In a sweeping synthesis of a crucial period of American history, From Dependency to Independence starts with the'problem'of New England's economic development. As a struggling outpost of a powerful commercial empire, colonial New England grappled with problems familiar to modern developing societies: a lack of capital and managerial skills, a nonexistent infrastructure, and a domestic economy that failed to meet the inhabitants'needs or to generate exports. Yet, less than a century and a half later, New England staged the war for political independence and the industrial revolution. How and why did this transformation occur? Marshaling an enormous array of research data, Margaret Ellen Newell demonstrates that colonial New England's economic development and its leadership role in these two American revolutions were interrelated.

Farms that were on poor soil and distant from markets declined, whereas other farms successfully adjusted production as rural and urban markets expanded and as Midwestern agricultural products flowed eastward after 1840. Rural and urban demand for manufactures in the East supported diverse industrial development and prosperous rural areas and burgeoning cities supplied increasing amounts of capital for investment.

In a richly interdisciplinary narrative, a historian offers a boldly innovative interpretation of the mobilization of ordinary Americans on the eve of independence. 19 halftones & 21 line illustrations.

Presents a synthetic view of the social grounding of republicanism and liberalism in Worchester Country, Massachusetts, from its settlement to the eve of the Civil War.