Colonial Store Product Cards
from Turkey
Raw silk, soap, leather, cotton, oil,
currants and raisins, sulphur, opium, box
wood, mohair
from Italy
raw and wrought silk, wine, oil, soap,
olives, anchovies, brimstone, carpets,
scented gloves, necklaces
from Flanders
fine lace, fine cambrics, Flanders whited
linens, threads, tapes, incles
from Germany
great quantities of linen, linen yarn, kid
skins, tin plates
from Ireland
linen, woolen, and worsted yarn, tallow,
live cattle, butter, copper, feathers, hair,
raw hides, mutton, beef, pork, cheese,
candles, fish, horses, soap, wool
from Africa
slaves, gold dust, wood, beeswax,
elephants’ teeth, gum, ostrich feathers,
amber, ebony, crystal, and rice, figs,
raisins, dates, almonds and copper from
the Barbary coast
from Spain
oil, fruit of diverse kinds, Spanish wool,
indigo, cochineal
from Norway, Denmark, and
Sweden
fir timber, spars, plank, iron, copper, iron
and copper wire, tar, great guns,
mortars, bullets
from the Canary Islands
wines, logwood, hides, indigo, cochineal
from Portugal
oil, salt, lemons, oranges, almonds, figs,
saffron, soap, white marble, liquorish
from Russia
hemp, flax, linen cloth, Russia leather,
tallow, furs, iron, pot-ash, timber
from the East Indies and China
muslin, calicoes, cotton cloths, coffee,
tea, cabinets, canes, diamonds, pepper,
drugs, china ware, raw silk
from France
wine, brandy, linen, fine lace, fine
cambrics, tea, salt, pepper, prunes,
brocades, velvets, silks
from Holland
thread, tapes, incles, whale-fins, madder,
linseed, flax, paper, toys, pepper, India
spice, calicoes, muslins, India silks,
coffee, tea, china ware, lace, cambics,
velvets, wrought silks, Renish wines and
French brandies
from the West Indies
sugar, ginger, bullion from Jamaica;
cotton, cocoa
From The Compleat Compting-House Companion; or, Young Merchant and Tradesman's True Guide ... Compiled by a Society of Merchants and Tradesmen, 1763. London.
© 2011 The Colonial  Foundation
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Consumer Revolution Information Cards
“Consider the fact that a planter’s
daughter in tidewater Virginia in the
1770s could have worn at a the
same time a gown of silk from China,
underclothing of linen from Holland,
and footwear made in England. . .”
Linda Baumgarten in Looking at
Eighteenth-Century Clothing, p. 1.
“. . . a slave—whose very freedom
was entangled in a network of trade
and commerce—could be wearing
clothing made from inexpensive
textiles imported especially for his
use—a shirt of linen woven in
Northern Europe, woolen hose from
Scotland, or a knitted cap from
Monmouth, England.”
“Women could also purchase many
of their items of apparel, especially
petticoats, laces, shoes, stockings,
cloaks, aprons, and even stays,
ready-made through the import
trade.”
“American printing presses,
augmented by shipments of English
materials, provided popular
literature at increasingly affordable
prices…By the 1680s, colonists had
access to chapbooks, cheap books
with paper covers. Some provided
stories of shipwrecks; others
recounted the last days and
executions of celebrated villains and
pirates.”
Ed Crews in The Emergence of
Popular Culture in Colonial America,
p. 2
“Virginia and several European ports
and islands was allowed by the
Mother Country: trade with the
West Indies, Spain in times of peace,
and Portugal . . . for items such as
wines, rum, sugar, molasses, salt
and other produce to be had from
one or another of these places . . .
There was some trade with Bermuda
for her produce.”
“By mid-century the colonial
population was exploding, growing
at nearly twice the rate of Europe’s,
doubling about every twenty-five
years. In 1720 there were 474,388
European and African inhabitants of
what would become the United
States. By 1750, there were
1,207,000, and by 1775 more than
2,500,000.”
Ed Crews in The Emergence of
Popular Culture in Colonial America,
p. 1
“By the 1750s even the poorer sorts
were finding a wide variety of nonessentials increasingly desirable. At
the lowest levels of wealth this
meant acquiring more of the
ordinary amenities families had so
long forgone – tables, chairs, bed
steads, individual knives and forks,
bed and table linens and nowinexpensive ceramic tableware.”
Walsh, p. 111; Carole Shammas,
“The Domestic Environment in Early
Modern England and America,:
Journal of Social History 14 (1980.)
“In the early eighteenth century
there were few towns in Virginia,
and roads, where they existed, were
usually bad. The many rivers and
deep creeks in the settled parts of
the Colony served as the principal
highways . . . Stores grew up along
or near the rivers and creeks, to
provide their immediate areas with
merchandise.”
Mary R.M. Goodwin in The Colonial
Store p.8
Mary R.M. Goodwin in The Colonial
Store p. 9
Linda Baumgarten in Looking at
Eighteenth-Century Clothing, p. 1.
