What industry produced the most economic growth in the middle colonies?

This section includes material that has a general focus on commerce, business, and the economic situation in Colonial America. Some titles have a wider scope than Colonial America, but we have tried to explain what is contained in those titles that may be of interest. Also, many of the titles included can be quite old but have been included as they are referenced extensively and are important titles to know about for this time period.

To research more specialized topics related to the business, commercial and economic situation of Colonial America that are not currently covered in this guide, we recommend using some of the more general sources included here, in combination with focused searches of those topics in books, journal articles, and databases.

We have not included general histories or books about colonization though those sources can be helpful in understanding the economic and commercial activities in Colonial America. While we also did not generally include contemporary materials related to voyages which can offer insight into the period, we did include some material related to Richard Hakluyt.

Many titles that offer a more detailed picture of business and commerce in the colonies are likely to be focused on a particular town, city, state, or region. This means that some books with a limited geographical focus will be important sources for those looking for information on crops, activities, or other topics that were concentrated in particular areas. Many of these types of collections can be found in local and state historical societies.

For those researchers that need go even deeper there are original records of various departments of the various governments which, in general, are not included in this guide. For example, the British government departments of interest include the Colonial Office, the Treasury Office, and the Exchequer. Materials from the House of Commons and the House of Lords may also prove useful and informative in some situations. While many of these records may be held and/or accessed in the UK's National Archives (sometimes seen as Public Records Office) or the British Library, often there are alternative access points via databases and microform collections in other institutions. 

Additional Reading

The following materials link to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to digital content are provided when available.

• Agricultural History Series

  Call Number: HD1751 .A9145

  Published/Created: 1942

  Report number 5 is "A History of Livestock Raising in the United States, 1607-1869." Each chapter covers a different topic from the background, to specifics like a focus on the New England, Middle, and Southern colonies to looking at Spanish colonies and periods after the Revolution and includes an extensive bibliography.

• American Economic Thought in the Seventeenth Century by Edgar Augustus Jerome Johnson

  Call Number: HB119.A2 J6 1961

  Published/Created: 1961

  This title was originally published in 1932 and was written in an attempt to gather together scattered Colonial references to economic questions in order to better understand the "formative influences" in American civilization. Chapters 2-4 move into the control of economic activity and theories of colonization. Other chapters cover trade, monetary principles/proposals, Lombard and Land banks, wages and usury, etc.

• America's Economic Heritage by Meyer Weinberg

  Call Number: HC103 .W38 1983

  ISBN: 0313237514

  Published/Created: 1983-12-20

  While this title does predominantly cover the development and history of the U.S. economy after the Revolution, it does cover the period before the Revolution. Much of the title is transcribed letters and other material.

• The Atlantic Frontier of the Thirteen American Colonies and States by Jacob M. Price

  Call Number: HF3093 .P75 1996

  ISBN: 0860785866

  Published/Created: 1996-06-28

  This is a series of essays from noted historian Jacob Price presenting and analyzing new statistical material from the English and Scottish customs accounts are supplemented by a general survey of the transatlantic economy in the 18th century. It is organized by financial arrangements and the role of credit in the slave trade and plantation economies.

• Capitalism and Slavery by Eric Williams; Colin A. Palmer (Introduction by)

  Call Number: HC254.5 .W5 1994

  ISBN: 0807821756

  Published/Created: 1994-10-14

  This title has been republished several times and was written as an attempt to place in historical perspective the relationship between early capitalism – particularly as it relates to Great Britain- and the slave trade of the 17th and 18th centuries. Because this is an economic study of the role of the capital created with slavery and the slave trade and what role that played in financing the Industrial Revolution, much of the title covers a period after the American Revolution but the first six chapters cover the time before the Revolution and the Revolution.

• The Colonial Merchant; Sources and Readings by Stuart Bruchey

  Call Number: HF3025 .B79

  Published/Created: 1966

  This is a series of transcribed documents and letters covering for particular topics:
  Part 1. Looks at English mercantilism and the Navigation Acts.
  Part 2. Looks at the Puritan economic ethic with material from John Winthrop and John Cotton that also includes "Laws of Massachusetts. Regulate Wages & Prices" from 1635.
  Part 3. Looks at the southern trade with material from tobacco planter and merchant Col. William Fitzhugh and cotton factor Henry Laurens.
  Part 4. Looks at the merchants of the northern middle colonies with material from Capt. James Brown of Providence and his trade with the West Indies, and flaxseed traders Jackson & Bromfield (Newburyport, Mass) and Gerard G. Beeckman (New York).
  There are also statistics throughout.

