The Economic Crisis of the Late 18th Century

Walker Anderson, Allison Cowie, Matthew Lewis

Senior Division
Group Website
Process Paper: 459

Process Paper
On first thought, this years theme, Exploration, Encounter, and Exchange, was very
intimidating because it was so broad. However, our teacher chose to make the guidelines more specific,
giving our group the additional topic of foreign policy and a time period of 1754-1800. Obviously, the
biggest event during that specific time period was the American Revolution, but we wanted a topic that
included more foreign policy aspects. Thus, instead of focusing on America before or even during the
American Revolution, we chose to focus on America post-war, specifically the state of the American
economy post Revolutionary War. The American economy was in a fragile state since France, Great
Britain, and Spain were all reluctant to trade with America after the war, leading to a severe economic
crisis.
We began our research by searching for quality tertiary sources to gain a better sense of the
overall time period. As we began to focus on the economic state of the young nation, we looked for
sources that focused on an individual European countrys economic relation with the young nation. The
Library of Congress provided several good sources for economic relations with Great Britain including a
letter from James Monroe and and a painting of the Chesapeake Affair. Additionally, databases like the
Avalon Project and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation provided great sources. We also used several books
as fantastic secondary sources to gain someone elses perspective on the economic crisis.
Having participated in National History Day before, our group wanted to use a different
presentation category than the previous year. Last year several members of the group created an exhibit,
so we chose to create a website. The construction design of our website was fairly simple in that we had a
main page that served as the overview for the whole project. On our main page, there were several
hyperlinks with each link taking the viewer to another page on each individual country/group that was
economically impacting America during the late 1700s. We wanted to make sure we made the website
easy on viewers by not over-complicating it.

Our topic, the American Economic Crisis of the 1780s, centers around trade relations with
several foreign countries, directly relating to the encounter and exchange aspects of the theme. At the
time, America was trying to trade with the European juggernauts as the Americans were also attempting
to navigate their new relations with other countries. While our topic does not incorporate any exploration
in the literal sense, this time period was characterized by the infant nation exploring their new-found
independence. Expecting to find friendly, welcoming neighbors who were eager to trade, America was
faced with the harsh reality of limited trading agreements, forcing the young nation to further explore
their economic independence and stance.