In January 1765, Philadelphia shoemaker Alexander Rutherford alerted his female customers “as are resolved to distinguish themselves by their patriotism and encouragement of American manufactures, that he makes and sells all sorts of worsted or wool shoes, of all sizes, as neat and cheap as any imported from England.[1] Rutherford’s advertisement was an opening salvo that foreshadowed the War for Independence. The enemy, however, was not British regulars, but England’s shoemakers; their mercenary allies were not Hessians, but those British American consumers who sought out English footwear; and their antagonist was not King George III, but an obscure cordwainer named John Hose.
In the wake of the Sugar and Stamp Acts, Whig leaders like Samuel Adams railed against the importation of English goods, especially luxury items. They feared that the consumer revolution, underway at least since the 1740s, would undermine fundamental virtues such as frugality and simplicity and could vitiate a colonial economy that should favor homespun goods over imported gewgaws. London merchants and artisans became targets for Whig propagandists who promoted the virtues of homespun and local manufacture as a means of liberating Americans from Britain’s mercantilist hold. In colonial newspapers and pamphlets, British artisans were vilified as purveyors of the “frippery” and “finery” that American consumers should boycott in favor of products made in the colonies. By 1765, newspaper accounts were naming one of the chief culprits who they saw as subverting American virtue—a London cordwainer or shoemaker, John Hose (c. 1699-1769). From his shop “at the Rose, Cheapside,” Hose packed thousands of pairs of shoes for the markets of North America . Among dozens of advertisements, readers of the New York Mercury on 13 July 1761 learned that “TRUNKS of Women’s Shoes, made by John Hose and Son” were available at James McEver’s Store, along with chests of bohea tea and boxes of china “well sorted.” For Hose non-importation threatened burgeoning new markets, robust sales, and an exalted reputation.