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Conquering Space and Domesticating Sam Patch: Expansion and The Market Revolution

Conquering Space and Domesticating Sam Patch: Expansion and The Market Revolution. Discuss the impact of territorial expansion on national unity between 1800 and 1850. (97)

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Conquering Space and Domesticating Sam Patch: Expansion and The Market Revolution

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  1. Conquering Space and Domesticating Sam Patch: Expansion and The Market Revolution

  2. Discuss the impact of territorial expansion on national unity between 1800 and 1850. (97) • The Jacksonian Period (1824-1848) has been celebrated as the era of the “common man.” To what extent did the period live up to its characterization? Consider the following in your response: Economic development, Politics, Reform movements (01) • In what ways did developments in transportation bring about economic and social change in the US in the period 1820 to 1860? (03) • Developments in transportation, rather than in manufacturing and agriculture, sparked American economic growth in the first half of the nineteenth century. Assess the validity of this statement. (89) • In the period 1815 to 1860, improvements in transportation and increased inter-regional trade should have united Americans, but instead produced sectional division and finally disunion. Discuss with reference to the impact of improved transportation and increased inter-regional trade on the Northeast (New England and Middle Atlantic states), the South, and the West. (80) • Discuss the impact of the “transportation revolution,” 1820 – 1860, on the U.S. (73)

  3. I. Population Growth and Westward Expansion • Am pop. doubled every 23 years • 1790: 4 million 1810: 7 million • Overwhelmingly agrarian: to maintain standard of living, had to improve ag. tech or double acreage • Tech not keeping pace westward movement

  4. 1790-1810: needed to bring in as much land as had in all period before • 1810: 1 in 7 West of Appalachians • 1840: 1 in 3 • Louisiana Purchase vital (doubles size US)

  5. Most migrants native born, lower middle class • Tend to move due West (NE to Midwest, S to lower Midwest and SW) • Fed. gov wanted rapid settlement for $: required full payment in cash speculators buy up vast tracts • Squatters doing most of farming pre-emption law (1841): allows squatters to buy at low cost

  6. Images of Life • 1) “Little House on the Prairie”: independent, self-sufficient, isolated homesteads but brought together for communal activities • 2) Clint Eastwood: instability, constant motion no real community; fed by “strip-farming”: belief that resources unlimited; general rudeness and violence • Reality somewhere in between: most worked/wanted to replicate old lives

  7. II. Dispossession of Indians A. Legacy of War of 1812 • Collapse of Tecumseh’s pan-Indianism (Battle of Thames, War of 1812) Indians no longer able to effectively resist white settlement • 1817-18: First Seminole War: Andrew Jackson invades Florida to attack Seminoles Adams-Onis Treaty ceding Florida to US • AJ exceeds order: hunts down Indians

  8. B. Five Civilized Tribes and the Trail of Tears • Creek, Choctaw, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Seminole: largely assimilated • Farmers, built schools, developed alphabet, published newspapers, conversion, tribal Constitution based on US • Integration into market economy dependence (debt + alcohol) facilitates removal (sell lands, socio-cultural disruption, pop decline) • War, disease, malnutrition 50% decline

  9. Logic of Fed Indian policy should have left alone, but own valuable lands + gov’t protects/supports whites (even illegal settlers) • 1830: Georgia throws them out • AJ: Removal Bill of 1830: resettle all tribes west of Miss. racial rationale • 1824: Monroe suggests removal as protection Indians • Not just AJ: before + after

  10. Cherokees sue Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831) and Worcester v. Georgia (1832): Marshall rules Indians cannot be removed • AJ: “John Marshall has made his decision: now let him enforce it.” • 1831-1838: Indians removed • 1838: Cherokee Trail of Tears: forced march to Oklahoma ¼ die • 1844: 3 of 4 Indians removed to West

  11. III. Transportation Revolution • Poor transportation obstacle to migration: cost transport wheat KY to NYC 3x price of sale • Cheaper ship PhilaLondon than PittsburghPhila • 1815: John C. Calhoun (SC): “Let us conquer space” • 4 Major stages

  12. A. Turnpikes • Paved roads, built by states + private companies • Most connected Eastern cities • But, National Road • Poor quality, expensive

