Efforts of the Continental Congress to Promote Manufactures and Domestic Arts in the Colonies

While efforts were made to promote manufactures in the colonies long before the Revolutionary War began, this struggle forced the Continental Congress to exert more strenuous efforts for the encouragement of the production of certain necessary commodities than had formerly been made. These endeavors, however, were largely incidental to the greater work of successfully prosecuting a war. It is probably true that more emphasis would have been placed upon the domestic manufactures at this time had the Revolution not occurred. The non-importation agreements, passed because of the Intolerable Acts and similar measures, made such a result almost inevitable.