[MASSACHUSETTS]
AN ACT TO PREVENT MONOPOLY AND OPPRESSION
(BOSTON: PRINTED BY B. EDES AND SONS, 1777).

During the American Revolution, the Massachusetts legislature passed a law to regulate prices in the face of limited supplies and increasingly “avaricious conduct.” The single act, published for immediate distribution, sets prices for a range of colonial goods named in it. At the back of our copy, in a clear and elegant hand, a selection of the goods and their prices is arranged according to common measures (per bushel, per pound, etc.). The items listed were those used in cooking and maintaining a household: mentioned are things like tallow, women’s shoes, and cloth for spinning.

No ownership information tells us who wrote the list, though one guess may be a colonial woman who ran a household. Despite the crisis, the owner has organized the items with a sense of practical care necessary in the face of adversity. The pamphlet provides a vivid window into daily economics in the midst of the Revolutionary War.