Focus 580; The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence

In this part of the program we'll be talking about the American Revolution and how it is that it came about. And our guest is th brain. He's professor of history at Northwestern University and is an authority on the culture and politics of the early Atlantic world. He's written six major books and we'll talk about some of the ideas he will find in his most recent which is titled The marketplace of revolution. When you think about conditions in this country in the years leading up to the American Revolution and you start looking at what it was that people thought about what their experiences were what their backgrounds where it becomes increasingly unlikely the idea that they could all get together and work together towards the common cause of independence for the colonies because it seems that sometimes that they spend as much time arguing with each other grumbling complaining about people who lived in other parts of the colonies as they did complaining about the British. But there was one thing that all of these people who had these very different backgrounds ethnic and religious backgrounds there was one thing that they had in common they were all consumers. And in fact Professor

Breen says it was this shared experience that gave the Collatz of the cultural resources that they needed to develop what was a radical strategy of protest. The consumer boycott you can find this idea carried out in greater detail in his book The marketplace of revolution the subtitle How consumer politics shaped American independence. It's published by the Oxford University Press is out now and of course questions comments are welcome as we move along here through the hour. If you'd like to join us that's fine. All we ask of callers is that they're brief. We ask that so that we can get as many people into the conversation to keep things moving. Comments there are welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 and a toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5. Well Professor Breen. Hello. Hello David how are you doing I'm fine thanks and yourself. It's great it's I'm looking out on a snowy Evanston morning there which is typical of spring here. Well we've actually had a little snow here yesterday it's a I guess that's that's the Midwest for you from one day to the

next you don't know what's going to be happening. Well you know in the book in the introduction you tell a little story about how it is you got thinking about this and it concerns a visit that you made to Williamsburg and you talk about the fact that you were walking through an area where they have items on display from colonial times but they were not things that were produced in the United States. They were items that were produced in Britain and then were exported for for the colonists to purchase in the U.S. that there was one thing that particularly caught your eye. And it happened to be a teapot. Tell us about that. Right well it's a it's one of my favorite artifacts as you as you know when people go to a center center like Williamsburg they tend to want to see artisans produce objects as they imagine it was by their forefathers and Williamsburg found in its collection so many goods that had been made in England not in

America that they finally had to create a separate gallery an absolutely fabulous gallery I highly recommend to your listeners called the Wallace gallery. And it's entirely a collection of imported goods imported from England into the colonies during the 18th century and amongst that collection I found a fabulous teapot. It's about four inches high it's very small and very delicate. And it said. No no Stamp Act. In other words it was a an object made in England shipped across the ocean unloaded taken to a store at Williamsburg sold to an American to help the American protest British policy and it at that moment I realized how central the consumer market was to the politics of protest in this period it just keyed me in to an entirely different way of looking at the past.

It's a fascinating notion. This thing would have been made in Britain for export to the United States and it was it was a functional item. It was also in a way a decorative item and it was also a political statement right. I might say that I was once I was keyed into these objects I found another teapot in the Peabody Museum in Essex Massachusetts up near Salem and that was that one bears the imprint the Stamp Act repealed so that. What I what I what I didn't have. In other words just a single one off the pot and it that second teapot indicated how how broad spread this consumer market was in Clonie America and what would I say the standardization of buying habits. And that there's a photograph of that one two of them are in the book sort of as as bookends one in the beginning and one near the end they're actually they look rather similar as a matter of fact very similar.

I was very pleased for Williamsburg now reproduces that teapot. And you you can you can purchase it in one of those little little little stores they have there. I must say it's my fundus object in my office now. I think when it when one thinks about the American Revolution at least what we were all taught in school we were taught that the thing that the revolution was about it was about ideas or ideals. It was ideological. That's the thing that brought people together because they agreed on this set of principles. Things having to do with various kinds of freedom and the ability to express it and that was really what it was about. Here you're making a very different kind of argument and one that it seems that people have received it apparently and said This is very interesting and also I point out that no one has really no one has quite made this argument before. You know I might my book returns to an older

