"What Must Poor People Do?": Economic Protest and Plebian Culture in Philadelphia, 1682-1752

Abstract

By the early 1720s falling prices for grain exports to the West Indies and the bursting of the South Sea Bubble resulted in the worst economic crisis in Pennsylvania's short history. As trade ground to a standstill in Philadelphia, unemployment rose and Pennsylvanians submitted numerous petitions to the provincial assembly requesting the printing of paper money in the cash-poor colony. The assembly responded by emitting £15,000 in bills of credit in 1722, followed by another printing of £30,000 in 1723 and the creation of a provincial Loan Office. Despite the emissions, in subsequent years urban tradesmen and small farmers continued to protest the lack of money in the province and persistently demanded an increase in the money supply throughout the colonial era. Supporters of paper currency, such as "Roger Plowman," claimed in 1725 that the "poor Husbandman" was being squeezed by usurious landlords, while urban smiths, shoemakers, tanners, tailors, weavers, and shopkeepers were beset by a "thousand Difficulties" in carrying on their trades because of the scarcity of money in the town. The city's merchants were divided on the issue—Quaker trader Francis Rawle penned the first public argument in favor of paper money, while defenders of the elite merchant and proprietary interest subscribed to a hard money position, believing supporters of paper encouraged disorder among the "mighty and many Headed Multitude."