The Market Revolution by Dr. Rick L. Woten

1. Quill and Musket Guest Lecturer Series The Market Revolutionby Dr. Rick L. Woten

2. A Change in the Air • The antebellum era was a time not only of profound political change but also of great technological and economic innovation. • Rapid development of manufacturing and improved farming transformed the U.S. economy. • These developments fostered regional development and specialization (wheat and corn in the Midwest, cotton, tobacco, rice in the south, cattle would eventually be a player coming from the south and west). • Other forces included urbanization, immigration, and governmental investment in business.

3. The Moral Economy • Pre-capitalist economy (Precursor to the Market Economy) • People lived in interdependent communities • They grew crops for their own subsistence • Traded goods and labor with neighbors • In New England, a personal credit system (not a true barter) was often relied upon • People frequently kept diaries or account books with detailed accounts of these transactions. • Although people kept close track of who owed what, they would forgive debts for those in too deep. • Any surplus crops or products--especially high value farm products such as whiskey, maple sugar, potash, and salted beef or pork--would be sent to market for cash or used to pay bills or taxes. • Labor and products of both men and women critical to household in this type of economy.

4. Gender Roles of the Moral Economy • In the moral economy, men and women had different duties • Women were responsible for the keeping up the inside of the house, cooking, food preservation, gardens, poultry, dairy animals, and making textiles (carding, spinning, weaving, dyeing, quilting, sewing, and mending) • Men attended the field crops, livestock, buildings, firewood, hunting and fishing, and repairing buildings • Essentially two family economies, one managed by the husband and the other by the wife

5. The Market Economy • Characteristics of Market Revolution • Creation of a national market. • Increase in concentrations of economic activities through industrialization and commercialization. • Increase in mobility of capital, goods, and labor. • Better and more efficient modes of transportation. • Innovations in government and legal systems along with political and social conflict between market-oriented & market resistant groups.

6. Governmental Support • Implementation of the “American School” or “National System” • Heavily influenced by Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776) • Dominated much of 19th century US politics (Hamilton, Clay, Lincoln) • Brought together politics, policy, and philosophy through the promotion of three goals • Support industry • (Tariff of 1816) • Create physical infrastructure • (government financed internal improvements) • Create financial infrastructure • (National Bank system)

7. The American System • By Region • East • Roads, steamboats and canals, national currency, protective tariffs for the economy • Development of textile and manufacturing • West • Roads, Canals, tariff protection, national currency, federal aide, and land sales. • South • Tobacco, rice, sugar, and especially cotton played an important role in the economy of the South

8. New Nationalism • 2nd Bank of the United States • Introduced by John C. Calhoun, passed by Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. • The new bank had power to issue currency and control state banks in effect to control the currency which had gotten out of control. • Congress also passed a protective tariff on imports to drive up their price-aimed at protecting American manufacturers. • McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) • Ruled in favor of the federal government to establish the Second Bank of the United States

9. Reforming Law for the Economy • John Marshall, Supreme Court Chief Justice • Strengthened the power of the judicial branch of government • Marbury v. Madison (1803) • Judicial Review • McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) • Ruled in favor of the federal government to establish the Second Bank of the United States • Cohens v. Virginia (1821) • Established the authority of the federal courts to rule on claims of constitutional rights violations • Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) • Power to regulate interstate commerce rested with the federal government • Cherokee Nation v. State of Georgia (1831) • Removal of indigenous peoples while opening the way for settlement by citizens.

10. The Market Economy • The Transportation Revolution formed the infrastructural basis of the Market Revolution. • Roads –Plank and Turnpikes. • First roads were dirt trails. • In 1790, first created wilderness roads made of logs (Plank roads). • Used to reach new territories beyond the Cumberland Mountains (The National Road). • Most roads were privately owned. • Owner expected to make a profit by collecting a toll. • Used a pike that blocked the road. • After collecting a toll, the attendant would turn the pike.

11. The Market Economy • Transportation means advanced as new technologies developed, state, federal, and private funding built the networks, and transformed the northern economy. • Steamboats • 1807 by Robert Fulton the Clermont, made 150 mile trip in 32 hours • NYC to Albany up the Hudson River • Steam powered ships made it possible for farmers and planters to increase their trade and profits • Surge in western population but presented a problem they had limited access to eastern markets. • Combination of steamboat technology and western populations brought on “Canal Fever” as eastern markets and western settlers and growers sought connections. • The Erie Canal, opened 1825, connected markets, producers, and consumers as it linked the Great Lakes to Albany, New York City and international ports on the Eastern Seaboard.