historiography. And the question before me was how did how did the colonists manage to get together you alluded to that in your fine introduction at the start of the hour. But when you think of the differences of economics and religion and ethnicity it's really really quite surprising that the colonists were able to mount a common cause against what was the strongest empire in the world in terms of military and financial power. And of course the standard answer. For a long time is that you just simply miles certain words freedom liberty rights property and these are fine. This is a fine vocabulary but for people that do not trust each other a vocabulary of freedom is not enough. If you living in South Carolina you own slaves. You're primarily concerned with the rice market. You're maybe deeply suspicious of Puritans in Massachusetts economic competitors if not radicals. You have to develop as I argue in the book a

sense of trust of common commonality solidarity before the ideology carries much persuasive purchase so that the market place the shared sense of market place and then the protests the boycott movement allowed colonists in different places to monitor each other's honesty and to develop a sense of trust if if South Carolina didn't stop buying goods it became very quickly apparent to people in Philadelphia New York and Boston because of the newspaper coverage and out of these attempts to develop an ever ever stronger boycott movement. And the radicalization of ordinary people came a greater sense of the possibilities of creating a new society built precisely on those principles of liberty and freedom. But if you start with the words if you start with the ideology you can't make a revolution you have to create. An infrastructure in which these words

are credible. When people think about America and those times I'm sure that part of their perception is shaped by places like Williamsburg when you go there and you see people dressed in period costumes and they're doing things like making wagon wheels and horse shoes and things like that. And that we've also been kind of seduced by the the idea of the the ideal of the yeoman farmer as extolled by Jefferson other people and have got this idea that Americans of the time were very self-sufficient. They were and they were producing basically everything that they needed to use in their everyday life and this is actually not at all the case when my book appeared some of my friends said that the critics would pick up on this element and that is that I run against the standard mythology that Americans were self-sufficient divorced from the market

men and women in little homesteads made all the all their clothes and that's what is celebrated as you say in some of these museums like Williamsburg or in New England Sturbridge Village. But in and that's why so much of the book I had to counter that with it. Evidence from ever ties mints from archaeology from museums from letters everywhere you turn men or women were doing pretty much what I can't speak for you David but what my family does and that is buy goods clothe their family buy the cloth buy metal goods and often doing it precisely the same way we do it and that is on credit the tremendous opening of this marketplace through credit credit gave leverage to quite ordinary men and women to participate in fulfilling their desires I mean like us they wanted to be pretty warmer more sanitary live better lives to outdo the their neighbors.

And this vibrant and explosive marketplace of the mid century allowed them to do it. And up and down the seaboard you find the same. Vibrant collection of goods advertised Now of course when they first began to purchase they had no idea that this would be a weapon against the empire and the book talks about the transformation from consumer pleasure to radical protest. It's interesting just the you would expect that wealthy people would do this. They would identify with wealthy people in Europe and on the continent and they would want the same kind of clothing and tableware and Jory and all sorts of things like that but apparently this was something that people to the extent that their means allowed them that all people did in 0 0 0 Americans didn't. Right. I mean one of the elements of economic analysis is that wealthy people made by better

goods bigger cars or fancier cars or boats or whatever but there's a limit in consumption and very soon. Knock off goods or copies or frankly companies in england will be able to lower the prices so that ordinary people were able to get what was formally a luxury good. In any case almost all the people that were free in what became the United States participated fully in this marketplace. And as I as I show by the eve of American independence America was England's best market place. I mean it took it took off a huge percentage of all goods export it from other countries and so it was not unusual for economic theory at the time in England to talk about consumer colonies it was a new way of looking at Empire which we found we find familiar today but it was

new in the 18th century. We have a caller who'd like to join in and I'd like to all the people who are listening that they certainly can do that if they have questions and I should introduce Again our guest. Th Breen he is William Smith Mason professor of American history at Northwestern University and he is the author of the book that lays this out this argument out in some detail it's titled The marketplace of revolution and it's published by the Oxford University Press. We certainly would welcome people who want to call him 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 here in Champaign Urbana toll free 800 2 2 2 1 9 4 5 5. And our first caller is in Champaign and its line 1. I know I didn't get to ask a question. Maybe a little broader about the argument regarding the origins of American democracy I was just reading in the newspapers I think yesterday that a conservative Christian group that believes that they take the Bible literally and they have a college for the home called and

