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Volume 10, Number 26
Happy Birthday, America
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MARKET STREET, WILMINGTON—This sketch made in about 1855 shows the
downtown business district of North Carolina’s major seaport before the Civil War. A
stagecoach unloads passengers at the Carolina Hotel at the right. [Photo courtesy of the
State Archives Division]
North Carolina Prospered In 1776
by ALICE MATHEWS, Associate Professor
Department of History
Western Carolina University
A visitor to North Carolina during the
revolutionary era found society there still in “a
state of infancy,” still very much the frontier
community.
The same could be said of the colony’s
economy, except that business conditions
were rapdily changing as primary economic
activities expanded and demanded more
services from merchants, craftsmen and
professional individuals.
Until the 1750 s North Carolina had largely
been an underdeveloped area. Geographic
barriers—the lack of good ports, the
dangerous Outer Banks, shallow waters and
the location and flow of the rivers—obstructed
commercial development and helped to isolate
the colony.
But beginning in the 1750 s North Carolina
began to symbolize opportunity. The fertile,
green and inexpensive lands of the Piedmont
stirred the imagination. By 1776 North
Carolina ranked fourth in population size and
was growing more rapidly than any other
colony. Most of the new settlement was
occurring in the Piedmont (then the West).
Migrants from Pennsylvania, Maryland and
Virginia journeyed down the Great wagon
The South’s Leading Business Publication
Road (an old Indian trading path) to stake out
a farm, while Scottish Highlanders saw their
chance to own land and improve the living
conditions of their children. Young lawyers
who knew that a growing population meant
more legal business and more government
positions (quite often the dream of ambitious
yount lawyers!) also migrated.
And for the merchant, the growing
population meant more consumers of
manufactured goods as well as suppliers of
raw materials.
Business conditions in the early 17705, then,
looked extremely promising. Despite the lack
of a major port city, the absence of specie,
inflated prices and poor transportation routes
to the West, North Carolina’s economy was
booming. Exports and imports were both
increasing.
There were no unemployment lines or
business failures. Profits were large in both
merchants and farmers were, for the most
part, enjoying “comfortable" livings. An
English visitor observed that almost every
man he met was “the fabricator of his own
fortune, and many of them are very opulent.”
The same visitor could not help but dabble
in a bit of land speculation himself. He bought
a plantation which he promptly resold for a
good profit. Land was the way to wealth, and
in an economy where hard money was scarce.
‘Business,” Woodrow Wilson once said, “underlies
everything in our national life.”
And so it does as America celebrates its 200th
birthday. The history of this country since 1776 is
largely the story of business.
Some Americans find that all too evident in the
commercialization of the Bicentennial. The essence of the
celebration, after all, is America’s political heritage and
freedoms.
But even while emphasizing its cherished political
traditions, the nation can not overlook its economic
history.
America’s economic development in the past 200 years
must rank as one of the world’s major stories of all time.
In that period the United States has produced more
wealth than had mankind in all previous history.
Population expanded rapidly, but the standard of
living increased many times faster. Never have so many
been so well off.
Economic changes and growth have been so startling
in a relatively short time span that few people can really
digest them all.
“In terms of human experience, it has been a
remarkable period,” says Dr. Gerald Gunderson, an
economic historian at North Carolina State University.
“It’s a step above what we had in the past. The American
economic experience so far has been a good one.”
The business and economic system has always had
obvious flaws, and some still remain. Not everyone who
wants to work in the system can find a job. Others work
for minimal wages.
(Continued on page 18)
where there were no banks or corporations, it
was by far the soundest investment.
North Carolina’s economy was essentially
agricultural; middle-class or “middling”
farmers made up the major part of the colony’s
(Continued on page 12)
SPECAL SUPPLEMENT TO:
Tha Anton Rtcord (Wadetboro)
Bertie Ledger-Advance [Windsor]
C ha pal Hill Naw spa par
Tha Chowan Hamid [Edanlon]
Tha Courlar-Trlbuna [Aahaboro]
Tha Dally Racoid [Dunn]
Tha Daily Southamar [Tarboro]
Tha Dispatch (Lexington]
Entlald Prograss
Enquirer-Journal [Monroa]
Qatas County Indox [Qatesvllle)
Tha Hareld [Ahotkla]
Tha Hickory Nawt
Tha Johnstonian Sun (Salma)
Lsnolr Nswt-Topic
Tha Moore County Nawt (Carthaga)
Tha Nashvllla Graphic
Tha Nawt Hsrald [Morganton]
Northampton Nawt [Rich Square)
Tha Onslow Hsrald [ Jacksonville]
Tha Plnehuret Outlook
Richmond County Dally Journal [Rockingham]
Tha Robeaonlan [Lumberton]
Scotland Hack Commonwealth
Tha Southeastern Timas [Clarkton]
ThaTlmea-Naws [Hendersonville]
Wilmington Morning Star
July 5, 1976