This essay was written as a student project for HIST 7250: Practicum on the Place-Based Museum.
On the eve of the American Revolution, Boston was a bustling hub of global import and export. Along with the European influence colonists brought with them, Bostonians were influenced in furniture, food, and fashion from other countries and continents around the world. As the years progressed, Boston even provided other countries with unconventional goods, showcasing its remarkable global impact as a trading port.
While this essay highlights some of the most interesting goods in early Boston’s economy, the city’s influence extended to nearly every corner of the Atlantic world. Click here to view an interactive map fully detailing colonial Boston’s global trade empire.
Chinoiserie: A Symbol of Status
Most of the products imported from China and other East Asian countries in colonial times - silk, porcelain, tea - were considered luxurious to Western buyers. The intricate style of decoration in East Asian countries became desirable to wealthy Europeans, and in the mid 18th century, designers began creating Chinoiserie. This style combined decorative elements of Japanese, Chinese, and Indian furniture and pottery, and was driven by the Rococo movement. Colonists brought this style to Boston with them, with styles such as blue-and-white porcelain dishware becoming iconic to the period.
This teabowl was created in the early 18th century and features blue and white porcelain with a red design. The bowl features several men in Chinese dress, flowing red vines and birds, and gold accents. The matching saucer depicts a Chinese countryside scene, and both items are in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection.
Teabowl with Chinoiserie decoration. Decorator Ignaz Preissler Bohemian. Chinese porcelain, ca. 1700–20, with Bohemian enamel decoration, ca. 1720–30. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
These dish fragments, excavated from the James Garrett House Site, show the influence of blue-and-white pottery on colonial Boston.
Dish fragments, Portugal, seventeenth century. Tin-glazed earthenware. (Courtesy, City of Boston Archaeology; photo, Joseph M. Bagley and Jennifer L. Poulsen.)
Kitchenware was not the only product influenced by East Asian design. This pinewood cabinet, created in 1753, is painted using black and gold and depicts idealized scenes of Chinese landscape and figures. This technique is called “Japanning,” a type of finish meant to imitate East Asian lacquerwork and furniture style. Importing true Asian lacquer from China or Japan was incredibly expensive and restricted to only the wealthiest classes in Europe, so this imitation allowed the style to become more accessible. European craftsmen were sent overseas to learn these techniques, and over time Western craftsmen began adopting more native materials like pine, fur, or spruce resin. These pieces often included visual motifs like dragons, tigers, and intricate birds and used colors like red, gold, and black.
Japanned pinewood cabinet decorated with Chinese landscapes and figures, designed by John Linnell, made by William Linnell, 1753, London. Museum no. W.55:1 to 24-1952. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Madeira: A Revolutionary Wine
While many remember tea, rum, and coffee as siginificant imports to early America, wine in Boston had a great impact on both the economy and the American Revolution. One of Boston’s key wine imports - along with the rest of the colonies - was specifically made in Madeira, an island colonized by Portugal in the 15th century. The oldest shippers of Madeira wine were Cossart Gordon & Co., founded in 1745 and still producing and shipping the wine today.
Madeira wine stood apart from other wines for two main reasons: its unblended varieties, and its unique fortification process. British and American buyers greatly preferred the unblended wine of Madeira than other kinds, meaning it only used one type of grape. Interestingly, British consumers preferred sweeter wines, while the colonies preferred the drier variants. In the mid 18th century, Madeira began fortifying their wines, meaning they added brandy to the wine during fermentation to increase alcohol content and smoothen the flavor of the drink. These unique production traits made Madiera wine “an expensive, exotic, status-laden, and highly processed wine.”
Madeira Wine Advertisement. New-York Journal (February 1, 1776). Image Source: The Adverts 250 Project.
The benefits of Madeira wine weren’t just the high quality, but the cost. When the Methuen Treaty was signed in 1703, it prevented high taxes on Portugese wines imported to Britain, encouraging the trade and globalization of Madeira wine. Then, when the British Parliament passed the Stamp Act, which imposed a direct tax on British imports to the colonies, it neglected to include Madeira, meaning that the wine was more accessible for Bostonians than ever.
Madeira wine also spurred revolutionary action within Bostonians. When John Hancock’s ship, the Liberty, was seized in Boston Harbor in 1768 over a shipment of smuggled Madeira, it sparked riots and protests that would only grow up until the Boston Tea Party. When the Stamp Act was lifted, Hancock celebrated by providing “a pipe (a 126-gallon cask) of Madeira” at his home for Bostonians to enjoy.
Illustration depicting men removing illegal casks of Madeira Wine from the Liberty. Image Source: Pictorial Encyclopedia of American History, Children’s Press, Inc. (1962).
The founding fathers loved Madeira wine and it became known as the wine of the Revolution. Thomas Jefferson spent approximately $42,000 in today’s dollars on the drink during his presidency alone. George Washington often ordered Madeira wine to Mount Vernon, enjoying the beverage before the Revolution, throughout his presidency, and during the remainder of his life.
Boston’s Icy Export
Today, New England is widely known for its harsh winters and frozen rivers, and it was no different in colonial times. Even in the coldest of the colonies, though, year-round ice for everyday use was considered a luxury. Upper class citizens were able to install ice houses in their homes, ice was never considered a commodity until one man saw a potential market.
Born in 1783 and educated at Harvard, Frederic Tudor began Boston’s ice trade when he was only 23 years old. Tudor’s background allowed him to enjoy the luxury of cold drinks and ice cream, and he believed the appeal could reach both nationwide and globally. His first export to Martinique “excited the derision of the whole town as a mad project.” Shipping companies refused to partner with Tudor on his endeavor, so he was forced to innovate ships that could transport ice across the Atlantic ocean as far as Rio de Janeiro, Calcutta, and Hong Kong, as well as build ice houses at each of his ports to keep the cargo from melting upon arrival.
Frederic Tudor. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Tudor planned to ensure that countries would be able to afford his ice. In 1849, he wrote,
The plan which I had about this time adopted in my ice trade was not to act the monopolist, but to give the ice to the consumer, in all the southern regions, at a low price ; considering, that, in so doing, I was dealing more justly with the consumer, and best assisting the progress of the business. Thus, in Jamaica, the ice is sold at half the price, and, in Calcutta, at a less price, than it is sold in London.
By the mid-1800s, Boston was exporting nearly 75,000 tons of ice globally, with much of it harvested from Fresh Pond in Cambrige. Tudor’s international renown in the ice trade business gave him the title of Boston’s “Ice King.” Tudor’s success also brought him into the social spheres of prominent American men, such as Thomas Jefferson, to whom he wrote letters regarding his ideas and plans for building more efficient ships. Tudor was worth nearly $200 million in today’s dollars by the time of his death.
An illustration from Gleason’s Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion, published in 1852, shows ice being removed from a pond and brought to the nearby ice house. Source: Boston University.
Even after Tudor’s death, the ice trade remained a prominent part of New England’s economy. As more individuals and companies inserted themselves into the lucrative business, rivers and ponds began to be legally divided between them, as shown in this 1894 map created by a Boston ice dealer.
“Chase’s ice map, showing location, capacity, ownership & cutting surface of the Kennebec, Penobscot & Hudson rivers.” T.B. Chase & Son, 1894. New York Public Library Digital Collections.
Towards Beacon Hill
