• How did colonial Americans use imported British commodities and manufactures to help fashion personal and political identities for themselves?
• What role did British commodities and manufactures play in the theory and strategy of the American Revolution?

At the end of this lesson, students will be able to

• Explain how a mid-eighteenth century consumer revolution led to a large and increasing number of British commodities and manufactures being made available to the colonists
• Describe the ways colonists used these imported commodities to create personal and political identities for themselves
• Describe the general goals as well as the course and success of the non-importation movement directed against British commodities and manufactures
• Tell how objects of material culture “speak” to us about the people who used them

By the mid-eighteenth century, British colonists of all ranks were experiencing a consumer revolution. For the gentry, substantial houses based on English Georgian architecture rose on the landscape. Inside colonial households, British imported goods were commonly used and displayed. A “language” of goods took hold to help traveler and resident navigate among the regions, as Scottish traveler Alexander Hamilton (see his 1774 Iterinarium on EDSITEment-reviewed American Memory) discovered to his dismay. These goods—textiles, furniture, and even table forks—made it possible for increasing numbers of colonists to pursue the ideal of refinement, an appearance of British gentility, in their everyday lives.

Colonists developed a strong attachment to the taking of tea, a genteel ritual that linked the various social levels of colonial society. This new ceremony featured exotic new beverages imported from the Orient. Initially esteemed for its medicinal purposes, tea came to be valued as evidence of gentility, and it spread through all ranks of society—aristocrat and commoner alike—as a result of the East India Company’s promotion. The preparation, service, and consumption of tea required an entirely new range of goods—the teapot, sugar bowl, imported cups and saucers, and even a new furniture form – the tea table—as well as a special kind of knowledge for mastering the holding of a tea cup or buying the correct style of tea cup.

The colonists’ shared experience as consumers in the new British imperial economy gave them the cultural resources to develop strategies of political protests: consumer politics. The British government embarked upon a program of imperial reform in the 1760s [see forthcoming EDSITEment lesson, Empire and Identity in the American Colonies] that included new taxes to raise revenue from the colonies. British policies raised resistance among the colonists over issues of economic burdens and political principles. Large numbers of colonists—particularly women— supported the boycott movement, the center of colonial resistance that gave rise to a mass political movement.

Content Background: Tea and Consumer Politics

The following short introduction and essays from a recent book provide excellent overviews to the consumer politics that helped shape the American Revolution.

• The Consumer Revolution and American Identity, from Elizabeth Murray Project, a link on the EDSITEment site National Park Service
• Tea: A Brief History from American Centuries, a more detailed look at the history of tea.
• Art and Identity in British North American Colonies, 1700-1776 from Helibrunn Timeline of Art History, at Met Museum
• T. H. Breen, “Introduction” to The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence (Oxford, 2004)—a recent scholarly book on how revolutionary protest related to consumer politics. “Limited preview” available through Google Books.

Content Background: From Protest to Revolution

The following articles on EDSITEment-reviewed websites provide excellent overviews of the period. Teachers might want to use these to get a better understanding of the overall dynamics of the period.

• The War of Independence: Acts of Protest (section of the interactive timeline The Price of Freedom: Americans at War) from the EDSITEment partner Smithsonian History Explorer.
• The Age of Revolution, 1765-1825, at Digital History.
• America During the Age of Revolution (a well developed timeline) from the EDSITEment resource, American Memory.

Background Materials: Boston and the Tea Parties

For background on the Boston Tea Party and other related events, you may want to take a look at the following EDSITEment lesson plans. While meant for the middle school level, the lessons contain valuable resources and background material.

