Henretta, James. “Families and Farms: Mentalite in Pre-Industrial America.” William and Mary Quarterly 35:1 (1978): 3-32.

Summary
This article examines the consciousness – the mental, ideological, and emotional aspects – of the agricultural population in pre-industrial America. Henratta challenges the idea that rural/agricultural inhabitants expressed a liberal individualism that emphasized economic gain over community concerns. Henratta contends, the settlement patterns – in which ethnic communities settled with similar ethnic/religious/linguistic communities – suggest that the rural population held '''commutarian values. '''Henratta finds that previous scholars have ascribed a consciousness to agricultural communities, rather than understanding the dimensions of their economic existence. The lack of markets for agricultural products, he argues, shows that agricultural production served community, not individual, needs. He writes: “Given the absence of an external market, there was no alternative to subsistence or semi-subsistence production.” (15) Not only did subsistence and semi-subsistence farming dominant amongst the yeoman farming families of the northern colonies because of the geographic and/or economic factors (ready access to markets), but they also were enmeshed in a web of social relations and cultural expectations that inhibited the free play of market forces. The web included: family bonds, members of community often based on kinship, language, religion, and ethnicity, work was arranged along familial lines rather than controlled through a wage system. Thus, Henratta contends, the 'lineal family stood at the center of economic and social existence in northern agricultural society in pre-industrial American. “The interlocking relationship between the biological life cycle and the system of agricultural (and domestic) production continued to tie the generations together” and this shaped their world view. However, what changed, from the 17th to the earl 19th century was the increased rate of capital formation stemming from the expansion of the market economy; the growing importance of profits because of the rise in the value of land and other scarce commodities, and the extent to which middlemen dominated the processes of agricultural production. These larger structural changes caused an eventual shift toward individualism, especially with the rise of other social institutions.

Example: While sawmills, gristmills, fulling mills, and tanneries were profit seeking businesses, they were also social necessities in a rural community. These non-agricultural enterprises were traditional, practical necessities rather than dramatic innovations, and the product of communal legislation as much as of an adventurous individualism.

See also: Joyce Appleby, Charles Sellers, Jeanne Boydston