Currents of Change in the Northeast and the Old Northwest

1. 8 Currents of Change in the Northeast and the Old Northwest

2. Currents of Change in the Northeast and the Old Northwest • Economic Growth • Early Manufacturing • A New England Textile Town • Factories on the Frontier • Urban Life • Rural Communities • Conclusion: The Character of Progress

3. Economic Growth

4. The Trans-Atlantic Economy • Industrial Revolution • Began in Britain • Initially focused on textiles • Britain becomes most powerful country • The model for industrialization

5. Factors in Economic Development • Canal-building in the 1820s and 1830s • Erie Canal links New York City to interior • Railroads • Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, 1928 • 30,000 miles of track by 1850 • Transportation developments spur migration

6. Finding Capital • Governments funded early projects • Usually state and local • Some federal • Property becomes an exploitable financial asset • Contract law defined • Dartmouth College v. Woodward • Sturges v. Crowninshield

7. A New Mentality • Entrepreneurial spirit • Constant experimentation, change • Inventions: harvester, revolver, rubber • Education • Massachusetts uses taxes to pay for schools • Horace Mann • Education in the service of business • Concurrently, concern with progress

8. Industrialization • Putting-out system • Textiles • Often using child labor • Learned from English examples • Industrialization facilitated by transportation

9. Industrialization (cont'd) • Lowell Mills in Waltham, Massachusetts • All stages in one operation • Becomes a prototype • Northeast changes, economically

10. Environmental Consequences • Dams, canals change waterways • Wood required in abundance • Clearings as settlements move west • Coal becomes the major power source • Air pollution follows • Some awareness of environmental problems

11. Early Manufacturing

12. Changing Lifestyles • Spread of literacy: mass market • Magazines • McGuffey readers • Greater availability of goods • Clocks, bringing a new work rhythm

13. A New Hampshire Printing Factory

14. A New England Textile Town

15. Lowell, Massachusetts • Build in the 1920s • Focused on hiring unmarried women • New independence • Usually worked prior to marriage • Lived in boardinghouses • Women organized labor, formed unions

16. Lowell, Massachusetts (cont'd) • Immigration brings a new labor pool • Hard times in Europe, especially Ireland • Many Catholics

17. Factories on the Frontier

18. Cincinnati • Becomes a major industrial center by 1840 • Men have a variety of work experiences • But loss of independence • Women • Many white women employed as “outworkers” • Black women often work in service • Unions formed • Hampered by ready pool of immigrant labor

19. Cincinnati and the Ohio River

20. Urban Life

21. Urban Life • By 1860 1 in 5 Americans live in cities • Cities represent new markets

22. Urban Growth in 1820 and 1850

23. The Process of Urbanization • Commercial Centers • Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York • Canals change commercial map • Mill towns • Lowell, Trenton, Wilmington • Transportation hubs • Louisville, Cleveland, St. Louis • Especially west of the Appalachians

24. Class Structure • Concentration of wealth • 4% of the population holds 60% of wealth • Upward mobility dampens any animosity • Middle class • Desire for white collar work • Constant supply of new manual laborers

25. African Americans in Philadelphia

26. Working Class • Slums • Mobility weakened sense of community • High rates of family violence • Men not always the main or sole support • Women more independent

27. Middle-Class Life and Ideals • Women’s domestic role changes • Their work no longer crucial • Housekeepers, not producers • Men often work in a separate world • Idea of separate spheres • Women ascribed a moral role

28. Middle-Class Life and Ideals (cont'd) • New ideas of childhood • New ideas of discipline • Children’s fiction

29. The Sargent Family, 1800

30. Henry Darby, “Reverend John Atwood and His Family,” 1845

31. Mounting Urban Tensions • Mob violence • Often spurred by racial and ethnic animosity • Often blacks and Irish compete for jobs • Skilled workers resent mechanization • Police forces slowly developing

32. The Black Underclass • Slavery disappearing in North • But equality not assured • Legally disenfranchised • Separate, parallel communities • Immigration pushes blacks from many jobs • Old Northwest • Racism moves west with settlement

33. Rural Communities

34. Farming in the East • Many older New England farms abandoned • Railroads transformed farming, diets • Agriculture increasingly seen as a science • Productivity increased after a long decline

35. Preparing for Market

36. Frontier Families • Economic boom • Transportation links interior to coast • Grain producers: Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa • No longer the frontier by 1860 • Some capital needed to start a farm

37. Conclusion:The Character of Progress

38. Conclusion:The Character of Progress • Urbanization • Cycles of expansion and recession • Divergent paths in the North and South • King Cotton and slave labor • Industrialization and wage labor

39. Timeline