Consumers In The Bush: Shopping In Rural Upper Canada (mcgill-queen's Rural, Wildland, And Resource Studies)
by Douglas McCalla /
2015 / English / EPUB
6.6 MB Download
General stores are essential to the image of a colonial village.
Many historians, however, still base their stories of settlement
on the notion of rural self-sufficiency, begging the question: if
general stores were so common, who were their customers? To
answer this, Consumers in the Bush draws on the account books of
country stores, rich evidence that has rarely been used. Douglas
McCalla considers more than 30,000 transactions on the accounts
of 750 families at seven Upper Canadian stores between 1808 and
1861. These customers were typical of rural society - farmers,
artisans, labourers, and often women. At village stores they
found a wide variety of products, most imported from Britain, a
few from the United States, and a surprising number that were
produced locally. Three chapters focus on the major product
categories of dry goods, groceries, and hardware; a fourth
considers local products, and a fifth addresses a variety of
items - from household goods to footwear to school books. In
telling us about the goods colonists bought, this book explores
what they were used for and the stories they allow us to tell
about rural lives and experience. By seeing rural Upper Canadians
as consumers, Consumers in the Bush reveals them as full
participants in the rapidly changing nineteenth-century global
world of goods.
General stores are essential to the image of a colonial village.
Many historians, however, still base their stories of settlement
on the notion of rural self-sufficiency, begging the question: if
general stores were so common, who were their customers? To
answer this, Consumers in the Bush draws on the account books of
country stores, rich evidence that has rarely been used. Douglas
McCalla considers more than 30,000 transactions on the accounts
of 750 families at seven Upper Canadian stores between 1808 and
1861. These customers were typical of rural society - farmers,
artisans, labourers, and often women. At village stores they
found a wide variety of products, most imported from Britain, a
few from the United States, and a surprising number that were
produced locally. Three chapters focus on the major product
categories of dry goods, groceries, and hardware; a fourth
considers local products, and a fifth addresses a variety of
items - from household goods to footwear to school books. In
telling us about the goods colonists bought, this book explores
what they were used for and the stories they allow us to tell
about rural lives and experience. By seeing rural Upper Canadians
as consumers, Consumers in the Bush reveals them as full
participants in the rapidly changing nineteenth-century global
world of goods.