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Preferred Citation

Samuel and Bethel Morris Account Book, Special Collections Research Center, William & Mary Libraries.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Scope and Contents

Account book, 1819-1835, of Connecticut textile entrepreneurs Samuel and Bethel Morris, possibly of Danbury, Fairfield County. Contains detailed transactions with named male and female textile workers, who worked out of in their own homes, participating in a cottage industry managed by the Morrises. The Morrises oversaw network of textile workers in specified area villages like Haystown, Longridge, Newfield, Oxford, "Redding" and Stonyhill (the Morrises generally appended towns of residence to worker's names). ...The workers executed specified stages of the production, including washing, carding, and oiling wood; spinning and dying yarn; weaving specified yard goods; making specified articles of clothing (like pants and stockings). Typical entries include name of workers, their town, kind of work performed, type and color of textile product made, and rate paid. The services were sometimes paid in cash, but more often in form of barter goods, such as grains, foodstuffs, meat, raw wool, dyestuff, oil, soap, hats, hatboxes, lumber and wood, footwear, clothing.

Some more frequently mentioned surnames of workers are Barnum, Dibble, Benedict, Dunning, and Hoyt.

Subjects and Indexing Terms

• Account books
• Connecticut--Economic conditions--19th century
• Cottage industries--United States
• Textile industry--United States--History--19th century
• Weaving--United States