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The Entrepreneurial Spirit in Rhode Island History*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

Peter J. Coleman
Peter J. Coleman
Affiliation:
Editor, Society Press, The State Historical Society of Wisconsin
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Abstract

Once vigorously creative in adapting to environmental deficiencies or change, Rhode Island businessmen became increasingly passive and defensive as the nineteenth century progressed. The evolution of this initially dynamic spirit and the effects of its erosion on Rhode Island's economy form a suggestive study of the interaction of businessmen and their environment over time.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 37 , Issue 4 , Winter 1963 , pp. 319 - 344
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1963

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References

1 For a table showing manufacturing employment and the rate of growth from census to census, see Mayer, Kurt B., Economic Development and Population Growth in Rhode Island (Providence, 1953), p. 38Google Scholar.

2 For a statement of Sprague investments, see Fuller, Oliver P., The History of Warwick, Rhode Island (Providence, 1875), p. 254Google Scholar; for the disposition of their assets, see Chafee, Zechariah Jr., “Weathering the Panic of '73; An Episode in Rhode Island Business History,” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. LXVI (Boston, 1942), pp. 270–93Google Scholar.

3 The Spragues carried two savings banks down with them, the Cranston and the Franklin. Three national banks, the Globe, the First, and the Second, all of Providence, were forced to reduce their capital by a total of $700,000 and to assess their stockholders. Between 1889 and 1898 alone, eight Rhode Island banks failed. Their liabilities exceeded $10,000,000. Total banking capital in the state declined from $3,083,000 in 1870 to $917,000 in 1900. See Stokes, Howard K., “Public and Private Finance,” in Field, Edward (ed.), State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations at the End of the Century: A History (3 vols., Boston and Syracuse, 1902), vol. III, pp. 317, 321Google Scholar.

4 Throughout this essay, the statistical data on population growth are drawn from the summary table published in Brady, W. Stratton (ed.), Manual… of the State of Rhode Island, 1961–1962 [Providence, 1961], pp. 390–94Google Scholar. For a general discussion, see Mayer, Economic Development and Population Growth, passim.

5 Compare Hedges, James B., The Browns of Providence Plantations: Colonial Years (Cambridge, Mass., 1952), pp. 314–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McDonald, Forrest, We The People: The Economic Origins of the Constitution (Chicago, 1958), pp. 321–46Google Scholar; Bishop, Hillman M., “Why Rhode Island Opposed the Federal Constitution: The Continental Impost; The Paper Money Era; Paper Money and the Constitution; Political Reasons,” Rhode Island History, vol. VIII (January–October, 1949), pp. 1–10, 33–44, 85–95, 115–26Google Scholar.

6 Hedges, The Browns, pp. 309–314.

7 For data on the volume of trade between 1790 and 1860, see Staples, William R., Annals of the Town of Providence (Providence, 1843), p. 627Google Scholar; Perry, Amos (comp.), Rhode Island State Census, 1885 (Providence, 1887), pp. 76–78Google Scholar; and Tanner, Earl C., “Trade Between the Port of Providence and Latin America, 1800 to 1830” (Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, 1951), esp. p. 222Google Scholar.

8 Although Sterry knew that he was going to fail as soon as information about a series of losses reached him in 1797, the public generally and the General Assembly in particular refused to take him at his word. A decade elapsed, therefore, before he was permitted to go into the Providence County Court to file a petition for bankruptcy. See Denied Petitions, vol. 32, pt. 2, p. 36 (June, 1798); ibid. (May, 1799); Granted Petitions, vol. 37, pp. 72, 77 (May, 1807), all in the State Archives, Providence.

9 Providence even claimed in March, 1790, that it had more vessels, 110, than the port of New York. A year later it claimed to have 129 sailing vessels, including 11 ships and 35 brigs, or a total of nearly 12,000 tons of shipping. Compare, Staples, Annals of Providence, p. 352; and Publications of the Rhode Island Historical Society, vol. VI (Providence, 1898), pp. 196–98Google Scholar.

