Henretta, James. “Families and Farms: Mentalite in Pre-Industrial America.” William and Mary Quarterly 35:1 (1978): 3-32.

== Summary ==
This
article examines the consciousness – the mental, ideological, and emotional
aspects – of the agricultural population in pre-industrial America. Henratta
challenges the idea that
rural/agricultural inhabitants expressed a liberal individualism that
emphasized economic gain over community concerns. Henratta contends, the
settlement patterns – in which ethnic communities settled with similar
ethnic/religious/linguistic communities – suggest that the rural population
held commutarian values. Henratta finds that previous scholars have ascribed a
consciousness to agricultural communities, rather than understanding the
dimensions of their economic existence. The lack of markets for
agricultural products, he argues, shows that agricultural production served community, not
individual, needs. He writes: “Given the absence of an external market, there
was no alternative to subsistence or semi-subsistence production.” (15) Not
only did subsistence and semi-subsistence farming dominant amongst the yeoman
farming families of the northern colonies because of the geographic and/or
economic factors (ready access to markets), but they also were enmeshed in a
web of social relations and cultural expectations that inhibited the free play
of market forces. The web included: family bonds, members of community often
based on kinship, language, religion, and ethnicity, work was arranged along
familial lines rather than controlled through a wage system. Thus, Henratta
contends, the 'lineal family stood at the
center of economic and social existence in northern agricultural society in
pre-industrial American. “The interlocking relationship between the biological
life cycle and the system of agricultural (and domestic) production continued
to tie the generations together” and this shaped their world view. However,
what changed, from the 17th to the earl 19th century was
the increased rate of capital formation stemming from the expansion of the
market economy; the growing importance of profits because of the rise in the
value of land and other scarce commodities, and the extent to which middlemen
dominated the processes of agricultural production. These larger structural
changes caused an eventual shift toward individualism, especially with the rise
of other social institutions.
Example: While
sawmills, gristmills, fulling mills, and tanneries were profit seeking
businesses, they were also social necessities in a rural community. These
non-agricultural enterprises were traditional, practical necessities rather
than dramatic innovations, and the product of communal legislation as much as
of an adventurous individualism.
See also: Joyce Appleby, Charles Sellers, Jeanne Boydston