ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a brief review of the material life of early Americans and how it related to both a local and global market economy. Yet, by the middle of the eighteenth century a consumer revolution was afoot and new meaning poured into more valuable possessions. More affluent colonists may have consulted books such as The Art of Dancing Explained by Reading and Figures, printed in London in 1735 for the author, Kellom Tomlinson, to advance their refinement. The chapter discusses the changing meanings colonial consumers assigned to their goods, the gendered allocation of household purchasing roles, and finally the religious and ideological resistance to consumerism and the political opposition to British imports and trade policies. Colonial Americans voiced anti-consumption rhetoric and organized significant consumer resistance. Even leading patriots could not resist the temptation to buy English merchandise for personal use as long as such purchases were not banned specifically by an existing nonimportation agreement.