10 See, in particular, Corning, Howard (comp.), “List of Ships Arriving at the Port of Canton and other Pacific Ports, 1799–1803,” Essex Institute Historical Collections, vol. LXXVIII (October, 1942), pp. 329–47Google Scholar; Kenny, Robert W., “The Maiden Voyage of Ann and Hope of Providence to Botany Bay and Canton, 1798–1799,” American Neptune, vol. XVIII (April, 1958), pp. 105–136Google Scholar; Kimball, Gertrude S., The East-India Trade of Providence from 1787 to 1807 (Providence, 1896), pp. 3–34Google Scholar; Weeden, William B., “Early Oriental Commerce in Providence,” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. LXI (December, 1907), pp. 236–78Google Scholar.

11 See, especially, Tanner, “Trade Between the Port of Providence and Latin America, 1800 to 1830,” passim, and extracts from it published as “Caribbean Ports in the Foreign Commerce of Providence, 1790–1830,” Rhode Island History, vol. XIV (October, 1955), pp. 97–108, and XV (January, 1956), pp. 11–20Google Scholar.

12 Tanner, Earl C., “The Providence Federal Customhouse Papers as a Source of Maritime History since 1790,” New England Quarterly, vol. XXVI (March, 1953), passim, but esp. pp. 91–94; Mathewson v. Clarke 6 Howard 122 (1848)Google Scholar.

13 Perry (comp.), Rhode Island State Census, 1885, pp. 76–78. There is considerable disagreement among the authorities as to the precise amount of industrial growth in the early nineteenth century. However, according to John K. Pitman in a letter to Thomas Coles, November 8, 1809, quoted from the Zachariah Allen Papers in the Rhode Island Historical Society by Brennan, Joseph, Social Conditions in Industrial Rhode Island: 1820–1860 (Washington, 1940), p. 4Google Scholar, there were 16 cotton mills in operation in 1808 and 7 more about to go into operation. At least 15 of the 23 had been constructed since 1804.

14 The importance of steam power in the growth of Providence can be seen best in Schedule 5, Seventh and Eighth Census of the United States, 1850 and 1860, Providence, Rhode Island volumes, passim, in the Rhode Island Historical Society. For an advertisement of steam for hire, see Providence Journal, February 15, 1848.

15 Annals of Congress, vol. XXXVII, pp. 71–77 (December 8, 1820)Google Scholar; Munro, Wilfred H., The History of Bristol (Providence, 1880) pp. 351–52Google Scholar; Granted Petitions, vol. 40, p. 87 (October, 1811), State Archives, Providence.

16 This story, and another about a federal grand jury indicting James DeWolf for murder in 1791, appears in several of the chronicles of Bristol. It also appears in Donnan, Elizabeth (ed.), Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America (4 vols., Washington, 1930–1935), vol. III, pp. 379–80nGoogle Scholar.

17 The most readable account of these activities is in Howe, George, Mount Hope: A New England Chronicle (New York, 1959), pp. 107–125, 201–202, 205–213Google Scholar. For Collins' maritime investments, see W. P. A., (comp.), Ship Registers and Enrollments of Newport, Rhode Island, 1790–1939 (vol. 1, Providence, 1941), abstracts 48, 161, 241, 1434, 1436Google Scholar; and W. P. A., (comp.), Ship Registers and Enrollments of the Port of Bristol-Warren, 1773–1939 (Providence, 1941), abstracts 121, 147Google Scholar.

18 Munro, History of Bristol, pp. 302–315; Munro, Wilfred H., Tales of an Old Sea Port (Princeton, 1917), pp. 211–88Google Scholar.

19 Howe, Mount Hope, pp. 201–234.

20 The Herreshoff family revived the maritime tradition in 1863 when the brothers John B. and Nat built the first of a renowned line of vessels, the Qui Vive. Significantly, however, the Herreshoffs appealed to the pleasure rather than to the commercial market. See Munro, History of Bristol, p. 373.

