Nash's The Transformation of European Society documents the widening of the social stratification between the upper and lower classes, in 18th century colonial America. Gary B. Nash has managed to present that as the colonies had become successful, there was a divergence between man and the community; where a man no longer lived and worked in an opportunity filled utopist society but instead took the opportunities for himself. Franklin's, The Way to Wealth, had launched the eighteenth-century individual entrepreneurial spirit. As more men became successful through the owning of plantations and slaves, a strong division between the classes emerged. Population growth and economic development made rich men ever wealthier. Rich men would now invest in land, slaves, or in trade and by doing so these men had land valued from anywhere from 4,000 pounds in the North to at least 10,000 pounds in the south. As the rich attained more land, they would invest more money in slaves to gain high profits from the cultivation of tobacco or rice. The greater the opportunities for the rich, the higher the gap between the rich and the poor became. For example, social barriers had been placed on man's right on religion; in a Puritan church, he would be seated according to his social rank. The division between the classes in church exemplified a factor that a man was never to be put out of his economic status. These men were able to enjoy their bread and butter quite lavishly while the other half of the society were finding it difficult to even buy bread. The Americans were transforming their society into the European conditions that they fled. By 1760, the amount of poor was increasing at a greater speed than the population as a whole was which shows that there was a lack of economic development for the lower classes. The vast opportunity filled lands had been taken away by the rich, leaving the poor with nothing.
