Seton Hall University eRepository @ Seton Hall Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs) Spring 5-19-2015 The oS ciety for Establishing Useful Manufactures: Class and Political Economy in the Early Republic Daniel Pace
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.shu.edu/dissertations Part of the Labor History Commons, Political History Commons, Social History Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Pace, Daniel, "The ocS iety for Establishing Useful Manufactures: Class and Political Economy in the Early Republic" (2015). Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs). 2108. https://scholarship.shu.edu/dissertations/2108 The Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures: Class and Political Economy in the Early Republic By Daniel R. Pace Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History Department of History Seton Hall University May 2015 1 © by Daniel R. Pace All Rights Reserved 2 3 The Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures was one of the first corporations in American history. The company was an attempt by Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, with the help of his Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Tench Coxe, to turn Hamilton’s “Report on Manufactures” into a physical reality. Although the SUM would dissolve only five years after openings its doors, there is plenty to extract from the company’s practices. Through the SUM, Alexander Hamilton and his Federalist contemporaries attempted to recreate, and unite, a weak and fledgling United States by strengthening the nation politically and economically. The Society was Hamilton’s first true attempt to bind the nation together through interdependence of economic affairs, therefore attempting to give the nation its first true common interest that would help all people regardless of region or class.