Ferris, The Christmas Coach

The Puritans did not exactly insist that poverty was a sign of wickedness. But there was a general assumption that the godly flourished and that if a man persistently failed to prosper - or if financial catastrophe suddenly struck him - it was because he did not, for some reason, enjoy God's favor. This idea was very potent and passed into the mainstream of American social consciousness.

New England has a society with an irresistible upward movement pushed by an ethic of hard work. It was religious, idealistic, and frugal to the core.