Practically every significant feature in the development of American wool manufacture from the early household operations of the Pilgrim Fathers down to the present time, is treated in these two volumes. Professor Cole has delineated the character and methods of wool-cloth manufacture in Colonial days, the spread of the household system, the introduction of new technique, and the rise of factory production. He then traces the expansion of factory manufacture to its present extraordinary scope and to its broad diversification of product, showing the influence of wool supplies, improved technical equipment, the tariff, and marketing methods upon these changes. Furthermore he discusses the importation of wool cloths, large scale production, and the large-scale management. For the economic historian this study is of real interest because it is the most complete and incisive inquiry that has ever been made into the evolution of any American manufacture. The general student will be particularly interested in the consideration of such questions as the scope of the market for wool fabrics, changes in industrial form, modifications of the distributive system, and expanding size of the producing unit.

These volumes present a summary of data relative to commodity prices in various parts of the United States from the time for which data first became available down to the Civil War. They accordingly provide material for the study of commodity price movements—seasonal, cyclical, secular, and regional—for over a century and a half. As a source book the work will be of great value not only to students of the business cycle and of economic history but to social and political historians as well. The volumes represent the American phase of an international project financed by the Rockefeller Foundation and carried out under the auspices of the International Committee on Price History.