The Roots of Rural Capitalism: Western Massachusetts, 1780-1860

Provides information on the economic conditions of the area around the Connecticut River valley in western Massachusetts between the American Revolution and the Civil War. Contents include: interpreting rural economic change; involution; households and power in the countryside; households, farming and manufacturing; family burdens; merchants and households; morality and money; capital, work and wealth; farmers, markets and society in mid-century; the Connecticut Valley in perspective; and appendix and index.