Records point to an increase in imported and exported goods as Britain’s Caribbean slaveholding colonies became wealthier. Throughout the early colonial era, Americans made many of the objects necessary to their daily lives, such as hinges, locks, clothing, earthenware plates, bowls, and jugs, and forged farm tools. When colonists built increasingly elaborate homes and filled them with fine things, they communicated the fact that America could exist as its own independently wealthy nation, separate from its sovereign. Clearly, Bordman outfitted a house that would host social events (with guests sitting at a large dining table), moments of leisure (as occupants reclined on couches or in an elbow chair), and hours of privileged rest (in feather beds). Bordman’s purchases reflected his social stature as a member of a prominent family who had worked for Harvard College for generations. On May 8, 1736, a Boston merchant sold to Andrew Bordman “ one large black framed looking glass, one dressing glass, six cain chairs, one elbow chair, one large walnut oval table, one couch, two feather beds, & one chest of drawers.” The receipt recorded the furniture’s price, but much more can be read between the lines. In such an isolated setting, objects of material culture helped their owners generate new social and political identities. Archived wills, deeds, estate inventories, legal records, merchants’ ledgers, ships’ bills of lading, statements of debt, personal letters, and institutional papers can all assist in this work.Ĭonstructing wealth, prestige, and leisure through objectsĬolonial American communities developed far from the metropole, along the western frontier of Britain’s empire. Harvard libraries hold a wide variety of archival sources for researchers who seek to understand how residents of colonial America and the early Republic interacted with the objects around them. Material culture often constitutes the footnotes of history, yet scholars have proven its central importance to the study of daily life and larger trends alike. European Americans used such things to construct prestige, amass wealth for their families and institutions, and experience comfort and leisure. In colonial North America, objects of material culture – furniture, clothing, books, and more substantial possessions, like land – played crucial social and economic roles. Before they fired the first shot, however, the two sides clashed over more concrete, if seemingly trivial, things: sugar, stamps, and tea. The American colonies and the British empire fought a war over political and philosophical ideas. Essay by 2016 Arcadia Fellow Teresa McCulla
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