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A Country Storekeeper in Pennsylvania
Creating Economic Networks in Early America, 1790–1807
280 pages | 21 illustrations | 6 x 9 | 2008
ISBN 978-0-271-03412-6 | cloth: $55.00 sh
Paperback edition is not available in the U.S.
In early America, traditional commercial interaction revolved around an entity known as the "general store." Unfortunately, most of these elusive small-town shops disappeared from our society without leaving business-related documents behind for scholars to analyze. This gap in the historical knowledge of America has made it difficult to understand the nature of the networks and trade relationships that existed between cities and the surrounding countryside at the time.
Samuel Rex, however, left behind a vastly different legacy. A country storekeeper who operated out of Schaefferstown, Pennsylvania, during the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Rex left behind a surprising array of documents exposing just how he ran his business. In this book, Diane Wenger analyzes the part Rex and others like him played in the overall commercial structure of the Atlantic region.
While Wenger's book has a strong foundation as a work of local history, it draws conclusions with much broader historical implications. The rich set of documents that Samuel Rex left behind provides a means for contesting the established model of how early American commerce functioned, replacing it with a more fine-grained picture of a society in which market forces and community interests could peacefully coexist.
Diane Wenger is Assistant Professor of History at Wilkes University.
CONTENTS
List of Figures and Tables
Preface and Acknowledgments
Introduction: A Country Storekeeper and His Network of Relationships
1Beyond “Wild Forest People”: Schaefferstown, Pennsylvania
2The Rex Store and Its Local Customers
3Feeding the Furnaces: The Iron Community and the Rex Store
4Orders Thankfully Received, and Carefully Executed”: Rex and the Philadelphia Merchants
5A Life of “Comparative Ease”
Epilogue: Rex's Network and Its Significance
Appendixes
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