  13. B. Steamboats • Esp. impacted Miss + tributaries (Ohio) • Transport at 1/10 cost flatboats • Dangerous: snags, explosions, run aground

  14. C. Canals • Boom 1820s + ’30s • Erie Canal (1825): Buffalo to Albany; NY Gov. DeWitt Clinton • Major expenditures by states: 3/4 of $200 million from 1815-1840s; far more than Fed • Cost reduced 20¢ to 1¢ (1 ton Buffalo NYC) • Eventually water system linking NYC to New Orleans

  15. Enormous impacts • Canal towns: industry, pop. growth, social change, alcohol • Midwest: greater access resources + needs eastern industry +tech  deforestation • Canal boom short lived: overtaken by…

  16. D. Railroads • 1830: National system begun Baltimore and Ohio RxR (13 miles) • 1840: 3328 miles (2x track in Europe) • 1850: 9000 miles (majority in N) • Biggest jump transport exp. (speed) in Am. history: 4 mph to 40/50 • Annihilated space + time (time zones) • Uniquely adapted to size US

  17. IV. Market Revolution and the Machine in the Garden A. Agrarian Revolution • Transport rev. bound growing nation econ. transformation: western farmers switch subsistence to commercial: specialization, orient to profit, mechanize • NE + Mid Atlantic: terrain unable use machines move West, move cities, or dairy + fruit farmers • 1820: 1/3 all food for market; 1850: 50+%

  18. South: cotton gin (1793) + northern industry (1820s) cotton • South most tied inter’l markets, but least affected internally: depended on outsiders for marketing + financing, capital tied up in land and esp. slaves colonial economy • Southerners profit motivated, but slavery made “peculiar system”

  19. Ambivalence to Revolution: • Huck Finn: steamboat destroys idyllic life on raft • Escape to Walden Pond: Henry David Thoreau and Transcendentalists • Death knell of Jeffersonian yeoman farmers • 1800: 6 of 7 workers farmers • 1860: 50% farmers • 1990: 1.6% • But, “machine happy”: boom in “labor saving devices” (mechanical apple peelers)

  20. B. The American System • “Borrowed” early British technology • 1790 Samuel Slater textile mill • Eli Whitney: precision machinery for interchangeable parts (firearms, cotton gin) American system: machines make machines consumer items (clocks, watches, sewing machines)

  21. Mechanized industry social restructuring: replace “putting out” system w/centralized factory • Francis Cabot Lowell (1813), power loom (water): Lowell, Mass. • Boston Manufacturing Company: Waltham, Mass. • 1817: 4 million yards cotton cloth; 1840: 323 million • 1840: 80,000 workers (50+% women) • Huge impact on South King Cotton

  22. C. Taming Sam Patch • Difficulty of factory: pre-industrial sense of time • 1st clocks only had hour hand; 1830s 1st mass-produced home clocks • Rhythmic, seasonal, nature, task not clock Saint Monday • Rich variety of entertainments (that then affected work): Alcohol, dancing, athletics, horse races, circuses, magic, balloons, Sam Patch • Left work when these options available

  23. Patch a highly-skilled mill worker, jumped off of things: bridges, flag poles, waterfalls (Niagara twice) • Working class hero: “possession of an art made a man independent and useful and, therefore, the sovereign equal of any other man” • Middle class threat: reason to fear full democracy, undermined beauty of nature (Hudson River School), passed laws against jumping • 6 November 1829: Upper Falls of the Genesee in Rochester, New York (100 ft), accompanied by a pet bear • Friday 13th: same jump, no bear, dies, age 30

  24. Changed through: incentives + institutions: church (2nd Great Awakening: temperance, hard work, perseverance), schools (tech., time discipline), local gov’t (police) • 1827, Lynn, MA: Society for the Promotion of Industry, Frugality, and Temperance: hiring pact, boycotts, by-laws, truant officers, ministers alter personality entire class to further capitalist goals • Successful? 2 measures: 1) liquor and 2) babies • 1800-1860: avg. # kids 7 5.2 • Less sex (no new birth control), less alcohol, kids econ drain in industrial society, some honestly converted

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