21 Compare Schedules 5, Seventh Census of the United States, 1850, Rhode Island, vol. VII, pp. 129–32, 225–27, Rhode Island Historical Society.

22 Dr. William Douglass had predicted the town's demise as early as 1750 when he observed that “Newport… is of easy and short Access, being near the Ocean, but for that Reason not so well scituated [sic] for inland Consumption; Providence is about 30 miles farther up Narragansett-Bay island, therefore in a few Years must be their principal Place of Trade.” Quoted in Bridenbaugh, Carl, Cities in Revolt: Urban Life in America, 1743–1776 (New York, 1955), p. 53Google Scholar.

23 Compare, Donnan, Elizabeth, “The New England Slave Trade after the Revolution,” in New England Quarterly, vol. III (April, 1930), passim, but esp. pp. 255–58, 264–71, 274–76Google Scholar; Donnan, (ed.), Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade, vol. III, pp. 358–59, 378–79, 382–88, 404nGoogle Scholar; Annals of Congress, vol. XXXVII, pp. 71–77 (December 8, 1820)Google Scholar.

24 Mason, George C., Reminiscences of Newport (Newport, 1884), pp. 138–143, but esp. pp. 140–41Google Scholar.

25 Pease, John C. and Niles, John M. (comps.), A Gazetteer of the States of Connecticut and Rhode Island (Hartford, 1819), pp. 350–52, 354–55Google Scholar.

26 Compare Hodgson, Adam, Letters from North America (2 vols., London, 1824), vol. II, pp. 132–33Google Scholar; Harriot, John, the Duke of La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Jacques Pierre Brissot de Warville, and Benjamin Waterhouse, quoted in Bayles, Richard M. (ed.), History of Newport County (New York, 1888), p. 535Google Scholar, and Kimball, Gertrude S. (ed.), Pictures of Rhode Island in the Past, 1642–1833 (Providence, 1900), pp. 115–16, 136, 170Google Scholar; William Ellery to Moses Brown, December 5, 1791, quoted in Franklin, Susan B., “William Ellery, Signer of the Declaration of Independence,” Rhode Island History, vol. XIII (January, 1954), pp. 16–17Google Scholar; and W. G. R[oekler], “John Quincy Adams Admires Mr. John Brown's House,” ibid., vol. II (October, 1943), p. 111.

27 Munro, Wilfred H., Picturesque Rhode Island (Providence, 1881), p. 51Google Scholar. Compare Gammell, William, Life and Services of the Hon. Rowland Gibson Hazard, LL.D. (Providence, 1888), p. 5Google Scholar, who applied a similar idea to the period from 1775 to 1825.

28 Schedule 5, Seventh Census of the United States, 1850, Rhode Island, vol. X, pp. 237–38, Rhode Island Historical Society. For a later comparison, see the Rhode Island employment data in Population of the United States in 1860; Compiled from the Original Returns of the Eighth Census (Washington, 1864), pp. 656–79Google Scholar.

29 For examples of the outflow of capital, see Lawton, Joan, “United States and Paraguay Navigation Company,” Rhode Island History, vol. VI (October, 1947), pp. 108–109Google Scholar; Rhode Island Acts and Resolves, June, 1853, pp. 172–76; January, 1854, pp. 287–90; January, 1856, pp. 119–20; May, 1859, pp. 8–15; Bank of the Republic v. Edward Carrington, et al., 5 Rhode Island 515 (1858); Hedges, James B., “The Brown Papers: The Record of a Rhode Island Business Family,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, New Series, vol. LI (April, 1941), pp. 33–34Google Scholar; Gates, Paul W., “Land Policy and Tenancy in the Prairie States,” Journal of Economic History, vol. I (May, 1941), passim, but esp. pp. 68, 72Google Scholar; Rae, J. B., “Asa Whitney's Effort in Rhode Island to Promote a Railroad to the Pacific,” Rhode Island History, vol. III (January, 1944), pp. 19–20Google Scholar; and Fuller, History of Warwick, p. 254.