• The Common Law in Colonial America by William E. Nelson

  Call Number: KF361 .N45 2008

  ISBN: 0195327284

  Published/Created: 2008-08-05

  This 4 volume set cover the period 1607-1776.
  v. 1. The Chesapeake and New England, 1607-1660; v. 2. The middle colonies and the Carolinas, 1660-1730; v. 3. The Chesapeake and New England, 1660-1750; v. 4. Law and the constitution on the eve of independence, 1735-1776. Topics touched upon in volume 3 include debt collections, commercial litigation and in volume 4 include land, capital debt.

• The Economy of British America, 1607-1789 by John J. McCusker; Russell R. Menard

  Call Number: HC104 .M38 1985

  ISBN: 0807816353

  Published/Created: 1985-01-01

  This is a comprehensive assessment of where research on prerevolutionary economy stood at the time of its publishing. Chapter two looks at mercantilism, colonization, and the navigation system while chapters 5-9 look at some specifics in terms of geography – New England, upper south, lower south, middle colonies, etc. Chapters 10-16 cover various topics like population growth, labor force, consumption and the import trade, agriculture, manufacturing, governance, etc.

• The Economic Rise of Early America by ary M. Walton, James F. Shepherd

  Call Number: HF3025 .W34

  Published/Created: 1979

  This book was written to fill the gap in the economic analysis of the Colonial period noted by Douglass C. North in his article "The State of Economic History" in the American Economic Review (vol. 55, no. 1/2, 1965, pp. 86–91). While this book does cover the period of exploration, it really spends much of its time once colonies had been established.

• The Early Chartered Companies (A.D. 1296-1858) by George Cawston

  Call Number: HE485 .C4

  Published/Created: 1896

  This title is primarily concerned with the companies that were created by speculators whose efforts colonized the eastern part of America. Coverage of the Virginia and New England companies include: Virginia Company, London Company, Plymouth Company, Massachusetts Bay Company, Connecticut and Rhode Island Charters, Carolina Charters, and Georgia Charters. This title has been reprinted but there are copies available on the HathiTrust.

• Essays in the Economic History of the Atlantic World by John J. McCusker

  Call Number: HC104 .M383 1997

  ISBN: 0415168414

  Published/Created: 1997-11-05

  Chapters include: Guides to primary sources for the history of early British America; The tonnage of ships engaged in British Colonial trade during the eighteenth century; Weights and measures in the Colonial sugar trade – the gallon and the pound and their international equivalents; The rate of exchange on Amsterdam in London, 1590-1660; The Italian business press in early modern Europe; The business press in England before 1775; New York City and the Bristol Packet (postal history); Colonial civil servant and counter-revolutionary – Thomas Irving (1738/-1800) in Boston, Charleston, and London; The current value of English exports 1697-1800; sources of investment capital in the Colonial Philadelphia shipping industry; The economy of the British West Indies, 1763-1790; etc. Title does include detailed charts, graphs, and an index.

• French East India Companies by Donald Wellington; Donald C. Wellington

  Call Number: HF489.C65 W45 2006

  ISBN: 9780761834755

  Published/Created: 2006-10-20

  This title is an historical narrative and economic statistical analysis of France's import trade with the Far East during the 17th and 18th centuries. It includes an appendix and 77 pages of statistical data from French archives. Includes chapters on the company organization, The Mississippi Scheme, 1718-1721, several on trade, etc.

• The Hakluyt Handbook by David B. Quinn (Editor)

  Call Number: G161 .H2 2d ser. no. 144-145

  Published/Created: 1974

  This is a reference guide to the works of the Reverend Richard Hakluyt (1552-1616). Volume I consists of a series of essays by specialists in the various field, an analysis of the quality of his selections of material for his greatest collection The Principal Navigations, and chronology of his life and writings. Volume II analyses the contents and sources of Hakluyt's three major works "Divers Voyages" (1582), "Principal Navigations" (1589) and "Principal Navigations" (1598-1600).

• History of the American Economy (Book Only) by Gary M. Walton; Hugh Rockoff

  Call Number: HC103 .W34 2010

  ISBN: 9780324786613

  Published/Created: 2009-06-05

  This is a textbook and a good bit of it is devoted to the American economy after the Revolution. However, Part I (chapters 1-6) cover the Colonial area in enough detail and the presentation is such that it would be helpful to those just beginning their research. Also, each chapter has detailed list of References and suggested readings for those looking to delve deeper into specific topics.

