Counterfeiting flourished in colonial America and Scott brings to life the many colorful figures who indulged in this nefarious practice.

Prior to the Civil War, the United States did not have a single, national currency. Counterfeiters flourished amid this anarchy, putting vast quantities of bogus bills into circulation. Their success, Mihm reveals, is more than an entertaining tale of criminal enterprise: it is the story of the rise of a country defined by freewheeling capitalism and little government control. Mihm shows how eventually the older monetary system was dismantled, along with the counterfeit economy it sustained.

Chronicles the lives of three colorful counterfeiters whose schemes reflected the culture of early America, describing their backgrounds and how they exploited period politics, economics and law enforcement to promote their operations.

This 1995 book presents an alternative and comprehensive understanding of the roots of Mormon religion.

Building on a quarter century of scholarship following the publication of the groundbreaking Women in the Age of the American Revolution, the engagingly written essays in this volume offer an updated answer to the question, What was life like for women in the era of the American Revolution? The contributors examine how women dealt with years of armed conflict and carried on their daily lives, exploring factors such as age, race, educational background, marital status, social class, and region. For patriot women the Revolution created opportunities—to market goods, find a new social status within the community, or gain power in the family. Those who remained loyal to the Crown, however, often saw their lives diminished—their property confiscated, their businesses failed, or their sense of security shattered. Some essays focus on individuals (Sarah Bache, Phillis Wheatley), while others address the impact of war on social or commercial interactions between men and women. Patriot women in occupied Boston fell in love with and married British soldiers; in Philadelphia women mobilized support for nonimportation; and in several major colonial cities wives took over the family business while their husbands fought. Together, these essays recover what the Revolution meant to and for women.

An incisive account of the crucial role money played in the formation and development of British North America. Promise to Pay follows America’s first paper money—the “bills of credit” of British North America—from its seventeenth-century origins as a means of war finance to its pivotal role in catalyzing the American Revolution. Katie A. Moore combs through treasury records, account books, and the bills themselves to tell a new story of money’s origins that challenges economic orthodoxy and mainstream histories. Promise to Pay shows how colonial governments imposed paper bills on settler communities through existing labor and kinship relations, their value secured by thousands of individual claims on the public purse—debts—and the state’s promise to take them back as payment for taxes owed. Born into a world of hierarchy and deference, early American money eroded old social ties and created new asymmetries of power, functioning simultaneously as a ticket to the world of goods, a lifeline for those on the margins, and a tool of imperial domination. Grounded in sustained engagement with scholarship from multiple disciplines, Promise to Pay breathes new life into old debates and offers an incisive account of the centrality of money in the politics and conflicts of empire, community, and everyday life.