Chapter 10: America’s Economic Revolution

1. Chapter 10: America’s Economic Revolution Maddie Seidel, Safa Khan, Caitlyn Davis, Amy Strong, Jake Thrasher, Esmé Shields, Raiden Worley, and Justin Nail 3rd Block

2. The Changing American Nation The American Population (1820-1840), Immigration and Urban Growth (1840-1860), and The Rise of Nativism

3. The American Population (1820-1840) • Population increased and concentrated in industrial center in the Northeast and Northwest. • 3 major trends in population growth: rapid increase, moving West, and moving into towns and cities • Populations • 1790: 4 million • 1820: 10 million • 1830: 13 million • 1840: 17 million • There was a decline in epidemics and a higher birth rate

4. The American Population (1820-1840)(Continued) • In 1830, about 500,000 citizens were immigrants • Immigration boomed due to a decrease in transport cost and an increase in opportunities in the U.S. • Farms became less successful, so people moved to the cities • By 1810, New York was the largest city in the U.S.

5. Immigration and Urban Growth • The booming agricultural economy of the West produced Urban growth • The Mississippi River was used to transport goods and materials • After 1830, a majority of shipping moved to the Great Lakes

6. Immigration and Urban Growth(Continued) • America’s population grew from 23 million to 31 million in the 1850’s • 1840-1850: 1.5 million Europeans moved to America • Almost 10% of Americans in 1850 were born in a foreign country • Immigrants came from England, France, Italy, Scandinavia, Poland, and Holland. • 45% of immigrants were Irish due to the Potato Famine

7. Sources of Immigration (1820-1840)

8. Total Immigration (1820-1840) *in thousands

9. The Rise of Nativism • Immigration affected political life • Many states allowed foreigners to vote after becoming a citizen and living in the U.S. for a certain period of time • Some feared the political influence of the immigrants • Nativists believed that immigrants were… • Physically and mentally defective • Corrupting politicians by selling their vote • Breeding urban slums • Stealing jobs • Introducing radical philosophies

10. The Rise of Nativism(Continued) • Many societies, mostly in the Northeast, formed to combat the “alien menace” • 1845: the Native American Party is formed in Philadelphia • Nativist groups came together to form the Supreme Order and the Star Spangled Banner • These groups tried to restrict voting qualifications and create harsher naturalization laws • Members of this movement were known as the Know-Nothings and gained considerable power in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts

11. Transportation, Communications, and Technology The Canal Age, Early Railroads, The Triumph of the Rails, and Innovations in Communications and Journalism

12. The Canal Age • From 1790 to 1820s, roads were generally used, but were becoming inadequate  • Larger rivers such as Mississippi and Ohio had flatboat traffic • Flatboats were essentially rafts that were floated downstream and broken up because they couldn’t go upstream • Trade usually returned upstream by land • These rivers became far more important with the improvement of steamboat design • Trade ran down the Mississippi and then through the ocean to the coast

13. The Canal Age (Continued) • This method was very roundabout, and so interest developed in the construction of canals • The most successful of these was the Erie Canal constructed by New York, which connected the Hudson River to Lake Erie • Governor of New York was De Witt Clinton; digging began July 4, 1817; massive project; over 350 miles; opened October 1825 • Ohio and Indiana connected Lake Erie and the Ohio River, allowing trade from New York to New Orleans  • Lots of trading went on, the population of the Northwest grew, and New York grew very powerful

14. The Early Railroads • 1804: English and Americans had experimented with steam engines • 1820: John Stevens ran a small train in a circular track on his New Jersey estate • 1825: Stockton and Darlington Railroad in England opened a short track • First American company that opened was Baltimore and Ohio in 1830 with 13 miles of track • 1831: Mohawk and Hudson ran 16 miles between Schenectady and Albany in New York • 1836: Over 1000 miles of track in 11 states

15. The Early Railroads(Continued) • Lines were short, most rails simply connected water routes, cars from one line usually couldn’t fit on another, schedules were erratic, wrecks were frequent • In 1830s and 40s improved with heavier iron rails, locomotives became more powerful, cars became larger and more comfortable • Rails and canals soon competed • Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company blocked the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad for a time • New York prohibited rails from competing with Erie

16. The Triumph of the Rails • 1840: The rails gradually won • 1840: 2,818 miles of rail • 1850: 9,021 miles of rail • 1850-1860: The amount of rails tripled • Northeast had the most, 2x as much as Northwest and 4x as much as the South • Short lines consolidated into longer “trunk lines”

17. The Triumph of the Rails • By 1853, 4 major trunk lines connected Northeast and Northwest • Railroads touched the Mississippi at 8 points • Chicago major rail center, 15 lines and over 100 trains per day • These lines diverted traffic from the canals and less use of the Mississippi weakened connections between the South and Northwest • Railroads received private funding and public from local governments and land grants from the federal government

18. Innovations in Communications and Journalism • Telegraph completed in 1844 by Samuel F. B. Morse • Low cost made telegraphs ideal • 1860: Over 50,000 miles of wire connected country • Pacific telegraph connected New York and San Francisco, 3,595 • Nearly all independent lines joined the Western Union Telegraph Company • Lines ran along rail tracks and helped coordinate the train system. • Telegraph helped deepen the schism between the North and South because the South had few wires