• Revolutionary Tea Parties and the Reason for Revolution

Using Primary Sources Background: Reading Objects, Text, and Image

The following resources provide all you need to structure a class around the reading of objects and texts. Keep in mind that the article and the website as a whole are designed for an Advanced Placement class. However, as the Smithsonian website makes clear, some of the material featured here can be used for regular classes. For the purposes of this lesson, the following resources are highly useful. You should read the excellent overview essay on the EDSITEment-reviewed Smithsonian Education Website:

• “Looking at Artifacts, Thinking about History” -- Overview
• “Artifacts Connect People”: Teapot

The Student Handouts accompanying this article are superb. For the purposes of this lesson, see especially:

• Student Handout 1: Generating Questions about Artifacts
• Student Handout 2: Artifact Study
• Student Handout 5: Artifacts in Historical Context

As an alternative (or in conjunction) you may want to use the following three primary source analysis sheets on Digital Classroom at the National Archives:

• Artifact Analysis Worksheet
• Cartoon Analysis Worksheet
• Document Analysis Worksheet

If you do all of the activities in this lesson it should take you three 40 minute classes, plus two nights of homework. Review the lesson plan. Locate and bookmark suggested materials and links from EDSITEment-reviewed websites used in this lesson. Download and print out selected documents and duplicate copies as necessary for student viewing and annotating.

• Worksheets for Activity 1
• Worksheets for Activity 2

• Activity 1. Objects Tell Stories
• Activity 2. Tea as Political Action: Creating a Dramatic Presentation

Activity 1. Objects Tell Stories

In this activity, students learn how to interpret one or more historical objects (tea pots) as a way to become acquainted with the material world of the revolutionary-era colonists. They will also learn how those objects contributed to the way that the political mobilization against Great Britain was understood and developed. Finally, they will learn how teapots were only one item—although a very important item—in the world of goods that helped colonists fashion new identities. They will create a visual story with these historical objects by annotating teapots and writing labels for their exhibits on the “fashions and manufactures of Great Britain.”

1. On the first day, the teacher should model the interpretation of artifacts by looking at one of the key objects in the new Atlantic consumer culture—a teapot. In a whole class setting, model the interpretation of this teapot with the words “Stamp Act Repeal'd” on it (from Elizabeth Murray Project, a link on the EDSITEment-reviewed website the National Park Service). Teachers can also include the interpretation of several teapots, with the words “Stamp Act Repeal’d” on it from Curating an Exhibit, a link on the EDSITEment-reviewed site, Learner.org. Teachers may wish to contrast this item with two other teapots from the Smithsonian Museum of American History.) The Curating site provides a model for understanding a teapot in the context of a political event. Materials on artifact analysis in Background Information for the Teacher, especially those provided on the Smithsonian site, may be helpful in demonstrating how one goes about analyzing a historical artifact.

Modeling object interpretation:

• Ask students what is most noticeable about the teapot?
• Ask students to describe what they see in detail, such as the teapot’s shape, color, decoration, design, and text
• Ask students to make some inferences about who might have made one of these teapots? Was it British-made for the American market? Why would someone have bought one?
• What was the significance of putting “No Stamp Act” on a teapot rather than a broadside? Who saw it? Where was it displayed? What could be the significance of the tea parties for building up resistance by the colonists? The teapot became part of the tea ritual and tea parties where like-minded colonists consult with each other.
• What was the meaning of buying a British teapot to express dissatisfaction with British policies towards the colonists? The “No Stamp Act” teapot built up colonial solidarity through the consumer’s act of drinking tea. This was akin to how consumer goods, many of them British, brought together often quite distinct colonists.
• How does a teapot differ from an item of clothing as a possession? Who might own a teapot?

2. For homework have students read the following two items:

• The Stamp Act Crisis from EDSITEment’s Digital History; a background piece on political protest and the American Revolution.
• Franklin’s 1765 Testimony before Parliament

Following up on the Franklin text, ask students to think about why Americans bought British goods. Why did they not buy American teapots?

3. Divide the class into three groups—High, Middling, and Low. Ask students to look at the teapot for their respective group and have them describe what they see and offer an initial annotation of their assigned teapot.

• Low: Earthenware Tea Set is imported and cheaper in cost, linked from the Metropolitan Museum.
• Middling: Choates Porcelain Tea Pot, from EDSITEment’s Smithsonian National Museum of American History is imported and more expensive in cost. (To see the teapot place mouse pointer on arrows until you see the teapot and click on the image.)
• High: John Singleton Copley’s portrait of Paul Revere Portrait with Silver Tea Pot, 1768 (American made, expensive; no. 2-A in the Picturing America portfolio), from Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Listen to the audio clip by Malcolm Rodgers the director of BMFA on the significance of the Sons of Liberty bowl and the portrait. The section of the Teachers Resource Book devoted to this portrait will also be useful for teachers, as will the Neoclassical pot that Revere designed in 1796 on Picturing America poster no. 2-B.

