New Fortunes, New Tastes.

In Europe a rigid code governed dress and manners. Members of each social class or profession dressed a certain way, clearly identifying individuals as belonging to a particular category. People found no compelling need to change these social markers. But in the eighteenth century a revolution in the production of textiles brought easily made clothing and other consumer accessories. The notion of fashion and changing styles emerged. Wealthy and middling folk could vary their dress to suit fashion and individual taste, and it became more difficult to guess a person's position just by his clothing.

Luxury.

By the mid eighteenth century, prosperity among the merchant and planter classes of British North America brought an increasing display of luxury goods. Wealthy colonials bought the latest clothing, carriages, and fine houses furnished in mahogany. They employed liveried servants to drive...