The subtitle of this book is “The Everyday Lives of Eighteenth-Century Americans”. This book is part of a series – “The Everyday Life in America Series”, which consists of six books, by as many authors, which start in “Early America” and go through 1945. Many of the other books discuss changes during and between different eras. This volume discusses the changes in home life, work life, and the community in the 1700’s. The book starts with two maps, one of British Colonial America around 1700, and the second of the United States of America in 1800. These maps show the difference in how far European settlement progressed over the course of 100 years. Of course, the biggest change was the governance in the states formed on the East coast. While the lead up to war and the Revolution itself of course caused quite a number of changes during that century, there were other forces at work as well.
Wolf discusses how even the idea of what constituted a family changed over the course of the 18th century. Early on, servants and apprentices who lived with their masters or employers were considered part of the “family” unit, but by the early 1800’s that had changed to just the parents and children. And many children were apprenticed out during those early years. Housing for the family, however it was constituted, varied greatly depending on the region of the country they lived in, and the means at their disposal. Early in the century, children were expected to start pulling their own weight, work-wise, as soon as they were physically able; any schooling was an afterthought. By the beginning of the 1800’s, however, public schools were more common, and all but the poorest children were allowed to be, well, children.
Early in the century, most people were farmers, although what they grew and how they grew it varied greatly depending on the region. Many farmers tried to be completely self-sufficient, but that was very difficult to do. Craftspeople and merchants filled in what people could not produce themselves, and non-farming professions became more common as the century progressed. The nature of community varied greatly depending on the location. In some regions, people were among others of the same religion, or ethnicity, which was many times the same thing. In rural areas, you helped your nearest neighbors, in the hopes that they would in turn help you. And in the larger cities, there was a mixture of peoples from just about everywhere. And since travel and long-distance communication did not change much during this century, your near-by neighbors were the people you had the most contact with.
If this was your family, how would you research them? This was a very eventful century in the history of the United States. Tracking our ancestors during this period is rather difficult, due to the age of potential records. The first United States census was not taken until 1790, so the genealogist’s most familiar tool is missing for virtually the entire century. There are still town and county histories, and some other records can still be useful, especially land records, and if available, church records.