Social status and wealth in early America?

Question

In early amcerica, how were the social political and social elite defied in terms of their percentage of wealth controlled; occupations; political and economic intrests; and social labels??

doesnt have to be a long explanation, just the basic points, thanks!

Answer 1

Some examples of social distinction in Colonial times

As textile production and farm output increased, export-minded farmers and enterprise-minded merchants grew wealthy, while many small farmers and artisans earned only enough for subsistence. Consequently, by 1750 mid-Atlantic society was divided by wealth as well as by ethnicity.

Social distinctions were most apparent in the seaport cities, which expanded as a result of the wheat trade.

Social contracts were made among ordinary individuals to preserve their “natural” rights to life, liberty, and property.

Quaker and Anglican merchants and their wives read Enlightenment tracts that discussed social reforms, and they used their financial resources to put them into practice. They built a hospital to care for the sick, poor, and the insane.

Enlightenment culture, in combination with merchant wealth, gave a major boost to the production of high art as opposed to popular or folk art. (Wealthy had portraits painted for recognition purposes)

British culture and values, especially those of the landowning aristocracy and gentry, were greatly prized by wealthy slave-owning planters in Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina.

By 1720 the leading families in those colonies stood at the top of a European-like social hierarchy. They presided over large estates that were worked by enslaved African American laborers. Of the 650,000 inhabitants of the Southern colonies in 1750, about 250,000 (or nearly 40 percent) were slaves.

The planters used their wealth and social status to dominate the white yeoman and tenant farmers, who formed the great majority of the white population.

To control the colonial legislatures, the planters solicited the votes of yeoman farmers at election time by treating them to rum and gifts and promising to lower their taxes.