ABSTRACT
One of the chief assumptions of the egalitarian theory is that the preindustrial United States was a society lacking in truly great fortunes. According to an admired modern historian, "sizable fortunes were made but not astronomical fortunes" in America during the era.1 In asserting that the roughly equal distribution of resources in the United States prevented individuals from amassing great wealth, Tocqueville as always was reasoning flawlessly. The great question is whether his logic is borne out by the facts. It is, of course, impossible to define objectively "re sources of great extent" or riches. The terms may be said to contain both a relative and an absolute component. Riches or great wealth will be owned by relatively few, giving each of its possessors a portion of the community's goods that equals or surpasses in value the total wealth owned by hundreds or even thousands of poorer men. And riches make possible lives marked by material comfort, costly-even sumptuouspossessions, servants or retainers to perform menial tasks, much leisure time, and attractive and expensive means of spending or using it. Since a number of contemporary sources indicate the quantity of wealth required
to live the life of the rich, the question to be answered concerns the numbers who attained such wealth.