• A History of the Anglo-American Common Law of Contract by Kevin M. Teeven

  Call Number: KF801 .T43 1990

  ISBN: 0313261512

  Published/Created: 1990-10-24

  This is a survey of the Anglo-American common law contract over its 800-year history, from genesis in 12th-century England to the present form in contemporary America. The relevant chapters include: Mercantile and Equitable Ideas Absorbed (1689-1789) and American Colonies to Young Republic (1600s-1800) which also includes additional primary sources on colonial-er contract law.

• The History of Corporate Finance by Robert E. Wright; Richard Eugene Sylla (Editor)

  Call Number: HG4061 .H57 2003

  ISBN: 1851967494

  Published/Created: 2003-11-15

  Table of contents
  This is a six volume set that is a series of chapters of primary research documents written by different authors that cover the time period from 1677 to 1898. It is organized along topical lines: volume 1 Development of Securities Markets; volume 2 Public Policy; volume 3 Limited Liability; volume 4 Corporate Finance in Practice; and volumes 5 and 6 Corporate Finance in Theory.

• The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics by Steven N. Durlauf; Lawrence E. Blume

  Call Number: HB61 .N49 2008

  ISBN: 9780333786765

  Published/Created: 2008-05-11

  This is not limited to the time period and topic of this guide but the entries for the various topics, people, events, concepts are presented in alphabetical fashion, can help researchers quickly understand a topic and identify relevant books and articles. Each entry has a bibliography as well as suggestions for other related entries. Volume 5 includes an extensive index for finding the various entries.

• "Origins of the American Business Corporation" The Journal of Economic History

  Call Number: HC10 .J64

  Published/Created: May, 1945 (Vol. 5, No. 1: pp. 1-23)

  This article looks at the factors that led to the system of business incorporating in the United States. Much of this is a look at the 19th century but does trace the evolution from the joint stock companies of the 18th century. This journal can be found in JSTOR.

• Overseas Trade and Traders by Jacob M. Price

  Call Number: HF3508.A88 P75 1996

  ISBN: 0860785912

  Published/Created: 1996-12-28

  In this third volume of collected papers, Jacob Price explores the structural and political relations of the Atlantic trade in the 18th century. A first selection on mercantile activity, blends research on the records of individual firms with aggregate customs data to show that definitive advantages of scale encouraged the concentration of trade into fewer and larger hands in sectors like tobacco, sugar and slaves.

• The Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History by Joel Mokyr (Editor)

  Call Number: HC15 .O94 2003

  ISBN: 0195105079

  Published/Created: 2003-10-16

  This is not limited to the time period and topic of this guide but the can help researchers quickly understand a topic. The entries on important concepts include but are not limited to – mercantilism, merchant guilds, joint stock trading companies are helpful overview of individual topics and each entry has a bibliography to find relevant books and articles. While not every person, business, commodity, place has an entry – the index will help to find out in which entries things like the Dutch East India Company, British East India Company are covered.

• Records of the British Colonial Office, class 5 by Randolph Boehm (Editor)

  Published/Created: c1983-c1984.

  This is a microform set that includes: British Public Record Office, Colonial Office, class 5 files; Guide to British Public Record Office, Colonial Office, class 5 files; Colonial Office records, class 5 files. Princeton University Library offers a guide to Finding British Government Documents External at Princeton that includes this set.
  Part 1 : Westward Expansion, 1700-1783
  Part 2 : The Board of Trade, 1660-1782
  Part 3 : The French and Indian War, 1754-1763
  Part 4 : Royal instructions and commissions to Colonial officials, 1702-1784
  Part 5 : The American Revolution, 1772-1784

• Wealth of a Nation to Be by Alice H. Jones

  Call Number: HC104 .J67

  ISBN: 0231036590

  Published/Created: 1980-07-01

  The author paints of picture of wealth and distribution of wealth just before the Revolution. It looks a real estate, personal, and family wealth in the 13 colonies. There are several appendixes of interest including Appendix B "Wealth Composition of Probate-type Wealthholders by County or Group of Counties, Three Regions, 1774", Appendix C "Relation Between Age and Wealth", and Appendix D "Measures of Variance".
  Data from this work has been published in data sets External at the University of Michigan.

What industry produces the most economic growth in the Middle Colonies?

What were the major economic industries in the Middle Colonies?

What industry was successful in the Middle Colonies?