they're apparently teaching that the origins of American democracy come from the the Bible and I would agree that you know religious ideology and movement had an effect on chief element of democracy but it seems they might skip over about twenty three hundred years of so-called Western history. And I was wondering if you could you know for example there might be some anti organized religion. Just at the moment that are anti organized religion that had something to do with the development of democracy in Europe. But I was hoping if you could recommend any book on the history of the history of democratic ideals impact it would lead to American to the American Revolution and its subsequent development of democracy. Well that's very very complicated question and I'm probably going to let you down about reading list I'm sure as soon as the program's over I'll think of 10 titles. Let me let me say that what we're finding in the world

today that you cannot just transplant democracy as if it was a bulb in the spring democratic societies to create a genuine trust among participants that leads to a free exchange of ideas and open participation in the political forum. Takes one very long time to develop the revolutionaries had a long tradition of town meetings and open debate and a full sense of a vibrant press in which ideas and differences were aired openly. These are all important elements in American democracy and it's very difficult to say that one is more important than the other. But these strands came together so that on the eve of the American Revolution through these newspapers and subscription lists passing petitions house to house one gets a feeling of quite ordinary people

finding a political empowerment at at a at a key moment in their in their political lives. It's not quite democracy in the sense that women or blacks or Indians or the very poor were allowed to vote. But you can find certain processes suggest a movement towards a rights based exchange of ideas of mutual political respect and to say simply from the Bible really I think flies in the face of a lot of recorded history. Thank you. Other questions welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Want to return to what you just touched on before we took a caller and this is something that shows just how it is that the consumer boycott on the side of the colonies. Why it was effective and that is the just how important the American market was to British

manufacturers and I think if I remember right it was not the case that it one point half of Britain's exports were going to the colonies. Absolutely and if you remove one one item very very heavy Wolins from that list most of those heavy will ensue went to what is now east Europe or Russia. But if you remove that then the Americans even took off a larger percentage of what it what it were called sundries just simply mix packages glassware metal goods ceramics lots and lots of ceramics. DAVID I found that you could make a staff at your. Say Potter pitcher in the in the Midlands glaze it with the finest materials maybe with a decal ship it on a canal down to a port like like Bristol put it on a vessel ship it across the ocean unload it in Philadelphia take it on a wagon up say to Lancaster Pennsylvania and

undersell the local Potters. Really really phenomenal business sense and of course just CYA Wedgwood may have been the greatest business man of the 18th century. His ability to inflame desire by saying look if you buy this certain plate I want you to know that the royals use this plate or pit this plate and then and then these advertisements would appear in America and they felt like they were part of this larger empire through their use of goods. It almost every form of advertising and I said earlier credit mechanism that we we think of today was used in fact even in one Philadelphia Story discovered that they you know shades of Starbucks offered customers free coffee if they would come in and look at the goods. Among the leading sort of thinkers on this side of the Atlantic

How did they think about this great enthusiasm for consumer goods that Americans can display. Well there was always I argue in the book that the consumer consumer activity often makes people uneasy because they feel that maybe the consumer has given over to luxury and frivolous behavior. And what what wealthy folks often do is to say well look it's fine for me to have these silks and whatnot but if the middle class or lower classes buy them while my gun if they're going to go broke or they'll use all their money they'll be starving. And so the luxury debate was often used as a way of class control. As I document clearly that the middle and lower classes would have none of it. They wanted to look pretty and warm and sexy just like their betters and the market afforded them. And this then developed into a very interesting phenomena and that is as

people could dress as they wanted to. Then the old kind of status lines from the past became dissolved or untrustworthy in other words if you saw a dandy walking in your town with a nice satin red coat and maybe a sword a member of the elite U.S. governor or is he maybe a guy that just won the lottery as a middle class guy a lower class guy who just knew how to buy good clothes and so you'll find a lot of references in this literature to Confidence Men people that you you don't know are they just good consumers or are they proper. You know the upper class this whole consumer market in other words had a had a capacity to upset you. Values and then it and the course and then it fed into the American revolutionary situation. You talk about the fact that they're certainly on the British side with an appreciation of just how important the American market was and that encourages the idea of colonies

