Mathew Carey has never quite been a forgotten name in America's collective memory. Born a baker's son in Dublin in 1760, he had a way with words that led him to work as a printer and, soon after, a newspaper publisher. He was forced to make a hasty exit from Ireland after being accused of libeling Parliament in his newspaper in 1784. Having forged connections with Benjamin Franklin and the Marquis de Lafayette, he was able to set himself up as a printer in Philadelphia, where he quickly rose to prominence in post-Revolutionary America. He became the new nation's leading bookseller and publisher and one of its most important Catholic citizens. He wrote a prodigious amount of material printed in magazines, newspapers, pamphlets and books on subjects ranging from American politics to yellow fever and the history of Algeria. In recent years, there has been a revival of interest in his role as the new nation's leading bookseller/publisher and his position as a leading Irish Catholic. But can Mathew Carey be considered an influential economist? For that matter, was he an economist at all? These are crucial questions for understanding Mathew Carey's writings and his place within American economic history.

Carey's Influence Then and Now

Despite his influence on contemporaries, Carey's economic ideas have been largely ignored by posterity.