Linda Baumgarten in Looking at
Eighteenth-Century Clothing, p. 1.
“Advertisements in Williamsburg’s
Virginia Gazette offered tops,
marbles, dressed babies, dolls with
glass eyes, toy fiddles, toy watches,
puzzles . . . balls, and toy soldiers,
Bilbo catchers . . . made of a cup
connected by a string to a ball.
Players toss the ball into the air and
try to catch it in the cup as it comes
down.”
Ed Crews in The Emergence of
Popular Culture in Colonial America,
p. 2
. . . for girls. . . second to their dolls .
. . was the tea set, sold in
Williamsburg shops. This toy
offered the colonial girl an
opportunity to play at the
enormously popular adult pastime,
the tea ceremony . . .”
“Beauty also figured into the
calculus of consumption. An
imported Staffordshire, England
plate or a piece of ribbon brought
color into an otherwise drab
environment . . . No doubt, some
Americans realized that ceramic
plates and serving dishes were more
sanitary to use than were the older
wooden trenchers.”
“. . . consumer goods provided
socially mobile Americans with
boundary markers, an increasingly
recognized way to distinguish
betters from their inferiors, for
thought the rural farmer may have
owned a tea cup, he could not afford
real china.”
T. H. Breen in An Empire of Goods:
the Anglicization of Colonial
America, 1690-1776.p. 496
Ed Crews in The Emergence of
Popular Culture in Colonial America,
p. 2
T. H. Breen in An Empire of Goods:
the Anglicization of Colonial
America, 1690-1776.p. 496
© 2011 The Colonial  Foundation
“To the extent that individual
consumers and families could afford
them, demand grew for such goods
as novels and other books for light
diversion, cards and card tables,
sheet music, children’s books and
toys, equipment for such outdoor
sports as hunting and fishing, and
decorative prints such as those
produced by William Hogarth.”
Ed Crews in The Emergence of
Popular Culture in Colonial America,
p. 1
“Some men and women wanted to
save money and time. After all,
producing one’s own garments—a
linen shirt, for example—was a
lengthy, tedious process, and the
purchase of imported cloth may
have been more cost effective than
was turning out homespun. “
T. H. Breen in An Empire of Goods:
the Anglicization of Colonial
America, 1690-1776.p. 496
“Being able to afford a wig, or
sometimes several wigs, was a
means of showing one's status in
society. Even the lesser sort (those
with little money to spend) wanted
to own a wig or queue. The fashion
was so important that wealthy slave
owners also purchased wigs for their
slaves to reinforce their own social
standing. Wigs, queues and
hairpieces were made of goat hair
from Turkey, horse hair from China,
yak hair from Tibet, or human hair
from young women in Europe.”
An Eighteenth-Century Trades
Sampler, http://www.history.org/
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C ONSUM E R R E V OL UT I ON V OC A B UL A R Y
brimstone—sulphur used in gunpowder, fireworks, and medicines
brocades—a rich fabric woven with a raised design, often using gold or silver threads
bullion—gold or silver bars
calicoes—cotton fabrics from India, printed with a simple design on one side
cambrics—a fine thin white linen or cotton fabric
cochineal—a red dye made from cochineal insects
currants—small, seedless raisins
flax—a plant whose fibers are used to make linen
great guns—cannons and large artillery; sometimes muskets
hemp—a plant whose fibers are used to make rope and coarse cloth
incles—a colored linen tape woven on a simple narrow loom and used for trimmings
indigo—a blue dye made from indigo plants
kid skins—the hides of young goats, used for making gloves, parchment, and shoes
linseed oil—a yellowish drying oil obtained from flaxseed and used especially in paint, varnish,
printing ink, and linoleum
liquorish—modern day “licorice.” Black candy made from the licorice plant
madder—dye made from the madder plant
mohair—fleece from Angora goats
mortars—short cannons
muslins—a cotton fabric with a fine, plain weave
mutton—meat from a full-grown sheep
opium—a drug made from poppies
pot-ash—potassium or a potassium compound that was used for washing wool, as well as in
soap, glass, printing ink, gunpowder, and fertilizer
© 2011 The Colonial  Foundation
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saffron—the deep orange aromatic pungent dried stigmas of a purple-flowered crocus (Crocus
sativus) used to color and flavor foods and formerly as a dyestuff and in medicine
spars—a stout pole used for masts and other large beams on ships
sulphur—a yellow element that smells very strong when burned; used in gunpowder, matches,
and medicines (also spelled ‘sulfur’)
tallow—white, nearly tasteless solid fat from cattle and sheep used in soap, candles, and
lubricants
tapes—long, narrow strips of linen, cotton, or the like, used for tying garments and binding
seams or carpets
worst yarn—tightly-twisted woolen yarn
wrought—embroidered or embellished
© 2011 The Colonial  Foundation
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SPEECH BUBBLES
© 2011 The Colonial  Foundation
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