Colonial Life

The colonial period in United States history, from 1607, when the first permanent English colony was established, to 1776, when the colonists declared their independence from Britain, saw rough wilderness settlements grow into prosperous and sophisticated provinces. Colonists upon arriving were preoccupied with personal goals such as family and farm, but they left descendants who possessed broader visions. In time they established distinctly American customs so pervasive as to overcome regional differences and to enable those of European descent to consider themselves a new people. For blacks and Indians, however, the American experience led to bondage and oppression rather than to freedom and independence.

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Most American colonists dressed much as they had in England. Men wore coats, vests, shirts, kneebreeches, and long stockings. Women wore long, full dresses and shawls. People who could afford them imported clothes from England – in linen, wool, velvet, and silk. Common folk used coarser domestic materials such as linsey-woolsey and homespun. The middle class copied the fashions of their social “betters” whenever possible. Sumptuary laws prohibiting such aspirations were difficult to enforce. On the frontier, people dressed in deerskins and furs. “Buckskins” became a term of opprobrium for the simple backcountry folk. At the other extreme, overdressed city dandies were disparagingly known as “macaronis.” (Encyclopedia Americana, Colonial Life)