ABSTRACT

Contrary to the myth of colonial America being populated by uneducated frontiersmen in coonskin caps, America, at least the Atlantic coastal areas, at the time of the Revolution had small villages and farms and a number of fair-sized cities. Boston, Philadelphia and new york were all cities with histories dating back as much as 150 years. Baltimore, comparatively recently settled in 1729, was the fifth largest city in the united States. In 1790, the time of the first American census, Jedidiah Morse in his American Gazetteer listed Boston with 18,038 people, Philadelphia 40,000, new york 33,131 and Baltimore 13,503. Only one southern city was on the list: Charlestown, South Carolina with 15,000 people. Philadelphia at that time was the second largest English-speaking city in the world. In contrast, London had just over 1,000,000, and in 1801 york had 24,080 people. The American cities were prosperous, cosmopolitan cities at the end of the eighteenth century.