ECONOMIC HISTORY OF BRITISH COLONIAL AMERICA

ECON 315

Farley Grubb

Fall Semester

grubbf@be.udel.edu

Last Updated: 7/99

831-1905

Course Outline

Part I : Weeks 1-7

COLONIZATION: THE LABOR SUPPLY PROBLEM

1. The Jamestown Fiasco.

Source:

Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery America Freedom (New York: W. W. Norton, 1975), pp. 44-130.

2. Solution 1 to the Labor Shortage--European Immigrant Servants and Convicts.

Sources:

A) Farley Grubb, "Does Bound Labor Have To Be Coerced Labor? The Case of Colonial Immigrant Servitude Versus Craft Apprenticeship and Life-Cycle Servitude-in-Husbandry," Itinerario: European Journal of Overseas

History, 21, no. 1 (1997), pp. 28-51.

B) Farley Grubb, "The Statutory Regulation of Colonial Servitude: An Incomplete Contract Approach," (working paper, Econ. Dept., Univ. of Delaware, 1999).

C) Farley Grubb, "The Incidence of Servitude in Trans-Atlantic Migration, 1771-1804," Explorations in Economic History, 22 (July 1985), pp. 316-339.

D) Farley Grubb, "The Market for Indentured Immigrants: Evidence on the Efficiency of Forward‑Labor Contracting in Philadelphia, 1745‑1773," Journal of Economic History, 45 (Dec. 1985), pp. 855‑868.

E) David W. Galenson, White Servitude in Colonial America (New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1981), pp. 97-113.

F) Farley Grubb, "Redemptioner Immigration to Pennsylvania: Evidence on Contract Choice and Profitability," Journal of Economic History, 46 (Jun. 1986), pp. 407‑418. 

G) Farley Grubb, "The Long-run Trend in the Value of European Immigrant Servants, 1654-1831: New Measurements and Interpretations," Research in Economic History, 14 (1992), 167-240.

H) Farley Grubb, "The Trans-Atlantic Market for British Convict Labor," Journal of Economic History, 60 (June 2000), forthcoming.

3. Solution 2 to the Labor Shortage--The Transition from European Servant to African Slave Labor.

Sources:

A) Patrick Manning, Slavery and African Life (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 8-26.

B) Richard Dunn, Sugar and Slaves (New York: W. W. Norton, 1972), pp. 188-262.

C) Galenson, White Servitude, pp. 117-168.

D) Farley Grubb and Tony Stitt, "The Liverpool Emigrant Servant Trade and the Transition to Slave Labor in the Chesapeake, 1697-1707: Market Adjustments to War," Explorations in Economic History, 31 (July 1994), pp. 376-405.

E) Russell R. Menard, "The Africanization of the Lowcountry Labor Force, 1670-1730," In Winthrop D. Jordan and Sheila L. Skemp, eds., Race and Family in the Colonial South (Jackson, MS: Univ. Press of Mississippi), pp. 81-108.

Part II: Weeks 8-15

COLONIAL ECONOMIC GROWTH AND INTERNAL DEVELOPMENT

4. Economic Growth.

Sources:

A) Edwin J. Perkins, The Economy of Colonial America (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1988. 2nd edn.), pp. 212-240.

B) Alice Hanson Jones, Wealth of a Nation to Be (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1980).

C) Farley Grubb, "Lilliputians and Brobdingnagians, Stature in British Colonial America: Evidence from Servants, Convicts, and Apprentices," Research in Economic History, 21 (1999), forthcoming.

5. The Economics of Social Conflict.

Source:

A) Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, Salem Possessed (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1974), pp. 1‑132.

6. The Economics of Colonial Literacy and Education.

Sources:

A) Farley Grubb, "Growth of Literacy in Colonial America: Longitudinal Patterns, Economic Models, and the Direction of Future Research," Social Science History, 14 (Winter 1990), pp. 451-481.

B) Farley Grubb, "Colonial Immigrant Literacy: An Economic Analysis of Pennsylvania‑German Evidence, 1727‑1775," Explorations in Economic History, 24 (Jan. 1987), pp. 63‑76.

C) Farley Grubb, "Educational Choice in the Era Before Free Public Schooling: Evidence from German Immigrant Children in Pennsylvania, 1771-1817," Journal of Economic History, 52 (Jun. 1992), pp. 363-375.

7. Credit, Debt, Paper Money, and Colonial Government Finance.

Sources:

A) Perkins, The Economy of Colonial America, pp. 161-186.

B) Robert Craig West, "Money in the Colonial American Economy," Economic Inquiry, 16 (Jan. 1978), pp. 1-15.

C) Elmus Wicker, "Colonial Monetary Standards Contrasted: Evidence from the Seven Years War," Journal of Economic History, 45 (Dec. 1985), pp. 869‑884.

8. Economic Causes of the American Revolution.

Sources:

A) Perkins, The Economy of Colonial America, pp. 187-211.

B) Robert Thomas, "A Quantitative Approach to the Study of Effects of British Imperial Policy upon Colonial Welfare: Some Preliminary Findings," Journal of Economic History, 25 (Dec. 1965), pp. 615-638.

9. Economic Influences in the formation of the U.S. Constitution.

Sources:

A) Robert McGuire and Robert Ohsfeldt, "Economic Interests and the American Constitution: A Quantitative Rehabilitation of Charles A. Beard," Journal of Economic History, 44 (June 1984), pp. 509-519.

B) Robert McGuire and Robert Ohsfeldt, "An Economic Model of Voting Behavior over Specific Issues at the Constitutional Convention of 1787," Journal of Economic History, 46 (Mar. 1986), pp. 79‑111.

Course Requirements

Two 1 hour midterms in class and a 2 hour final exam, each worth 1/3 of the course points. 

Exam Format and Grading

All exams are non-comprehensive, i.e. they only cover material since the last exam. Each exam will consist of 4 essay questions. Each question will be worth 10 points. The two lowest essay scores across the 3 exams for each individual will be dropped. The maximum points in the course are 100 (12 essays times 10 points per essay minus 2 essays dropped). Your essays will be graded on your ability to explain the economic reasoning (in detail) of the behavior asked in the question along with your use of evidence to support the argument explained. Completeness will also be considered when scoring your exam essay answer. All grades are relative to the performance of your classmates.