Farm, Shop, Landing: The Rise of a Market Society in the Hudson Valley, 1780-1860

Bruegel, Martin

ISBN 10: 0822328496 / ISBN 13: 9780822328490

Published by Duke University Press, 2002

About this Item

Item in good condition. Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc.

Seller Inventory # 00109259578

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Farm, Shop, Landing: The Rise of a Market Society in the Hudson Valley, 1780-1860
• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Publication Date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0822328496
• ISBN 13: 9780822328490
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

At the turn of the nineteenth century, when the word “capital” first found its way into the vocabulary of mid-Hudson Valley residents, the term irrevocably marked the profound change that had transformed the region from an inward-looking, rural community into a participant in an emerging market economy. In Farm, Shop, Landing Martin Bruegel turns his attention to the daily lives of merchants, artisans, and farmers who lived and worked along the Hudson River in the decades following the American Revolution to explain how the seeds of capitalism were spread on rural U.S. soil.
Combining theoretical rigor with extensive archival research, Bruegel’s account diverges from other historiographies of nineteenth-century economic development. It challenges the assumption that the coexistence of long-distance trade, private property, and entrepreneurial activity lead to one inescapable outcome: a market economy either wholeheartedly embraced or entirely rejected by its members. When Bruegel tells the story of farmer William Coventry struggling in the face of bad harvests, widow Mary Livingston battling her tenants, blacksmith Samuel Fowks perfecting the cast-iron plough, and Hannah Bushnell sending her butter to market, Bruegel shows that the social conventions of a particular community, and the real struggles and hopes of individuals, actively mold the evolving economic order. Ultimately, then, Farm, Shop, Landing suggests that the process of modernization must be understood as the result of the simultaneous and often contentious interplay of social and economic spheres.

About the Author

Martin Bruegel is Chargé de recherche at the Laboratoire de recherche sur la Consommation in the Département d’Economie et Sociologie at the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique at Ivry sur Seine, France.