A. Glenn Crothers
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780813039732
- eISBN:
- 9780813043142
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813039732.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter examines Quaker antislavery after 1830, arguing that Friends' activism was constrained by the white community's growing intolerance of dissent and by Friends' economic and cultural ...
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This chapter examines Quaker antislavery after 1830, arguing that Friends' activism was constrained by the white community's growing intolerance of dissent and by Friends' economic and cultural attachment to the region. Many Friends also became convinced that the tactics of northern abolitionists would incite violence, threatening Quakers' commitment to pacifism and antislavery. Consequently, northern Virginia Friends promoted educational reform, economic development, and agricultural improvement, believing such reforms would appeal to the self-interest of white Virginians while promoting a free labor economy. At some personal risk, Friends also aided the free black and enslaved community of the region. Quakers' efforts helped to destabilize the institution and unnerve local slaveholders, who, in response, threatened local Friends with arrest and violence.Less
This chapter examines Quaker antislavery after 1830, arguing that Friends' activism was constrained by the white community's growing intolerance of dissent and by Friends' economic and cultural attachment to the region. Many Friends also became convinced that the tactics of northern abolitionists would incite violence, threatening Quakers' commitment to pacifism and antislavery. Consequently, northern Virginia Friends promoted educational reform, economic development, and agricultural improvement, believing such reforms would appeal to the self-interest of white Virginians while promoting a free labor economy. At some personal risk, Friends also aided the free black and enslaved community of the region. Quakers' efforts helped to destabilize the institution and unnerve local slaveholders, who, in response, threatened local Friends with arrest and violence.
Allan Blackstock
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780719085185
- eISBN:
- 9781781705001
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719085185.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
I love controversy’ claimed the Reverend William Richardson (1740–1820). Though a rural Irish rector, Richardson was a clerical polymath with wide-ranging interests in botany and geology who had ...
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I love controversy’ claimed the Reverend William Richardson (1740–1820). Though a rural Irish rector, Richardson was a clerical polymath with wide-ranging interests in botany and geology who had international connections at the highest level. This book explores all the dimensions of Richardson's extraordinary scientific career and assesses his interventions in Irish loyalist politics at the time of the 1798 rebellion. He was a prolific writer who contributed to the debate on the origin of basalt at the Giant's Causeway, refuting claims that it was volcanic. His main project, however, was agricultural improvement. He argued that the adoption of, Irish fiorin grass, a plant which flourished on bog-land, would help reclaim wastelands throughout Britain and enable farmers to make hay in wintertime. Though considered mad for attempting to overturn the conventional wisdom of ‘making hay while the sun shines’ Richardson was supported by leading British scientists like Sir Humphry Davy and Sir Joseph Banks. In truth he sits at the intersection between provincial and metropolitan science and his overall historical importance, like his career, is diverse. His scientific empiricism meant that he offered an alternative voice to that of the loyalist propagandist, Sir Richard Musgrave. Even more significantly, in the aftermath of legislative union, Richardson recommended Irish agriculture to remedy Britain's economic predicament during the ‘war of resources’ phase of the Napoleonic wars.Less
I love controversy’ claimed the Reverend William Richardson (1740–1820). Though a rural Irish rector, Richardson was a clerical polymath with wide-ranging interests in botany and geology who had international connections at the highest level. This book explores all the dimensions of Richardson's extraordinary scientific career and assesses his interventions in Irish loyalist politics at the time of the 1798 rebellion. He was a prolific writer who contributed to the debate on the origin of basalt at the Giant's Causeway, refuting claims that it was volcanic. His main project, however, was agricultural improvement. He argued that the adoption of, Irish fiorin grass, a plant which flourished on bog-land, would help reclaim wastelands throughout Britain and enable farmers to make hay in wintertime. Though considered mad for attempting to overturn the conventional wisdom of ‘making hay while the sun shines’ Richardson was supported by leading British scientists like Sir Humphry Davy and Sir Joseph Banks. In truth he sits at the intersection between provincial and metropolitan science and his overall historical importance, like his career, is diverse. His scientific empiricism meant that he offered an alternative voice to that of the loyalist propagandist, Sir Richard Musgrave. Even more significantly, in the aftermath of legislative union, Richardson recommended Irish agriculture to remedy Britain's economic predicament during the ‘war of resources’ phase of the Napoleonic wars.
A. Glenn Crothers
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780813039732
- eISBN:
- 9780813043142
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813039732.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
Chapter 3 explores the way in which Quaker business ethics and success, and Friends' economic contributions to the regional economy, their civic concerns, and social respectability enabled them ...
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Chapter 3 explores the way in which Quaker business ethics and success, and Friends' economic contributions to the regional economy, their civic concerns, and social respectability enabled them during years of peace to escape the pariah status they had held during the American Revolution and become respected members of the mercantile and agricultural communities of northern Virginia. As they prospered and created economic networks that helped sustain the community, however, many Friends became embedded in the economic and social life of the region, in the process becoming dangerously entangled in speculative ventures and slave-based industries that diverged from their religious and ethical convictions. In short, economic success and growing public acceptance intensified rather than resolved the tensions that arose from living in a society that violated their testimonies on a daily basis.Less
Chapter 3 explores the way in which Quaker business ethics and success, and Friends' economic contributions to the regional economy, their civic concerns, and social respectability enabled them during years of peace to escape the pariah status they had held during the American Revolution and become respected members of the mercantile and agricultural communities of northern Virginia. As they prospered and created economic networks that helped sustain the community, however, many Friends became embedded in the economic and social life of the region, in the process becoming dangerously entangled in speculative ventures and slave-based industries that diverged from their religious and ethical convictions. In short, economic success and growing public acceptance intensified rather than resolved the tensions that arose from living in a society that violated their testimonies on a daily basis.
Jeffrey LaFrance, Rulon Pope, and Jesse Tack
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226988030
- eISBN:
- 9780226988061
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226988061.003.0006
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Development, Growth, and Environmental
This chapter develops and analyzes a new structural model of variable input use, production, acreage allocations, capital investment, and consumption choices in the U.S. farm sector. The theoretical ...
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This chapter develops and analyzes a new structural model of variable input use, production, acreage allocations, capital investment, and consumption choices in the U.S. farm sector. The theoretical framework identifies and incorporates the restrictions that are necessary and sufficient to estimate variable input use using only observable data and to aggregate from micro units of behavior to county-, state-, region-, or country-levels of data and analyses. The chapter defines, specifies, and estimates a dynamic life-cycle model of decision making under risk in order to discipline the model and associated parameter estimates for risk aversion in agricultural production and investment decisions with the interactions that naturally occur among the available alternative investment and savings opportunities in the economy.Less
This chapter develops and analyzes a new structural model of variable input use, production, acreage allocations, capital investment, and consumption choices in the U.S. farm sector. The theoretical framework identifies and incorporates the restrictions that are necessary and sufficient to estimate variable input use using only observable data and to aggregate from micro units of behavior to county-, state-, region-, or country-levels of data and analyses. The chapter defines, specifies, and estimates a dynamic life-cycle model of decision making under risk in order to discipline the model and associated parameter estimates for risk aversion in agricultural production and investment decisions with the interactions that naturally occur among the available alternative investment and savings opportunities in the economy.