19. Innovations in Communications and Journalism 1846 Richard Hoe invented steam cylinder rotary press, allowing the fast and cheap printing of papers 1846 newspaper publishers formed Associated Press to share news by wire Major metropolitan newspapers emerged  Most papers were in the North and contributed to the South feeling subjugated, and the improved communication raised awareness of the differences between North and South

20. Commerce and Industry The Expansion of Business (1820-1840), The Emergence of the Factory, and The Expansion of Industry and Technology (1840-1860)

21. The Expansion of Business (1820-1840) • American Business grew rapidly in the 1820s and 1830s for three primary reasons: • Population Growth • The Transportation Revolution • Daring imagination of entrepreneurs • Retail Distribution of goods became more efficient, especially in large cities, because specialized stores (i.e. grocery or hardware stores) began to take the place of general stores • Individuals or limited partnerships continued to operate most businesses, and the dominating figures in those businesses were merchant capitalists. • Larger businesses were giving way to corporations, which were beneficial because they had the ability to combine the resources of a large number of shareholders

22. The Expansion of Business(Continued) • Corporations began to grow in the 1830s as a result of reformed state laws. Previously, large corporations could only obtain a charter by a special act of state legislature, but because of new general incorporation laws that were passed, charters could be secured by merely paying a fee. • This is significant because it meant stockholders risked only the fee to obtain a charter if the corporation failed, which led to more daring business ventures among stockholders. • Large businesses relied on credit, and their borrowing often led to dangerous instabilities, due to the fact that the gold and silver standards of the government led to too little money to support the growing demands for credit. • Led to private banks issuing less stable notes, and thus frequent bank failures and insecure deposits.

23. The Emergence of the Factory Prior to the War of 1812, most American manufacturers worked within private households or in small workshops using the putting-out system. Improved technology and increased product demand led to the emergence of factories First factories were in New England, and they produced textile-based goods. These factories began to rely on large water-powered machines for increased production

24. The Emergence of the Factory(Continued) • By the 1820s, factories began to produce shoes, which were still largely handmade • By the 1830s, factories began to produce more than just textile-based products, and began to spread throughout the entire Northeastern United States • By the 1840s, American technology had become so advanced that Industrialists from Europe visited the United States to learn new techniques

25. The Expansion of Industry and Technology (1840-1860) • In 1840, the total value of manufactured goods in the United States was roughly $483 Million. By 1860, that number had quadrupled—reaching close to $2 Billion. • Most manufacturing establishments were in the Northeast, and the plants there were so large that the region produced more than two-thirds of the nation’s manufactured goods. • In the early 1840s, even the most advanced industries were still immature and couldn’t completely meet the demands of Americans. For example, the cotton industry could only produce coarse products, and the fine items continued to be imported from England; however, technology and ingenuity helped clear up this problem • Better machine tools allowed for wide use of interchangeable parts, and thus there were better functional uses for already-advanced machinery • New power sources began to develop and aid in industrialization • Coal replaced wood as an industrial fuel, and it was also generating power in steam engines. This allowed mills and factories the ability to generate power away from running water sources, and thus factories spread even more into the interior of the US.

26. The Expansion of Industry andTechnology (Continued) • Great Technological advances were due to American inventors • Charles Goodyear vulcanized rubber, which revolutionized the rubber industry • Elias Howe and Isaac Singer combined to produce the Howe-Singer sewing machine, which was useful in manufacturing ready-to-wear clothing • By the 1850s, the Merchant Capitalists were declining due to British competition stealing export trade. • Merchants themselves found that there were greater opportunities for profit in manufacturing than in trade • Merchant capitalists left their mercantile operations and invested in factories, often becoming the operators of them • Industries developed in the Northeast because the Merchant capitalists could finance factories there • Ownership of American enterprise began to move away from individuals and towards a collection of stockholders, each owning a small portion of the enterprise • Industrial capitalists, the aristocrats of the Northeast, became the new ruling class

27. Men and Women at Work Recruiting a Native Work Force, The Immigrant Work Force, The Factory System and the Artisan Tradition, and Fighting for Control

28. Recruiting a Native Work Force • 90 percent of people in the 1820s lived or worked on farms • Many skilled artisans in the urban areas owned small businesses. There were few who lived in cities to work in factories. • Transformation of agriculture brought about industrial workers • New farmland in Midwest improved transportation systems, and new farm machinery all worked to increase food productions • Food could be imported from other regions • Bad farming areas in East declined • People from the New England area moved to factories because of farming limits • Recruiting labor for textile mills: • Mid-Atlantic states- whole families worked in factories • Massachusetts- Young women brought to work • Factory conditions, in the early years, better than that of England’s factories • Working children usually supervised by parents

