Not so much in the American colonies, but they were informed by the ones in Europe. This was the era Thomas Malthus himself grew up in (b. 1766).

The basis of the U.S. "yeoman farmer" idea was, in part, that there was land available for continual expansion. Simply go west, kick out the natives, and all your citizens could be given a plot of their own - organizing around this goal gave the government stability and purpose, even though it had several obvious flaws.

This was also the genesis of the internal conflicts during the 19th century; the eventual victory of the federalists in the Civil War was, in effect, the creation of a new nation organized around industrial capitalism.