as markets for goods produced in the home country. But I wonder just to what extent though people appreciated really appreciated how important that was and what it would mean if somehow that market which was closed off to them. The British may have inadvertently suggested to the Americans just how important it was by writing incessantly during the 17 50s and 60s about the American market often in purely economic terms but they did suggest that the dominance of the American sector was becoming a key defining element of the of the English manufacturing. And that was of course the implicit suggestion was that if something upset that market then English workers would be thrown out there'd be bankruptcies and what have you. I really want to emphasize David that the boycott as a political tool or the disruption of a consumer market for

political purposes may have been the colonist greatest political invention. If you read textbooks the first thing people say is Well look the colonists stumbled across the balance government you look at the constitution and they were so brilliant with Madison and all that. I take that on board but I do believe this new political strategy of using consumption as a weapon against the empire was it is very underappreciated political invention and in a modern economy like our own. I think they perhaps have something to teach us. Well certainly boycott is a 19th century term. In fact it was named after a guy named boycott. So you may not want to apply that term but in fact that's what it was anyway. It seems that that I think you make the argument that that in as a as a revolutionary kind of a tool that in fact before this no one had ever done it before not in a massive way and you're quite right

it is a little anachronistic that boycott comes from 19th century Irish astri. The colonists would have said Non non importation. But it's the same same thing and no no one had ever tried it on this massive scale before. And in each successive crisis the enforcement became more more efficient so that on the actual eve of Independence the committees of safety in the little towns monitored their neighbor's consumption. You know what you bought became a outward sign of your political commitment. And I know of no other revolution that. As I say in the book it was profoundly a bourgeois revolution but no less radical for that. When when you have committees constituted up and down the ELaNa coast called the

associations poking into their neighbors consuming patterns you had a massive enforcement mechanism and those committees led into the new government of the post Empire and the independent government came out of those those committees. We have some other callers to talk with and let us do that starting with Robinson. And that's on our toll free line line for. Hello. Yes good morning. I am sorry caring of course of the discussion but recently you spoke about Staffordshire where being perhaps shipped from Bristol. And I recently became involved in researching a shard of broken Staffordshire recovered from under the oldest house in Palestine and I researched and tore up a store in Palestine in 1830 which admittedly is long after your

area of expertise but the store listed in numerable for the supply at the KOA Liverpool where and I wondered if Stoke on Trent being so much closer to Liverpool. Would not have been the port for much effort. Or would it have you any knowledge of this. Well not the exact kind I might say that as the American market heated up the whole transportation system in England shifted and Liverpool is one of the western ports. Developed when say created but certainly developed to be an outport for the for the American market. Bristol is somewhat older but these western ports experienced a degree of prosperity as ship left for the colonies and many of them carrying a Staffordshire where. So it's possible that any of those ports including London would have been the

source of your piece I might say that throughout colonial America under in old wells or trash pits from Georgia all the way up to Western Massachusetts you find shards little pieces of this stuff which are where some of it very fine and one of the most interesting discoveries was that in some of the slave quarters in Virginia and in the Carolinas they also are finding pieces of this imported where I suspect it was handed down from the master but it literally literally appeared everywhere throughout early America. And the piece that you found doesn't surprise me because in the early 19th century as the English became even more industrialized their ability to turn out the stuff was greatly enhanced and Americans after they became free went back to the English marketplace. Yeah and I might add. British kept all this on by putting

scenes that American and Washington and Lafayette on there somewhere. Thank you. Right thank you. Let's go and champagne next this is one one. Hello good morning. I was coming into work today at the university on my way to teach a course that is currently work are doing I once over lightly on South and Southeast Asian history and they care I was wondering if you'd had any thoughts about the what was going on the interaction between what was going on with that the British colonies in America and the rapidly developing British colonies in South Asia and India in particular rather not there was the fact that that they were taking over India at a rapid pace meant that perhaps there was less pressure to move you know to squelch this rebellion in the United States. That's really an inspired question. All I can say is that some good work needs to be done. I said I suspect from my research that the closest analogy to the American Revolution is the

movement for national independence in India. It's not quite you what you asked but I think the whole movement what Indian historians called us was Desha making home homemade goods and trying to break Indian consumers away from the British cloth makers has many parallels in the United States or the formation of the United States. And the reason is that they were both economic colonies of the mother countries and in order to establish independence and create a spirit of genuine nationalism they had to sever that economic consumer link at least temporarily. On a broader scale of course the colonists in the English bought China real china which they exchange for silver and so by the middle of the 18th century on really quite modest household tables you're getting Asian Asian China shipped to England and then to the American colonies in an extraordinarily complicated

