ABSTRACT
In the spring and early summer of 1789 hunger became wide-spread on the northern borderland shared by Canada and the United States. Within the United States, the suffering was greatest in the newly settled upland districts in northeastern Pennsylvania, upstate New York, and western Vermont. In Canada, the hunger extended from Niagara on the west through the Province of Quebec and into the Maritimes. Although occasionally noted in local histories, the extent and significance of the dearth of 1789 has escaped the attention of national historians in the United States; no previous work has drawn together the many local episodes to reconstruct its sweep. Indeed, American historians are wont to deny even the possibility of such an episode of widespread hunger in their nation’s past.
