Comment on James A. Henretta's "Families and Farms: Mentalite in Pre-Industrial America"

Abstract

Economic gain was important to farm families of pre-industrial America, yet it was not their dominant value. It was subordinate to (or encompassed by) two other goals: yearly subsistence and long-run financial security of family unit.' I take this to be James A. Henretta's central argument in his vision of an early America dominated by lineal family. To sharpen his position he contends that values of lineal family marked distinctive period up to about I750, period neither peasant nor modern.2 The discontinuity between era of lineal family and I750, when commercially oriented agriculture began to develop, is apparently basis for drawing clear line between his position and those of the entrepreneurial school of agricultural historians for which I am, it seems, spokesman.3 I will consider some problems internal to his argument and then state my view (in brief and therefore inadequately within these few pages).4 I find Professor Henretta's argument difficult to grasp, in part because his central notions appear to be ambiguous, even contradictory, if several statements are juxtaposed. On yearly subsistence, in contrast to appearance of commercial agriculture about I750, he states that a safetyfirst subsistence agriculture within commercial capitalist market structure