12. Industrializing the Northeast • Textiles and Mill Towns • One of the most influential and earliest developers of the New England mill town system was the Boston Associates. Nathan Appleton, Samuel Slater, and Francis Cabot Lowell were the members of the Boston Associates. • While were businessmen looking to make money, they also sought to build mills and towns along New England waterways to take advantage of the flow rates of the rivers to turn water wheels and uplift the surrounding communities by converting the ready labor source into wage=laboring workers.

13. Industrializing the Northeast • Nathan Appleton while on a trip to Europe sees new water powered textile looms in operation and seeks to replicate it in New England. • Appleton’s cousin, Francis Cabot Lowell, is called upon to combine spinning and weaving looms that effectively offset the traditional “putting out system.” • Together the Boston Associates formed the Boston Manufacturing Company in 1813 and purchased land along the Charles River in Waltham, Massachusetts. • By 1815, they company had built a mill that housed the whole “manufacturing process” in one 4 story building (cleaning cotton to spun thread, to woven cloth).

14. Textiles and Mill Towns • The successful operation of the mills required a steady and readily available labor source. Those concerned about the new factories point to the failures of the European factories as they broke down communities and customs by rendering the individual little more than a wage laborer. As scarcity raised wages and led individuals to spend wages on vices, many fell prey to excesses and found themselves making poor life choices, poverty stricken, and dependant upon the government and community for help. • The Associates believed that employing farmers’ daughters from the New England countryside would solve labor shortage problems and eliminate the problems of vice experienced in the English factory towns. Additionally, female workers would command lower wages, and would respect male authority. There would be no permanent labor class, as they would work for only a few years and then marry and leave.

15. Daily Life of the Girls of Lowell • To address the social failings of the British textile industry and to appease the fears of the girls’ families, the Boston Company built boarding houses, schools, churches, libraries, and banks. With the facilities constructed, they were able to guarantee the paternalism needed to direct the girlslives in a positive manner and assure their nervous parents. • The girls ranged in ages between 17-24 being pushed towards mill towns. • By 1830s, the region’s farm families were facing declining farmlands and cheaper cloth produced at mill towns replaced home manufacturing. • The girls maintained a strict daily routine with daily hours of awake and productive guidance stretching from 4:30 AM to 7:00 PM for an average wage ranging from $0.50 to $1.00 per day. The money earned by the girls was either set up in a savings account for the girls or sent back to their families. Free time was expected to be for activities focused upon “self improvement” and establishing future virtuous homes. The girls participated in writing sessions, religious instruction, lyceums, and temperance movements that exposed them to more of the public sphere than they had traditionally been exposed.

16. The Market Economy • Key Innovations and Events • 1793 -  Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin • 1797 -  Whitney invents interchangeable parts for firearms • 1807 -  Robert Fulton invents the steamboat • 1823 -  Lowell Mills opens in Massachusetts • 1825 -  Erie Canal is completed • 1828 -  First U.S. railroad appears • 1834 -  Cyrus McCormick invents the mechanical mower-reaper • 1835 -  Samuel F. B. Morse invents the telegraph • 1837 -  Cumberland Road (National Road) is completed • 1838 -  John Deere invents the steel plow • 1858 -  First transatlantic telegraph cable unites Europe and the Americas

17. Bibliography • Eagles, Charles W., George Tindall, and David Shi. America: A Narrative History. Seventh Edition. New York: W. W. Norton, 2007. • Feller, Daniel. The Jacksonian Promise: America, 1815-1840. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995. • Remini, Robert V. Andrew Jackson. New York: Harper & Row, 1966. • Sellers, Charles. The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815-1846. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. • Steinberg, Theodore. Nature Incorporated: Industrialization and the Waters of New England. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. • Urofsky, Melvin I. Basic Readings in U.S. Democracy. Washington D.C.: United States Information Agency, 1994. • Wade, Richard C. The Urban Frontier: The Rise of Western Cities, 1790-1830. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996.