This book explores the material dimensions of class formation in eighteenth-century Newport, Rhode Island, and nineteenth-century Lowell, Massachusetts. During their economic peaks these cities represented perhaps the purist forms of capitalism in North America. The two cities reveal contrasting portraits of class identity, one based upon the analysis of material culture and spatial practices, and one based upon the examination of environmental conditions and health. This ground-breaking study argues that notions of class incorporating variables such as ethnicity and gender were shaped by the shifting ecologies of capitalism itself.