ABSTRACT
At mid-century almost no one would have predicted an extraordinary occurrence. Some two million people had scattered themselves over an immense territory. They seemed to have little in common. Efforts to explain this political mobilization have foundered on an attempt to establish the primacy of ideology over material interest. The imported British manufactures that flooded American society during the eighteenth century acquired cultural significance largely within local communities. Parliament managed to politicize these consumer goods, and when it did so, manufactured items suddenly took on a radical, new symbolic function. Americans were quickly swept up in this consumer economy. These were not the self-sufficient yeomen of Jeffersonian mythology. The importation of British goods on such a vast scale created social tensions that the colonists were slow to appreciate. As John Dickinson's observation suggests, the colonists' experiences as consumers no longer yielded the satisfaction that they had at an earlier time.