trade. Historians now talk about Atlantic history but that's really sort of a misnomer by the middle of the 18th century you're talking about a global global imperial commerce. And you really are right to bring our attention to the Asian side. All right. Champagne County is next line number two. Hello Heidi. Well it seems to me that looking backward from now on emphasizing consumer you have to be careful not to distort things it seems to me I think. You know of course the boycotts are important of course. But it wasn't just the people that were consuming it was also local producers here that wanted to have a better exchange rate. It's also the fact that you know maybe we're not thinking about this because we're not thinking empire and colony and there are also the prices for the raw materials that were being taken from here that were important to the equation as well. As far as as far as that goes that just seems to me that

by just using the word I mean obviously it was an economic. Revolution to some extent and it was actually unfinished as Shay's Rebellion which happened some years later the need for land reform which was never really filled in any great way was part. No I don't want to create I thank you you're right I don't want to create a sense of consumer reductionism that it's an all purpose answer but look at the time of the eve of the American Revolution. The local producers the local artisans were unable to meet the demand in the colonies for cloth especially the lightweight cottons or the prints that were popular. They were unable to meet the demand for glassware for metal wear. All of this had to be imported and if they were and so that when we talk about

consumer boycott it represents a real sacrifice in the lives of a lot of people. They had they had to want to make a statement against the empire. Now in terms of furniture and wood products. Sure the colonists had a lot of expert furniture makers and they could go go along but the consumer side was the side that allowed the colonists to Mounties. United movements that brought colonies together if they had relied on production they wouldn't have gotten very far because each colony had a different a different product a different crop and the northerners were already quite hostile to slave labor. And so and I'm saying it is if the if South Carolina Massachusetts had to come to the table and talk about production it would have broken down very quickly because they would have started fighting about slavery. But if they stock talked about consumption and non importation and they were able

to make these conversations that led to trust that's that's the point of the book. You know it isn't that the consumer marketplace caused the revolution. It's that the consumer marketplace allowed people to create a conversation in which they could imagine their own political freedom. There seems to me that the idea of being a captive market for the products of the center as it were. You know that's that is what their commonality was about to focus on that. Without looking at the larger picture I mean maybe it is but you're doing a service spike. Running out something that I wasn't focused on but I think that's pretty clearly. Well this is this is a new pride but let me say that Sam Adams was probably the most radical revolutionary that came along in a letter to one of the ladies. And I don't have it in front of me but this is a rough

quotation that and tell the Americans free themselves from the bubbles of Britain they will never realize political independence. I mean he saw the key the key link in part economic part political part psychological that a colony of an empire to be truly free. Had to cut this dependence they had and as I said to an earlier caller a very very similar process can be traced in the Indian subcontinent in the late 19th and early 20th century. But it still seems that of the. He's also I think he would be of the class he was would be talking about the possibility for a local production of more indigenous economy which obviously picks capital when you have to have the resources at the competitive price. Angwin could have had a competitor at a lower price because of.

Their political situation. I would say David to the Callie that the whole basis of the Hamiltonian system in the 1790s was to try to create a federal government that would sustain and encourage American manufacturing so that it could I mean in other words once we started making these goods we could exert our power in the in the global marketplace. That was unthinkable in 1776 we were just simply the infrastructure of manufacturing was just in too infant state. So the as I say consumer boycotts represented a political sacrifice but people were willing to make an order to achieve their political goal. Our guest is t h Breen He's a professor of American history at Northwestern University an authority on the culture and politics of the early Atlantic world he's written six major books and has a new one out that lays out this

idea a set of ideas he would been discussing this morning so if you'd like to look at it the book is titled The marketplace of revolution the subtitle How consumer politics shaped American independence. It's published by Oxford University Press. Questions welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 on again to Urbana and line 1. Hello good morning. Sounds like a good book and one an intriguing idea. History is my favorite fiction. She said I get a lot of my leads from David's programs. What you reminded me of this morning was a book that David program put us on two years ago. Albion's Seed and to pick up on point you may say that these are the four cultures of Emma that Albion feed identified emigrating from Great Britain were natural antagonists in many ways.

