There are some things a farmer cannot make for himself. If you can imagine all this you might have a picture of America in 1787. News is something that comes from word of mouth or a battered three-week-old sheet that has seen many hands. In the country, your nearest neighbor, even in the most populous states, is a quarter of a mile away. Even in the larger towns people have kitchen gardens and keep cows and chickens. But just about everybody else lives on a farm. The nation’s largest city, Philadelphia, is roughly 50,000 strong. Although slavery is still legal in New York and New Jersey, almost all of the slaves are held in bondage south of Pennsylvania. There are also 700,000 black people in America. They make up a third of their state’s population. Pennsylvania Germans are one of the few exceptions. Most people are from the British Isles, the largest number from England. It is overwhelmingly white and largely Protestant and English-speaking. The United States has a population of about 4 million, scattered up and down the 13 states. Roads are rough and most people don’t travel far unless they are leaving home for good. Generations pass without seeing smoke from anything larger than the smoke house. Industrial technology is dominated by the water wheel. Speed is measured in the wind-filled sails of a man-of-war or the gait of fast horse. Try to imagine an America where the loudest noises come from nature.
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