4. Looking at Material Culture: Have the students look at the following additional primary sources for their group to compare teapots with other consumer goods. Students should annotate their teapots with comparison observations based on these sources.

Low

• Earthenware Tea Set is imported and cheaper in cost.
• “His little woman at home drank tea twice a day,” Alexander Hamilton, Itinerarium, at American Memory Scottish traveler’s critique of consumption by the “lower sort” – p.1 of Worksheets for Activity 1 packet.
• Advertisement about a runaway slave from Boston Weekly Post-Boy October 2, 1749 by Joseph Barnard for the description of an enslaved person’s clothing, a link on American Centuries. Not everyone owned a teapot or set of saucers. By their clothing colonists at all social levels participated in the world of goods. Click on “show text” button in lower right of screen to see text of ad or click on Activity button and then roll-over ad, to see it enlarged.

Middling

• Choate's Porcelain Tea Pot is imported and more expensive in cost. (To see the teapot place mouse pointer on arrows until you see the teapot and click on the image.) From Within These Walls, an online exhibit about families that live in a Massachusetts house— the Choates, American colonists, 1757-1772, (choose object thumbnails for explanation and larger version— teapot and other objects), Smithsonian National Museum of American History
• Benjamin Franklin, Excerpt from The London Chronicle, May 12, 1759 – p. 2 of Worksheets for Activity 1
• Chest of Drawers, 1775. American Centuries. Chests became increasingly popular possessions for storing clothes in the eighteenth century.

High

• John Singleton Copley, Portrait of Paul Revere, 1768 from the Boston Museum of Fine Art website. The portraitist depicts Paul Revere, famous Boston silversmith and patriot, with several significant items: his mahogany table, white shirt, and impressive teapot. Listen to the audio clip by Malcolm Rodgers the director of BMFA on the significance of the Sons of Liberty bowl and the portrait. Note this image is no. 2-A in the Picturing America portfolio. The section of the Teachers Resource Book devoted to this portrait will also be useful for teachers, as will the Neoclassical pot that Revere designed in 1796 on Picturing America poster no. 2-B.
• 32-Piece Tea Service, Worcester, England, 1765-1777 a link on EDSITEment-reviewed Digital History. A full tea spread with accompanying text describing the ritual of taking tea.
• John Adams, Diary Entry, January 16, 1776, upon visit to Nicholas Boylston’s House. Massachusetts Historical Society, a link on Digital History - p.2 of Worksheets for Activity 1

Instructions for Annotations

Annotation: Students can use the source or some part of it (if a text) or also refer to the text/object in their annotation. By linking several annotations to their teapot they should have a central object with several annotation boxes around it that tell a story about what the teapot means in the context of other objects and texts from the age of refinement.

Label: Students should write a general label for their story: one to two paragraphs on what the teapot and other goods mean for an understanding of the Age of Refinement and the era of the American Revolution. These labels should be similar to the general wall labels used in a museum exhibition. In a few sentences they should make clear what “links” their teapot to their other objects and texts? In writing their descriptions, they should consider these general questions:

• Why was the teapot made?
• Why was it owned?
• How was it used?
• What other sorts of objects might be associated with a teapot?
• What sort of political meaning could a teapot have?
• How does a teapot differ from clothing and other objects?

5. Students should share their visually-annotated teapots with each other and discuss in a whole group what sorts of stories objects can tell. What are some of the differences between sources that are artifacts and those that are texts? Can you “read” an artifact in the same way that you can read a text document?

Activity 2. Tea as Political Action: Creating a Dramatic Presentation

In this activity, students situate tea and imported British manufactures squarely within the context of the struggle with the government of Britain. The previous lesson made clear how consumer goods helped the colonists in the process of defining their identities. Students are divided into 4 groups: A, B, C, and D; these groups read documents that roughly move through the years of the revolutionary crisis from 1766 to 1775 (group D spans the decade). This struggle over tea and importation led the Continental Congress in 1774 to adopt a national economic strategy of non-importation and non-consumption. Over that decade the colonists also moved from political debates to political and military action.

