Sons Speaker Series: Prof. Emma Hart and The American Marketplace
University of Pennsylvania scholar Dr. Emma Hart, an authority on trade and commerce in early America, was the Society’s guest lecturer on March 31 at Historic Waynesborough.
Dr. Hart, Chair of the History Department and Director of the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, talked about 18th Century differences between America and Britain in terms of free enterprise.
In Britain, buyers and sellers in the marketplace were governed by generally agreed upon moral standards for what constituted the common good, she said. Making what seemed excessive profit was frowned upon, especially if it came at the expense of the poor. The often-unwritten regulations were enforced more by social custom and trade guilds than by law.
In America, by contrast, free trade was unregulated; profit was unfettered. The accepted belief, she said, was that “the rich don’t necessarily have any obligation to the poor.”
She cited the ideas of Adam Smith, who saw free enterprise as building up the wealth of nations as a whole.
Dr. Hart’s lecture was well received by the audience of PSSR members and guests. President Michael Whelan presented her with a copy of the Society’s book, Standards and Colors of the American Revolution.
If you are interested in her most recent book on this topic, please CLICK HERE
