change rather than absolute differences. Points are the center points of year groups. The year groups differ from county to county before I677. For York they are I636-I654, I655-I664, for St. Mary's, I665-I667; I658-I664, I665-I677; for Somerset, I665-I677; and for Anne Arundel, I658-I677. Thereafter the year groups are as follows: I678-I687, i688-i699,

I700-I709,

I7IO-I722,

I755-I767,

I768-I777.

Data sources are the St. Mary's City Commission

Inventory Files.

I723-I732,

I733-I744,

I745-I754,

FORUM

FIGURE 1: COMPARISON OF

A. Amenities

I5I

Two CONSUMPTION INDICES

Index, Four Counties, 1643-1777

10_ 9X

87.i 6-

~5

G_

10-

=f

38

_

t2 Z

'

1640

I

1660

1680

1700

1720

1740

1760

1780

B. Modern Index, Rural Anne Arundel County, 1658-1777 LEGEND

LEGEND

Anne Arundel.... Rural Anne Arundel

? 491 +

St. Mary's________-___

?

Somerset . r York RuralYork _

? 50- 94-_

? 226

,

95

-

490.

-

? 0 -4 -

-

_

All Estates

____

WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY

I52

FIGURE 2: MEAN AMENITIES SCORES AND MEAN VALUE OF CONSUMER DURABLES FOUR COUNTIES,

1653-1777

RURAL ANNE ARUNDEL 150--_

._.-15

100. 90-.

=