부산대학교 도서관

Although the United States had declared its political independence from England in 1776, Americans remained commercially dependent and continued to import fine woolens from England, the country that had dominated the American market for well over a hundred years. Before the new developing nation could compete in fine woolen production, manufactures first needed the raw material — fleece from the fine-wooled merino breed of sheep, advanced machinery for manufacturing fine woolen, and skilled labor to set up factories. For three decades, Thomas Jefferson waged a patriotic campaign to promote domestic manufacturing, a facet of his life overshadowed in history by his belief that the United States should develop as an agrarian nation to avoid the chaos and unhealthiness of industrialization. Jefferson's letters — written to prominent political figures when he was minister to France, President of the United States, and private citizen between 1786 and 1812 — document his effort for the country to achieve commercial self-sufficiency in the manufacture of fine wool, an imported commodity on which citizens were highly dependent. Between the revolutionary war and the War of 1812, Americans worked to replace their unsightly homespun wool woven from the coarse wool of country sheep with fine wool cloth manufactured from the fine fleece of the merino sheep. To supply factories with enough raw material, they needed to import merino breeding stock, which was difficult if not illegal due to the harsh restrictions on international trade imposed by England, France, Spain, and even the United States. In their eagerness for commercial independence, Jefferson and his fellow patriots were not averse to smuggling when necessary for the good of their country.