Buying into the World of Goods

Cowinner, Fred Kniffen Book Award, Pioneer America Society/Association for the Preservation of Landscapes and ArtifactsWinner, Hagley Prize in Business History, The Business History ConferenceReconstructing the world of one country merchant, John Hook, Ann Smart Martin reveals how the acquisition of consumer goods created and validated a set of ideas about taste, fashion, and lifestyle in a particular place at a particular time -- the upper Shenandoah Valley between 1760 and 1810. Her analysis of Hook's account ledger illuminates the everyday wants, transactions, and tensions recorded within and brings some of Hook's customers to life: a planter looking for just the right clock, a farmer in search of nails, a young woman and her friends out shopping on their own, and a slave woman choosing a looking glass."The best study we have to date of early American consumerism." -- Reviews in American History"A wonderful book. It is impressively researched, logically organized, and well written. And far more than most accounts of the colonial backcountry, it introduces real people making choices about how to construct their worlds and how to present themselves to their neighbors and friends." -- Journal of Southern History"The writing is lively and easily understandable, and the mixture of methods used to study the accounts of Hook and the vast variety of topics addressed result in a book that would have broad appeal to antique and historic house enthusiasts, re-enactors and local historians." -- Roanoke TimesAnn Smart Martin is Chipstone Professor of Art History at the University of Wisconsin--Madison.Martin, Ann Smart is the author of 'Buying into the World of Goods', published 2008 under ISBN 9780801887277 and ISBN 0801887275.