Each team will create part of a four-part drama about the relationship of American dependence on British manufactures to the economic politics of the American Revolution.

1. Download and make copies of the sources provided below for use in the classroom. Divide the class into 4 groups. Give each group a selection of documents and the prompt for their group provided in this packet, Worksheets for Activity 2. A student can have primary responsibility for one or two documents/objects. Have students in each group read the documents and objects assigned to their group and take notes about key concepts, arguments, representations, and actions.
2. Have students discuss their sources with each other in their group. Have each student familiarize other students in his or her group with the source s/he has studied.
3. Ask the groups to develop skits or short dramatic presentations on the assigned theme. They should link all the sources together in a story that fleshes out that theme. The skits should focus on key issues and involve key figures featured in the documents and objects. Students might find the Timeline of the Revolution at the PBS Liberty website useful for seeing the progression of events during revolutionary crisis.
4. In the class discussion students should address the progression from group A to D—from taxing the tea to choosing sides in the conflict.

Group A. Taxing as Tea and other British Merchandise

P.1 of Worksheets for Activity 2
Questions to consider for this group: What do the colonists see as signs of danger? What sort of arguments against Parliament’s authority do the colonists make? What sorts of actions regarding taxation of goods do they propose?

• The Repeal or the Funeral Procession of Miss Americ-Stamp: A satiric cartoon commemorating repeal of the Stamp Act, c. 1766, a link on EDSITEment-reviewed History Matters.
• “Whereas the Duty on tea remains unrepealed,” advertisement about the repeal of the Townshend Duties, New York, June 12, 1770, on American Memory.
• Poplicola, “To the Worthy Inhabitants of New-York,” Broadside, 1773, on American Memory.
• The Tea Act of 1773, a link from Teaching American History.

Group B. Refusing to Take the Tea

P.2 of Worksheets for Activity 2
Questions for this group to consider: How would refusing to consume tea change British policies? What are some of the arguments for associations? Arguments against?

• George Washington to George Mason, letter, 1769, on American Memory.
• “A Society of Patriotic Ladies,” (1775), Engraving, on History Matters.
• The Articles of Association, October 20, 1774, on The Avalon Project.

Group C. Sources: Destroying the Tea

P.3 of Worksheets for Activity 2
Questions for this group to consider: Why was the tea destroyed? What would that destruction accomplish? How do issues of gender and region affect the political debate?

• The Tea-Tax-Tempest, (1783), on Political Cartoons of the Lilly Library a link from History Matters.
• Account of the Boston Tea Party, Boston Gazette, December, 20, 1773, American Memory.
• Tea Destroyed by Indians (the tea is sunk), Broadside, (1773) American Memory. Click on thumbnail of broadside to see larger version.
• George Robert Twelve Hewes, “A Shoemaker and the Tea Party,” on History Matters.

Group D. Sources: Choosing Sides and Taking Risks

P.4 of Worksheets for Activity 2
Questions for this group to consider: What were different reasons to support or oppose non-importation? How do different interests end up on different sides of the conflict?

• George Washington to George Mason, letter (1769) on American Memory.
• Catherine Rathell, Choosing the Revolution, a Day in the Life, a link on Digital History.
• Joseph Galloway’s Speech to the Continental Congress, September 28, 1774, on American Memory.
• William Reynolds, Choosing the Revolution, A Day in the Life, a link on Digital History.

Start by giving students the cartoon, “America Swallowing the Bitter Draught” (1774), a link on EDSITEment resource American Memory.

Ask them to write a two-page essay for homework interpreting this cartoon in light of this lesson. Encourage them to focus on one or two of the following questions/approaches in their essays.

• Why does this cartoon compare “taking tea” with the Coercive Acts .The Boston Port Bill—sticking out of the coat pocket— was one of the five Intolerable Acts.
• What does this comparison say about American attitudes toward mercantilism or government regulation of trade?
• What change of attitude toward British commodities on the part of American colonists is reflected in this cartoon?
• Discuss three ways that tea seemed a logical choice to symbolize American grievances.
• Consider the role of British manufactures in shaping colonial American protests.