And it really would take something new. Unitary to pull them together and conflict and then subsequent to the successful revolution. You look ahead about 60 years and cultural antagonisms have torn the nation apart. What I wondered though another clue. I think you alluded made some hint of it or alluded to it were some three laws helpful precursor to these bans on import use of imported British goods. They're the only examples that I have ever found were in the century previous The seventeenth century. There were a number of attempts in Virginia and in Massachusetts. To make people dress according to their class so that if. If an ordinary guy got a smart coat or his wife or too much jewelry they could be fined in Virginia

or in Massachusetts by the 18th century the market place was just too robust to too many. The velocity of a flow of goods was too great and the access to credit to ever possibly and for sumptuary laws. There really was by gone bye bye bye the early eighteenth century. As I was saying earlier this is what led to the possibility of very ordinary people suddenly appearing in finery and creating great confusion about social status and the amount of literature that the character of the upstart person after reading it. Someone better than me yet right. Hundred figures absolutely and it goes all the way up into the 19th century Melville confidence man is an example of this kind of literature. Let's talk with someone in Chicago next line for. Hello.

Yeah. Your opening remarks when you talked about the ideas of words like democracy and freedom just don't resonate with people of diverse ideas. I it really reminded me of what's happening in Iraq right now and the difficulty in developing quote unquote a democracy with this multi ethnic and multi religious group at the same time it seems like what you are talking about the material things what they see as the lack of material things the lack of sufficient water food insecurity is developing a nationalism between the Sunnis and the Shia and the nationalism they fight against the force that they see is depriving them the Americans. But I really was very struck by that how much material issues material comforts become. Use you for nationalism. I think that's a very good observation. I can't speak to Iraqi politics but your point is well taken and that is

rhetoric alone and the you know our foreign policy. We say we're bringing liberty or democracy to another country if you don't think out the structures in which these words will have meaning. They they just never take seed. And for us to think that we will transplant our political system around the world without understanding the cultural embeddedness is really a form of higher against I suspect. And I get that. I just have a second question this is about democracy versus nationalism. But perhaps by dint of nationalism are easier to develop than ideas of democracy. Absolutely I mean any any government even governments that practice behavior that you and I would find abhorrent. Can experience nationalism. After all Hitler's Germany was highly. Highly inspired by nationalism Stalin's Russia Soviet Russian was a

nationalizing only only sometimes does nationalism visit democracies. But there's no no obvious link between democracy and nationalism. Nationalism can do some really ugly things if it takes root in an authoritarian system. OK my last question do you think in our culture we confuse democracy and nationalism. Sometimes I suspect that without thinking out the full impact of democracy we talk about American nationalism in terms of very loose symbols. But what you're doing is urging us to I think to think a little bit more deeply about the content of democracy. And I applaud that. Thank you. All right things we have talked about you laid out the idea stablish in just how important the American market was for British manufacturers and that people here in the United States and before it was not the United States in the colonies had a great enthusiasm for goods that

could be high quality goods that could also be produced cheaply in Britain ceramics and cloth and clothing metal wear glassware things like that. And so and you have documented I think pretty thoroughly just with the level of consumption was here in the United States and then also made this argument that this it was that it was their common experience as consumers and the willingness to give that up that gave stilling Fessor brain. Present. Yes hello. Still there. Yes surely. OK I'm sorry I thought maybe for a moment we'd lost you. You did OK but you're back up here. I don't know what happened. Anyway you know I was just again sort of laying out the arguments we made in the question I'm going for is you know when you when you see just how much interest there was here in the colonies in these exported goods from Britain

how much people wanted them then that also gets you at the idea of appreciating just how much people were giving up by saying no we're not going to we're not going to drink the tea we're not going to wear the clothes we're not going to have the teapots we're not going to have any of that. But that it must it must have been a difficult thing a difficult sell to persuade people to do that because obviously you were you were trying to get them to give up stuff that they wanted that they had had enthusiastically been buying. I mean there's there's another big part here that we really haven't gotten to and that is how it is that this organized boycott of the British goods how it is that it actually happened. Right. It was very difficult to organize and you raise an important point and I think maybe we've forgotten is that it is for freedom and values requires sometimes sacrifice and sacrifice in the revolutionary period. It was disproportionately fell on women. And so I mean when

