Examines the role that country storekeeper Samuel Rex of Schaefferstown, Pennsylvania, played in the society and economy of the mid-Atlantic region from 1790 to 1807. Studies consumption patterns of one typical Pennsylvania-German community.
Contents
List of Figures and Tables
Preface and Acknowledgments
Introduction: A Country Storekeeper and His Network of Relationships
3. Feeding the Furnaces: The Iron Community and the Rex Store
4. “Orders Thankfully Received, and Carefully Executed”: Rex and the Philadelphia Merchants
5. A Life of “Comparative Ease”
Epilogue: Rex’s Network and Its Significance
Appendix A: Rex and Valentine Families
Appendix B: Goods Sold at the Rex Store, 1790–1807
Appendix C: Tradesmen and Craftsmen Who Used the Rex Store
Appendix D: Philadelphia Merchants Patronized by Rex
Appendix E: Samuel Rex’s Carters
Appendix F: Location of Samuel Rex Documents
Notes
Bibliography
Index
“Diane Wenger's analysis of the economic life of a rural shopkeeper in Schaefferstown, Pennsylvania, exemplifies an excellent use of microhistory to rethink a larger historical phenomenon. . . . Her methodology and exhaustive research . . . [provide] a much-needed complement to interpretations of the early national economy that rely on abstract theories of political economy or aggregate data from hundreds or thousands of historical actors. . . . The book will also be of great use to those with an interest in the Pennsylvania German culture, microhistory, material culture, or archaeology. . . . Wenger is at her best in the detailed analysis she provides of Rex's account books, ledgers, and other business documents. Her extensive appendixes, which painstakingly detail customer visits and goods sold, will prove almost as valuable to scholars as her interpretation. This close reading of documents often glossed over by other scholars sets Wenger's work apart from other studies of the early republican economy that focus on theories of political economy or dwell on the rise of the market. . . . Wenger's work contributes to an emerging literature interpreting the early American economy on its own terms and through the eyes of those who experienced the changes it wrought directly. By taking as evidence material actions, experiences, and artifacts, rather than abstract ideas, [this book provides] a fresh and welcome insight into the complex nature of the early republican economy. . . . A Country Storekeeper in Pennsylvania provides readers with asatisfying interpretation of the role of rural storekeepers in early national Pennsylvania and raises new methodological and conceptual questions for future studies elsewhere.”
