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By the 1720s Virginia had markedly "improved in wealth and polite living," to cite Hugh Jones's assessment of 1724. A full-blown
aristocracy was soon entrenched with the means and the inclination to pursue the way of life of the English gentry. Conscious
of status, members of the Virginia gentry defined it by ownership of land, slaves, decorative objects, and architecture -- the
appearance of which mattered greatly to them. Other colonies also increasingly adopted English manners, but none carried
the imitation so far as did Virginians, nor did they build rural houses so grand and refined as the Georgian mansions of Virginia.
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