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Contents:

1. Introduction
2. Creation of a Legacy
3. A Legacy Transformed
4. The Virtues of a Middle Class
5. Vested Interest
6. Trading on Conventions
7. Institutionalism Triumphs
8. Lasting Images
9. Conclusion

A Legacy Transformed

Predicated on notions of a commodities market, seventeenth century America developed as a colony to provide England with raw materials for production. Supplies were precariously deficient for England. The island geography limited England in its resources to build and maintain a strong world power. When Puritan religious settlement of the New World was sanctioned in the early seventeenth century, England's influence strengthened dramatically throughout the world (Bailyn 1955).

England continued to realize its mission to be a world power well into the eighteenth century. Due to England, the American Puritan communal and utopian mission was realized as well. The Puritan ideal was an enterprise were religion and profit went hand in hand. By virtue of the initial Massachusetts Bay settlement and its founding documents, work had religious merit and worldly success was a possible token of God's favor. Unlike other colonies, New Englanders created their society without a large force of indentured servants or slaves -- New England was rather unreceptive to the notion. Self-sufficiency created achievement and prosperity, and prosperity through one's own work was appropriate to display (Bailyn 1955).

Also a token of God's favor was alcohol. Multifaceted, alcohol was considered not only a beverage, but an imperative for life. Promoted through informal networks of social behavior, verbal communication, and tradition, alcohol was among many collectively held values which survived the sea change of colonization. Beer, particularly, was consumed throughout a day, as a basic tonic for health, as a brace in an inhospitable climate, to make work easier, and for socializing at home or the local point of communication -- the tavern or inn. Distilled spirits were also considered essential. Puritans embraced alcohol use as long as the use of God's favor was not abused to the point of neglecting the Puritan ideal of community and enterprise (Lender and Martin 1982).

Throughout the colonization period of America, traditional notions of drugs and health were inextricably entwined with the meaning of human life and the power of enduring life. Health was recognized as a precarious state of being at best. Certainly settlement of an unknown wilderness enhanced health risks. America retained English folk treatments, home remedies, alcoholic home brews, distilled spirits, as well as the occasional imported proprietary concoction from the homeland. In the spirit of exploration and discovery, colonists also acculturated mysterious native American botanicals, including tobacco, into their medical mystery bag. Traditional colonial apothecaries and the limited number of physicians relied on the Pharmacopeia Londiniensis, a compendium of established English knowledge of drugs known during the colonization of America. But the abilities of traditional physicians to effect cures was limited because few of the available drugs could actually prevent or heal illness. Thus, medical pluralism and medical self-reliance provided hope for people to deal with the angst of man's inability to divine the secrets of the human body. Alcohol, traditional home therapies, pharmaceutical drugs, tobacco, and occasionally imported English proprietary medicines provided peace of mind for many colonists (Young 1961; Sobel 1979; Start 1982).

Change besieged America by 1700, when Puritan power and unity began to decline. Puritanism had attacked the authority of the crown and it's religion; it had shattered ancient laws and social traditions. In turn, Puritanism encountered dissension which attacked its authority and upset its laws. Puritan communal ideals gave way to diversity. The American tradition of pluralism, of contending factions rose as a tide in a tumultuous sea of change. Left in the wake was an inheritance of ethics which spoke to the preeminence of the individual, for freedom from oppressive governments, for the value of learning and education, and an appreciation for economic enterprise. It loosened entrenched class distinctions. It led Americans to scrutinize their beliefs, their world, and each other. It gave ordinary people a sense of purpose and encouraged them to examine issues and to speak out. It also helped to create in Americans a sense of duty to their nation and their fellow men (Bailyn 1967).