Industry & The North 1790-1840

1. Industry & The North1790-1840 AP U.S. History

2. Rural Life: Early 1800’s • Farming Family: husband, wife, children, 4 to 5 slaves, & 100+ acres. • Community: neighbors, wives, daughters and female slaves collect, spin wool, & complete domestic duties. • Self-sufficient , surplus extra (community & cash market). • Diverse: cattle, sheep, oats, hay, wheat, & veggies. • Barter system with neighbors • Begin shift from traditional to commercial agriculture.

3. Family Labor System • Work place was home or farm. • Family apprenticeships: • Mothers teach daughter • Fathers teach son field & barn tasks • Diversify family income: • Long winter: Whole families made shoes. • Local, immediate use. • No fixed prices on goods; done with barter. • No fixed production schedule. • Home and work were the same. • All family members viewed as wage-earners

4. Urban Life Early 1800’s • Craftsmen control production • Apprenticeship (men): Important process for training skilled labor. • 12-14 years old. • Duration: 3-7 years. • Treated like family • Save up capital for own store. • Long hours: Sun up to sun down. • Female urban work • Acceptable: Domestic servants, laundresses, seamstresses, cooks, & managing boarding houses. • Unacceptable: Prostitution.

5. Patriarchy & Social Order • Father, head of household, reflected in society: • Legal power: Property rights, women couldn’t testify. • Divorce: Husband keeps children or man dies & oldest son inherits all possessions. • Life organized around job/trade, whole family involved (blacksmith, baker, printing, etc.) • Family help is not recognized. • Social Order • Wealthy merchants > large land owners > artisans > yeomen farmers > common laborers > tenet farmers > farm laborers • Distinguished by dress & manner.

6. Market Revolution 3 Main Developments • Rapid improvements in transportation • Moved goods and people with ease. • Commercialization • Involved replacing household barter with producing goods for cash market. • Putting-out system • Industrialization • Using power- driven machinery to produce goods, instead of manually. • Outcome: Inexpensive goods in quantity for Americans.

7. Putting-Out System • Home manufacturing- merchant pays by piece for home production, to be sold at market. • Division of Labor: Worker makes part of product and it moves on to next specialist. • Moves control from artisan to merchant capitalist: Leads to industrial capitalism. • Farm families enjoy the diversity & new source of income. • Workshops gradually replace artisan shops, eventually apprenticeship will disappear. • Merchants now control production, labor costs, production goals, & styles.

8. Labor: 1820’s • Men head west to make fortune. • Rural women are untapped labor force. • Accustomed to long work hours. • Women did not live alone. • Lowell, MA offers supervision on the job and at home. • Rules of conduct • Compulsory religious service • Concerts, lectures and cash.

9. Industrialization • Result of a series of technological changes in the textile trade. • Moving from manual labor to mechanization of power driven machines that did the work. • Previous dependence upon farmers for American ideal (T.J.). • Major affects are an increase in the lower class, ghettos, & child labor. • New England favored this rapid industry • British were leaders. Must steal their technology. • Samuel Slater (1789) snuck out of England & brings secrets with him. • Improved on machinery. • Most advanced cotton mill opens in 1790. • Workplace: • Children • Women • Soon mills pop up all over New England. • Embargo 1807-1815, tariffs protected American mills from British competition.

10. Lowell, Massachusetts, 1832

11. Lowell Mills • Francis Cabot Lowell (1810), industrial spy, improved on British technology and invented the power loom. • 1814 World’s first integrated cotton mill. • All aspects of production. • Lowell, MA: 1826, 2500 people and by 1836 there are 17,000 • Brings about issues of authority. • 50% of workforce: Children • 25% men & 25% women

12. Lowell Mills (Cont.) • 1840’s Wages: • Unskilled children $1/week. • $12/week for skilled workers. • Unskilled adults: $110-150/year ($3.50/week). • $300/year needed to stay above poverty line. • Communities v. Mill Towns: Viewed mill workers as low class, & transient. Leads to new social distinctions. • Jobs were good for locals, but mill owners dictated politics

13. American System of Manufactures • Interchangeable parts: Breaks down a machine and it is easily fixed. • Eli Whitney- First attempt 1798, failed. • Simeon North & John Hall mastered concept with machine parts and the rifle. • Revolutionary production: • 1810: Produce 100 nails a minute, cutting costs by 2/3.

14. 1st Steamboat: OH River (1811). Advantages: Increased production, profits, capitalism, wealth, & living conditions. Disadvantages: Loss of jobs, growth between rich and poor, specialized skill not as marketable, beginning of slums & urban issues. Steamboat

15. Industrial Capitalism • Specialization & standardization. • Concentration of capital. • Large gap between poor and wealthy. • Creates the worst urban areas. • Child labor. • Poor working conditions. • Low pay.

16. Middle Class Transition • Labor Workers • 12% 1800 to 40% in 1860, most in North, mostly women. • Major changes in life: • “Putting-out” destroyed apprenticeship. • Creates child labor. • Women did not return to farms, but stayed in cities, & married. • Diminished patriarchal control

17. Class Transition Continued… • Slaves v. Wage Laborers • South: “We care until they die.” • North: Occasionally provides housing (Lowell) but mostly they are responsible for themselves. • Which was better? • Shift from skilled to unskilled • Manual labor that is mindless. • Problems: Overcrowding of job market, & low wages. • No longer care about efficient production. • Intense labor for low wages.

18. Leisure • Work is separate from home creating a need for “leisure time.” • Sunday is day for leisure. • Most favor local taverns. • Spectator sports: horse racing, boxing and baseball (1850’s). • Concerts, operas, plays, & circuses.

19. Free Labor • Free Labor: “free” stands for the right to choose to work and where. • Hard-work, self-discipline, strive for economy & independence, lead to individualistic attitude.

20. Occupations of Women Wage Earners in Massachusetts, 1837

21. Collective Bargaining • Women lead first strikes (unfeminine & ungrateful) • 1824: Women RI wage cuts, increased hours • 1834: 800 Women (Lowell)-denied, packed up • Most strike are unsuccessful. • More laborers are always available (Irish immigrants). • NE Female Labor Reform Assoc. (1845) started springing up in mill towns • Desire a 10 hour work day. • NH grants petition in 1847, followed by ME (1848), & PA (1849).

22. New Social Order • 1840: 1% of population owns 40% of wealth. • Upward mobility: Increase in middle class. • Prior to Industrial Revolution there was no movement, stuck from birth. • Middle Class: Male & female roles diverge. • Men: Industrious, responsible & in control of their business. • Women: Remain at home. • Responsible for cooking, cleaning & creating a refuge from the industrial work place. • Women’s magazines: Godey’s Ladies Book (circ 70,000) offers advice, recipes, and embroidery patterns. • Have fewer children. They require more care & education. • 1800: average 7 children. 1900: average 4 children. • 1830: abortion widely used to limit family size.

23. Religion • Philosophy of sobriety, responsibility, steady, & hard work, model for workers. • Reinforced by religion (2nd Great Awakening). Salvation through self-discipline and individual achievement. • Conversion & repentance were community events. • Evangelism becomes middle class religion. • Converted display morally respectable behavior. • Model for their workers. • Each worker is responsible for own way • Leads to Social Darwinism.