you don't have cloth you don't have some of the sundries coming into the household. It fell to women to to weave and to make goods and to reallocate their time. And so if people in American men and women and families really felt that the grievances of being part of the Empire were so severe that they were willing to transform their household economies then. Then indeed this was a powerful political movement I might say David that none of your callers today have raised a question that often comes up in discussions in the book when that is we have a lot of grievances throughout the United States today our dependence for instance on oil and what it says how it's hurting our economy and potentially our prosperity. Boycotts and the kinds of issues that the revolutions brought up could be practiced today. But I suspect what's lacking is our willingness to sacrifice as the colonists

did for a common political cause. We have someone here in Urbana to talk with next let's do that one number one line mine. Yes I think I missed that. That's when you're made between that very first teapot and your theory could you go over that again. When I as I say met this teapot in the Wallace gallery that clearly had been manufactured in England and shipped you know all the way across the ocean to help the Americans protests. British policy in this case the Stamp Act. I realized how how tightly bound up the consumers were with policy and and you know it and you know that if it had been set for that purpose. Well the because it's says you can breathe the little emblem on the market says no Stamp Act is the decoration

on this little teapot. It was clearly a political thing was helping the colonists protest British policy to manufacture in England. Right actually help right. I mean they made these these English business men and women were as about as savvy as I've ever seen. And so and then when the Act was repealed as Dave and I were talking there's a there were more tea pots that came over to America helping them celebrate their victory saying Stamp Act repealed. And the time of responding to the market and the politics was was almost since its instantaneous system just a few months to ship it across the ocean and wanted manufacturers cutting off their nose and then harming themselves. Well they were encouraging a boycott. Business men tend to look for the short term I suspect more than the long term and this was a quick quick market I might say in six

seven thousand sixty five and during the Stamp Act protests no one on either side of the ocean had yet imagined independence. It took a couple of more crises to develop this boycott into the ultimate political weapon that it became. In 17 74 75 76 this was pretty early innings so. But sure the British manufacturers were unwittingly convincing the Americans that they had power in their pocket book. I think thank you on things that I think we it's good to underscore the point that you just make that in fact this the boycott that we talked about. This took some time. This didn't happen overnight. Right I mean in the early early early days especially in the period 768 to 770 they were deeply suspicious that different in different areas different ports were going to cheat the New Yorkers were always suspect that they'd say that they were going to do a boycott and

then they'd secretly bring in goods and the New Yorkers accuse the Bostonians of this. It took it took a while to create these this spaces of trust. And if it hadn't been for newspapers I suspect it would never have occurred. But the newspapers became absolutely a key element in in helping what I say in distant distant strangers to feel part of a larger movement that now could be enforced. Clearly through clear non importation rituals. But you're absolutely right David it was slow painful there were a lot of betrayals along the road until they finally got it right. And how how exactly did did this. Was it enforced I mean it was a in fact people kind of looking over. Over their neighbors shoulders just to make sure that everybody was with the program. Well it as. As it moved along the enforcement took on ever ever greater

bite. In this period seven hundred sixty eight to seven hundred seventy the mechanism was largely shame a merchant would import goods against the committee's swill and his name would be in the press. People were told to avoid a certain shop but that didn't go along with the Patriot rule. But by the eve of the American Revolution these committees were actually visiting individuals who were suspected of breaking the boycott and while there. May have not punished them physically. The communal force the power of mutual shaming was was very great indeed. As I might say in the act to every everyone all your listeners knows about the Tea Party chucking. But in fact most of the little towns demanded the citizens bring all their little canisters of tea to the common green where they were burnt on mock funeral pyres purging

the colonists of what they said was the political poison so they could be free. We're going to have to stop. We've used our time for people who are interested in reading more. I suggest you look at the book it's the marketplace of revolution by our guest t h Breen published by the Oxford University Press th greyness a professor of American history at Northwestern University and Professor Breen we thank you very much. Thank you David enjoyed talking to you also want to say thanks to the folks at Northwestern for providing the ISDN connection so we could have a good clear conversation with the guest.