A Country Storekeeper in Pennsylvania: Creating Economic Networks in Early America, 1790-1807 Contributor(s): Wenger, Diane E. (Author) |
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ISBN: 0271034130 ISBN-13: 9780271034133 Publisher: Penn State University Press OUR PRICE: $30.64 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: October 2012 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Business & Economics | Industries - Retailing - History | United States - State & Local - Middle Atlantic (dc, De, Md, Nj, Ny, Pa) - Biography & Autobiography | Business |
Dewey: 381.109 |
Physical Information: 0.62" H x 6" W x 9" (0.90 lbs) 280 pages |
Themes: - Chronological Period - 18th Century - Cultural Region - Mid-Atlantic |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: 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 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. |
Contributor Bio(s): Wenger, Diane E.: - Diane Wenger is Assistant Professor of History at Wilkes University. |