This article reports the results of a study of the surviving accounts of lanaiuoli and setaiuoli firms dating to these years. It reveals, first, that the emergence of new markets abroad assured an extraordinarily high level of performance for both industries, and, second, that the overlapping function of these markets with respect to the supply of raw materials and sales of finished products generated an intricate web of mutually dependent inter-industry relations among firms of a kind that had never existed earlier. Both conclusions raise some question about a historiography that emphasizes the intense political and social tensions during these years without even a glance at the economic interests shared by the men involved.