Douglas McCalla is an accomplished social and economic historian specializing in rural history and the study of local economies and the manner in which they shaped Canadian economic development. This particular book is the result of a long-term research program on consumers and consumption in the rural areas of eastern Ontario undertaken in part during the author's tenure as Canada Research Chair in Canadian Rural History at the University of Guelph.

If Consumers in the Bush has a major theme it is the sophistication of consumers in early nineteenth century rural Ontario and the extent to which consumers were very connected to the world economy and the early material outputs of industrialization. Consumers in the Bush draws its empirical data from the account books of country stores. McCalla examined more than 30,000 transactions on the accounts of 750 families at seven Upper Canadian stores between 1808 and 1861. As a result of a generous land-grant settlement process, Upper Canada and its population during this time period was one of the fastest growing regions of North America.

According to McCalla, these consumers were farmers, artisans, laborers, and often women and the village stores provided them with a wide variety of products imported mainly from Britain. Moreover, McCalla also finds signs of deepening local economic development given that a surprising number of goods were produced locally. The book's chapters are organized according to product categories: textiles and clothing purchases, groceries and medications, hardware and related items, locally produced goods and imports, and finally a chapter on miscellaneous items ranging from household goods to footwear to schoolbooks.

The key question addressed is, who consumed what and when. Why this matters is because the goods consumers purchased provides a window into their social and material lives and insight into rural life in early nineteenth century Canada. Indeed, the myths of scarcity and deprivation often associated with pioneer life are somewhat dispelled given the range of goods purchased at these stores: rum, calico, needles, vests, shoes, writing paper and pencils, books, bed ticking, combs, opeldoc (a liniment), sulphur, chalk and saltpetre, paint, silk, coffee, sugar, tea, kettles, bowls, pots, nutmeg, currants, raisins, and kerchiefs.

Rural Upper Canadians were consumers in the modern sense of the word displaying preferences and choices across a diversity of products as well as a range of stores—almost no one bought everything from a single store. Fine china including “blue and green edge” and “cream-ware” was available from the earliest years showing how even frontier Ontario was directly linked to the productivity of the British industrial age. Indeed, as McCalla (p. 22) notes: “Despite many changes in consumption during the period, one of the main findings is how much, rather than how little, consumption in 1808 resembled consumption in 1861 for rural upper Canadians.” While not diminishing the significance of local production, Upper Canada even during its earliest settlement phase was not a “Robinson Crusoe” economy. On the other hand, the stories of hard-drinking frontier life are confirmed given the prodigious quantities of alcohol sold and consumed and the shift over time from rum and wine to whiskey. Sales of rum, wine and other spirits accounted for 14 percent of purchases and alcohol were “absolutely abundant, at once an accompaniment to daily work routines and an escape from them” (p. 74). By way of comparison, modern household expenditure data from Statistics Canada for Ontario show tobacco and alcohol together account for less than 2 percent of household expenditures.

Given one consumption estimate of up to four gallons per year per person of full strength alcohol and the fact that at least half the rapidly expanding pioneer population consisted of children and youth, the remaining adults consumed a great deal indeed. In light of this evidence on the extent of inebriation amongst the local populace, one must suppose it is amazing Upper Canada was successfully settled at all.

Some of the findings are interesting from the point of view of both economists and historians. There was a general drop in the prices of goods over time. For example, between 1808 and 1828, there was a 25 to 50 percent drop in the price of linens and other fabrics. Between 1828 and 1861, tobacco prices fell 50 percent while the price of sugar and tea both dropped by one-third. Nails fell from 12.5 to 13 cents per pound in 1828 to 5 to 7 cents per pound by 1861—as much as a 60 percent decrease. Of immense value to future scholars of nineteenth century material and consumer life are the tables and appendices that McCalla provides at the end of the book, with Table 32 in particular illustrating the price ranges of four principal products between 1801 and 1861.

Another interesting observation made by McCalla is that the modest use of iron as evidenced by customer sales was not an indicator of economic backwardness in the rural economy but simply an appropriate and economic choice given the comparative advantage of working with wood. As he writes with respect to the intensity of wood use in tools and crafts (p. 91): “farmers’ practice and the work of blacksmiths and other craftsmen should be read not as expressions of tradition and limited development but as appropriate choices in a rural economy where wood was abundant.” Indeed, any sign of underdevelopment is swept away by the variety of iron and hardware available at the shops.

McCalla's book ultimately offers a unique perspective on early rural Ontario that shows that “Upper Canadian men and women were consumers of goods that were modern in the context of their times” and were fully engaged in the nineteenth century international world of consumer goods. This is an important lesson for all scholars working on frontier settlement and consumption history.