1. Paul Revere: Patriot, Silversmith, and Revolutionary Propagandist
   In this extension, students focus on the dual role of Paul Revere as a craftsman and propagandist/organizer of the American Revolution.
   • John Singleton Copley's Paul Revere, Revere biography at Paul Revere House linked from the National Park Service website; also page on his Silver Shop.
2. Why is the Boston Tea Party Called … the Boston Tea Party!
   In this extension students seek to discover why and how the “Boston Tea Party” got its name a half century after the event, and what that means in terms of the processes of collective historical memory.
   • One place to start would be "A Shoemaker and the Tea Party," by George Robert Twelve Hewes.
3. 18th-Century Clothing: An interactive exercise
   In this extension, students explore the ways various types of colonial dress expressed both economic and cultural values.
   • The Colonial Williamsburg website features an interactive exercise dressing men, women, and children of different classes at Dress the Part.

Selected EDSITEment Websites

• American Centuries: the View from New England
  
  • Digital Collection - Advertisement in The Boston Weekly Post-Boy newspaper
  • Digital Collection – High Chest of Drawers, 1775
  • Tea: A Brief History
• American Memory
  
  • Account of the Boston Tea Party, Boston Gazette, December, 20, 1773
  • Alexander Hamilton, Itinerarium
  • America During the Age of Revolution (a well developed timeline)
  • “America Swallowing the Bitter Draught” (1774)
  • George Washington to George Mason, (1769)
  • Joseph Galloway’s Speech to the Continental Congress, September 28, 1774
  • Poplicola, “To the Worthy Inhabitants of New-York,” 1773
  • Repeal of the Townshend Duties Ad, New York, June 12, 1770
  • Tea Destroyed by Indians (the tea is sunk), Broadside
• The Avalon Project
  
  • The Articles of Association, October 20, 1774
• Digital Classroom
  
  • Artifact Analysis Worksheet
  • Cartoon Analysis Worksheet
  • Document Analysis Worksheet
• Digital History
  
  • 32 Piece Tea Service Worcester, England,1765-1777
  • The Age of Revolution, 1765-1825
  • Benjamin Franklin Parliamentary Testimony 1766
  • Choosing the Revolution, a Day in the Life, Colonial Williamsburg: Catherine Rathell
  • Choosing the Revolution, a Day in the Life, Colonial Williamsburg: William Reynolds
  • Dress the Part
  • Elizabeth Murray, Advertising Broadside, Boston, c. 1750
  • Franklin’s 1765 Testimony before Parliament
  • John Adams, Diary Entry, January 16, 1776
  • The Stamp Act Crisis
• History Matters
  
  • George Robert Twelve Hewes, “A Shoemaker and the Tea Party,”
  • A Society of Patriotic Ladies, History Matters, Engraving
  • The Repeal or the Funeral Procession of Miss Americ-Stamp
  • Tea-Tax-Tempest, (1783)
• Liberty
  
  • Timeline of the Revolution
• The Metropolitan Museum
  
  • Earthenware Tea Set
• National Park Service: Links to the Past
  
  • The Consumer Revolution and American Identity
  • Paul Revere House
  • Parliament’s Decision to Tax the Colonies
  • Teapot, "Stamp Act Repeal'd," 1766
• Picturing America
  
  • John Singleton Copley, Portrait of Paul Revere, 1768, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
  • Paul Revere, Neoclassical Teapot, 1796, Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Smithsonian Education
  
  • Artifacts Connect People
  • “Looking at Artifacts, Thinking about History”
  • Student Handout 1: Generating Questions about Artifacts
  • Student Handout 2: Artifact Study
  • Student Handout 5: Artifacts in Historical Context
• Smithsonian National Museum of American History
  
  • Choate's Porcelain Tea Pot
• Teaching American History
  
  • The Tea Act of 1773
• Women and Social Movements
  
  • Edenton Ladies Agreement, (1774)