Gary Nash’s Urban Crucible: Social Change, Political Consciousness, and the Origins of the American Revolution (1979) examines the history of the three urban centers of Colonial America during the seventeenth and eighteenth century. By analyzing life in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York, Nash is able to examine the similarities and differences of these cities as well as recognize cultural and political shifts in the colonies, which often manifested first in these population centers. Unlike the work of Gordon Wood, Nash approaches this history by looking at the lives of the working class, indentured servants, and slaves. This work acts not merely as a social history, however, as Nash explores transformations in political and intellectual thought during the pre-revolutionary era.
Nash begins the book by revealing the notable difference between the late seventeenth century and the mid-eighteenth century. He notes that wampum was still being used as a means of exchange in New York at the end of the seventeenth century and that newspapers—which were instrumental as a means of communication and facilitating messages of discontent during the imperial crisis (and arguments in favor of revolution soon after)—did not come into being until the beginning of the eighteenth century. “There were no newspapers printed in the colonies before 1704, when the Boston News-Letter was first published. Philadelphians would wait until 1719 to see a newspaper in their city and New Yorkers [not] until 1725” (5). Nash also discusses the revolts in the late seventeenth century in Boston and New York which resulted from the Glorious Revolution in England. He highlights here that the impulse for revolution was alive and well in the colonies for the better part of a century before the imperial crisis of the 1760s. His description of the hanging and beheading of Leisler and Melbourne in New York in 1691 underscores this point.
The discussion of the role of slavery in Boston during the seventeenth century is also useful, as the slavery issue in works of history generally focus on the south, even when examining the earlier eras of the American colonies. Considering how Massachusetts would make history by ending slavery in the 1780s by ruling it unconstitutional, it is crucial to understand how brutal its own history involving slavery was in the seventeenth century, not merely regarding Africans but also Native Americans. For example, Nash notes that the people of Massachusetts, “victorious in a war of extermination against the Pequot Indians, Massachusetts shipped several hundred captive Pequot women and children to the West Indies, where they were exchanged for African slaves” (78). Overall, Nash capably demonstrates that although slavery waned in the northern port cities in the late eighteenth century, from the late seventeenth century through the first half of the eighteenth century, the acquisition of slaves in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia was a large priority, noting that “by the second quarter of the eighteenth century about one-fifth of all Boston families owned slaves” (106).
Examining the way local economies worked in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries is also enlightening, as it reveals how the burgeoning international trade enticed merchants to enter the global market, sometimes at the expense of having commodities available for local consumers. In the case of Boston, Nash describes the reaction of the townspeople to this phenomenon in a way that is reminiscent of E.P. Thompson’s scholarship regarding eighteenth century English and their food riots. “It is important to observe that Boston’s common folk did not stand by impassively when the town’s merchants attempted to substitute the laws of supply and demand for the older axiom that the public welfare transcend all private gain” (79). There is little difference here in how Nash describes the Bostonians and Thompson’s work which outlines English rioters who advocated for a moral economy. The pro-capitalist position which took over culturally and economically at the end of the eighteenth century and (especially) the beginning of the nineteenth century was still a far-and-away future.
The rise in popularity of the written word—newspapers and pamphlets—toward the middle of the eighteenth century had a profound effect upon the culture, especially in the urban centers. For the first time, alliances between the literate laboring class, the upper middle class, and the wealthy began to coalesce in a way which could not have been foreseen. By the 1760s, following the end of the Seven Years War and on the eve of the imperial crisis, some began to take advantage of this growing alliance of like minds which cut across economic backgrounds. “James Otis, Samuel Adams, Royall Tyler, Oxenbridge Thacher, and many other respectable if not wealthy Bostonians espoused a vision of politics that gave credence to laboring-class views and regarded as entirely legitimate the participation of artisans in the political process” (279).
Nash asserts that around the middle of the 1760s, just as a political alliance had been able to solidify among different classes in the port cities—particularly Boston—doubts as to its efficacy began to appear. In a way that is reminiscent of Gordon Wood’s analysis that the extremes of the democratic spirit began to worry members of the economic and social elite by the 1780s, Nash argues that signs of this were beginning to appear in some places as early as 1765, a decade before revolution became a reality. He states that “by the end of 1765, a year of extraordinary significance in the social history of the port towns, the scales had been lifted from upper-class eyes. The momentous question at the end of that year, as the resistance movement against England began to lay bare signs of great internal stress, was this: if the ‘mob’ controlled the streets, who would control the ‘mob’?” (311).
Urban Crucible ends in 1776, leaving discussion of the revolution itself for another time. This may be one shortcoming of the book, as an examination of how Boston, New York, and Philadelphia transformed further during the war (including under occupation by the British) might have been useful. Nevertheless, Urban Crucible is a worthwhile read for its ability to accomplish two things at once: taking a social history approach to the late colonial period (though including key aspects of the development of the intellectual history as well) and focusing on the commercial/industrial/population centers of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. By focusing (primarily) on the social history of these cities in this era, it is able to demonstrate—to some extent—how neighboring regions were impacted by events and ideas that often revealed themselves in these municipalities first.
[James M. Masnov is a writer, historian, and lecturer. His book, Rights Reign Supreme: An Intellectual History of Judicial Review and the Supreme Court, is available here. His first book, History Killers and Other Essays by an Intellectual Historian, is available here.]