New York: Ronald, 1971b.īridenbaugh spent a quarter of a century researching town life in colonial British North America. Cities in the Wilderness: The First Century of Urban Life in America, 1625–1742. Originally published in 1955.īridenbaugh, Carl. An evaluation of this and of Bridenbaugh 1971b is in Benjamin Carp, “ Cities in Review,” Common-Place: The Interactive Journal of Early American Life. Bridenbaugh is concerned with the social and institutional history of cities rather than the sources of their growth or their relationship to one another. New York: Knopf, 1971a.Ĭontinues the approach to North American cities found in Bridenbaugh 1971b. Cities in Revolt: Urban Life in America, 1743–1776. Rockman 2007 is a review article on the main themes covered by historians of early North American cities.īridenbaugh, Carl. Crane 1998 is the main study of the role of women in British American port cities. Earle and Hoffman 1976 links the urban system of the South, such as it was, to the growth of staple crops. Price 1974 is the best study of the occupational structure of North American ports. Fries 1977 discusses the original plans and designs of North American cities. Carp 2007 has individual essays on political mobilization in British American port cities in the 1760s and early 1770s. His book could be read as an economically determinist tome linking material conditions to the growth of political consciousness immediately before the American Revolution, but the author would deny this and would claim that he was not influenced by Marxist ideas. Nash is especially concerned with economic fluctuations in the urban economies of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, paying close attention to the working and living conditions of servants, slaves, and other poor people. The major modern book to provide an overall assessment is Nash 1979. His interpretations have now been superseded in more-specialized studies, but they are still worth mining for information. Carl Bridenbaugh’s books include much descriptive and illustrative material drawn from newspapers and town records, but they lacked a quantitative dimension. Bridenbaugh 1971a and Bridenbaugh 1971b are written by the first academic historian in the 20th century to attempt broad studies of North American port cities. Nearly all of the main studies of this sort exclusively cover North America rather than the Caribbean. Instead, one has to sample a handful of books and articles that provide varied introductions to the development of these urban centers. There is no satisfactory, up-to-date overview of British American port cities, either using original sources or synthesizing secondary literature. Therefore, interesting work on port cities is often done by scholars primarily concerned with other analytical questions, such as social structure, race, and consumption. Few scholars specialize in the history of British American ports, however, and even fewer publish works on colonial urban history. The main published studies dealing directly with these ports are cited in this article. Apart from Kingston, Jamaica, and Bridgetown, Barbados, these island ports were little more than small towns before 1800. The West Indian sugar islands were not sufficiently large to have more than one main port each. These ports were situated where transaction and distribution costs could be concentrated in one trading center. Boston was the leading port in Massachusetts and throughout New England, New York City was the hub of New York’s trade, Philadelphia dominated the Delaware Valley’s seaborne commerce, Baltimore emerged by the time of the American Revolution as the chief port on the Chesapeake Bay, and Charleston was the focal point for ships and trade throughout the Lower South. Most North American regions were dominated by one particular port. The port cities themselves varied considerably: some were extensive sites for shipbuilding and its associated trades, some mainly served as shipping points, and some were connected to thriving agricultural hinterlands. These populations differed in their ethnic and racial composition, in social status and income, and in residential patterns and living standards. Merchants, retailers, wholesalers, agents, shopkeepers, manual laborers, and seamen all formed part of the population of these port cities. Although relatively small by today’s standards-no North American port city had a population greater than 25,000 by 1776-these multilayered maritime communities were essential cogs in the wheels of coastal and transatlantic commerce. British American port cities were an important part of the social, economic, cultural, and political fabric of North America and the West Indies in the early modern period.
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