IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ehsrev/v63y2010i4p1032-1057.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Errors expected: the culture of credit in rural New England, 1750–1800

Author

Listed:
  • DANIEL VICKERS

Abstract

This article uses farm diaries from eighteenth‐century New England recast as account books in order to describe more accurately the rules of exchange and the culture of credit that prevailed in early America. This culture, which was post‐medieval yet pre‐modern, derived its fundamental characteristics from the fact that it connected participants who dealt with one another as formal equals before the law. It employed strategies inside and outside the market, and, rather than embracing or rejecting commercial activity, aimed to use whatever means necessary to achieve for householders the goal of comfortable independence.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Vickers, 2010. "Errors expected: the culture of credit in rural New England, 1750–1800," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 63(4), pages 1032-1057, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ehsrev:v:63:y:2010:i:4:p:1032-1057
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0289.2009.00531.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0289.2009.00531.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1468-0289.2009.00531.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rothenberg, Winifred Barr, 1992. "From Market-Places to a Market Economy," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226729534, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Stephens, Holly & Assistant, JHET, 2020. "Rice Cycles and Price Cycles: Local Knowledge and Global Trade in Korea, 1870—1933," OSF Preprints 6hfqa, Center for Open Science.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Elizabeth Caucutt & Thomas Cooley & Nezih Guner, 2013. "The farm, the city, and the emergence of social security," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 1-32, March.
    2. Sukkoo Kim, 2007. "Institutions and U.S. Regional Development: A Study of Massachusetts and Virginia," NBER Working Papers 13431, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Robert A. Margo, 2000. "The History of Wage Inequality in America, 1920 to 1970," Macroeconomics 0004035, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Rousseau, Peter L. & Stroup, Caleb, 2011. "Monetization and growth in colonial New England, 1703–1749," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 600-613.
    5. Bryer, Rob, 2012. "Americanism and financial accounting theory – Part 1: Was America born capitalist?," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 23(7), pages 511-555.
    6. Robert E. Wright, 2010. "Rise of the Corporation Nation," NBER Chapters, in: Founding Choices: American Economic Policy in the 1790s, pages 217-258, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Joyce Burnette, 2006. "How skilled were English agricultural labourers in the early nineteenth century?1," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 59(4), pages 688-716, November.
    8. Maja Uhre Pedersen & Vincent Geloso & Paul Sharp, 2020. "Globalization and Empire: Market integration and international trade between Canada, the United States and Britain, 1750-1870," Working Papers 0204, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    9. John Murray, 2000. "Communal Viability and Employment of Non-Member Labor: Testing Hypotheses with Historical Data," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 58(1), pages 1-16.
    10. Rosenbloom, Joshua L. & Weiss, Thomas, 2014. "Economic growth in the Mid-Atlantic region: Conjectural estimates for 1720 to 1800," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 41-59.
    11. Hilt, Eric & Valentine, Jacqueline, 2012. "Democratic Dividends: Stockholding, Wealth, and Politics in New York, 1791–1826," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 72(2), pages 332-363, May.
    12. Robert E. Wright, 2014. "The Pivotal Role of Private Enterprise in America's Transportation Age 1790–1860," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 29(Spring 20), pages 1-20.
    13. Jordi Planas & Enric Saguer, 2005. "Accounting records of large rural estates and the dynamics of agriculture in Catalonia (Spain), 1850-1950," Accounting History Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(2), pages 171-185.
    14. Gervais, Pierre, 2014. "Early modern merchant strategies and the historicization of market practices," economic sociology. perspectives and conversations, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, vol. 15(3), pages 19-29.
    15. Johan Fourie & Frank Garmon, 2023. "The settlers’ fortunes: Comparing tax censuses in the Cape Colony and early American republic," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 76(2), pages 525-550, May.
    16. Matt A. Nelson, 2020. "The decline of patrilineal kin propinquity in the United States, 1790–1940," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 43(18), pages 501-532.
    17. Robert A. Margo, 1999. "The History of Wage Inequality in America, 1820 to 1970," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_286, Levy Economics Institute.
    18. Robert A. Margo, 2002. "The North-South Wage Gap, Before and After the Civil War," NBER Working Papers 8778, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ehsrev:v:63:y:2010:i:4:p:1032-1057. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ehsukea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.