ABSTRACT
In 1748, Cadwallader Colden, Lieutenant Governor of New York, complained in a letter about New York society that among the colonists 'the only principle of life propagated among the young people is to get money, and men are only esteemed according to what they are worth'. This chapter reviews their varied attempts to solve the problem and official English opposition to them. The English government viewed the problem so seriously that it even refused to allow paper money to be used for governmental purposes, as it had in New England. Money and social class were related in the colonial period, even as it is now. Just as certain of Franklin's writings reflected most Americans' views on paper money, other of his writings exemplify American faith in the self-made man. As noted, the effects of social stratification in colonial America were mitigated by social mobility. Social class and material wealth became more and more closely related as the colonial period progressed.
