Background
Norton, Mass., was a manufacturing center during the early days of the industrial revolution. In the 1830s and 1840s, its mills turned out sheet copper, cotton goods, boots and shoes, leather goods, iron castings, ploughs, and baskets.
Scope of collection
The unidentified owner of this daybook was a general provisioner in the Bristol County, Massachusetts, towns of Norton and Mansfield. This daybook records a relatively brisk trade in relatively small quantities of food, cloth, fuel, wood, shoes, paper goods, glassware, and iron however there are also entries for providing laborers to textile manufacturers. The owner of this volume had a particularly close association with Norton Manufacturing Co., providing laborers, boarding them; repairing and building looms and other textile machines, cutting timber, and carting. Ephraim Raymond, one of the founders of the company was among the most frequent individual customers.
Most of the entries in the daybook are recorded in Norton, Mass., however in December 1833, daily headings shift to Mansfield. The records in Mansfield are fewer and typically briefer.
Administrative information
Access
The collection is open for research.
Provenance
Acquired from Charles Apfelbaum, 1987.
Processing Information
Processed by I. Eliot Wentworth, Aug. 2017.
Language:
EnglishCopyright and Use (More information )
Cite as: Norton (Mass.) Merchant's Daybook (MS 203 bd). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.
Search terms
Subjects
- General stores--Massachusetts--Norton
- Mansfield (Mass.)--Economic conditions
- Norton (Mass.)--Economic conditions
- Norton Manufacturing Company
Contributors
Genres and formats
- Daybooks