29. Recruiting a Native Work Force (Continued) • “Lowell mills a female paradise by comparison” to conditions in England • Clean boarding and dormitories, maintained by Lowell factory • Strict curfews and rules for attending church • Women fed well and supervised • Published monthly magazine, Lowell Offspring • Paid low wages, but sufficient for the time • Women were not allowed to perform strenuous manual labor, so factory work was their only option • Over time, factory conditions became worse, wages were lowered, and hours increased • The Factory Girls Association, a union of Lowell workers, went on strike because of 25 percent wage cuts in 1834, and again in 1836 because of increased boarding costs. Both strikes failed, and the association dissolved over time. The new association went to state governments for legislatorial changes. • Women later shifted into new jobs, while immigrants began working in factories

30. The Lowell Mills

31. The Immigrant Work Force • In the 1840s, there was a great influx of immigrant workers • This caused lower wages and longer work hours for workers. • The factories became unsanitary, noisy, and obsessed with efficiency.

32. The Immigrant Work Force(Continued) • Irish immigrants worked in textile mills in the mid nineteenth century.  • They accepted lower wages and made organizing unions more difficult • Because they were unfamiliar to the country and there were so many of them, immigrants had less leverage than women did to good working conditions in factories.

33. The Factory System and the Artisan Tradition • In response to factories, artisans began to ban together in unions in order to protect their businesses. • Soon after, factory workers began making unions. • In the 1830s, national unions and federations of local unions started to form. • In 1834, the National Trades’ Union was founded by delegates from six cities.

34. Fighting For Control • In 1842, Massachusetts was involved in the landmark court case Commonwealth v. Hunt. • This declared unions lawful and strike a lawful weapon • Massachusetts was the first state to do so.

35. Fighting for Control(Continued) • Many factory unions found it difficult to incite change • This was due to the influx of immigrants in the US, workers’ inability to work together, and the lack of members in the unions. • Most craft unions excluded women • This caused women to form their own unions.

36. Patterns of Society The Rich and the Poor, Social Mobility, Middle-Class Life, The Changing Family, Women and the “Cult of Domesticity,” and Leisure Activities

37. The Rich and the Poor • The Industrial Revolution made America very wealthy, but the wealth was not distributed equally, creating large gaps between social classes. • Slaves, unskilled workers, Indians, and landless farmers gained experienced no benefits from the economic growth. • In America in 1860, 5% of the population controlled 50% of the wealth. • Many industrialists and merchants became extremely wealthy and created a high society in the cities.

38. The Rich and the Poor(Continued) • At the same time, a large population of “paupers” began to develop in urban areas. • These people were often entirely dependent on charity and crime as a way of survival. • Many died from exposure or starvation. • Paupers were often immigrants experiencing prejudice, free blacks, orphans, or widows.

39. Social Mobility • Though there was a greater gap between the classes, there was less class conflict because of an overall higher standard of living. • There were opportunities for workers to move up the economic ladder. Few succeeded, but enough to fuel the dreams of others and prevent unrest.

40. Social Mobility(Continued) • For those who had enough money, it was possible to move out west and buy land. • Those who could not afford to move west often traveled from one urban center to another. They were called “people in motion.” • Mobility made protests and unrest virtually impossible to organize. • Hope for the future also helped prevent any uprisings.

41. Middle Class Life • Rural • Instead of the family working as an economic unit, many farmers began to hire workers. • Because of the workers, women began to participate in more domestic tasks.

42. Middle Class Life(Continued) • Urban • As people moved from rural to urban areas and jobs become more important than land, the original patriarchal system of family began to change. • Sons and daughters began to leave the house for work. • Public and Private spheres began to develop. • The birth rate in middle class families began to decrease as more people thought about the future when considering having a child.

43. The Changing Family • The farms in the Northwest became more commercialized and relied less on family labor, giving women a more domestic role • The economic family unit started to disappear with the rise of factories • Women who did not have a job in the factories were usually in charge of domestic issues

44. The Changing Family Families had fewer children during this time due to increased family planning, organization, and increased abstinence. This painting shows an ideal middle-class family during this time in American History

45. Women and the “Cult of Domesticity” • Women were expected to be obedient and benevolent to their husbands • Middle Class men became the primary sources of income, leaving the women to rear the children, cook, and clean. • Women protected the “domestic values” and family unit

46. Women and the “Cult of Domesticity”(Continued) • During this time, the “cult of domesticity” governed their actions and activities • The Cult of Domesticity: The role and outlook on middle-class women during the 1800’s. Women were expected to be homemakers who were obedient to their husbands. They protected the “domestic values” of the time. Women were also not supposed to communicate without the permission or supervision of their husbands, leaving many cut off from the outside world. • Many women were cut off from the outside world • Lower-class and unmarried women were expected to work or be supported by a wealthier family member

47. Leisure Activities • The working class had little time for leisure, but took advantages of holidays like the Fourth of July • Reading was one of the most popular pastimes in the upper classes, leading to the rise of newspapers and the ladies’ “sentimental novels.” • Women were very avid readers, particularly of “sentimental novels” and magazines like Godey’s Lady’s Book. These were two types of manuscripts that were deemed appropriate for women

48. Leisure Activities (Continued) • Theater, public sporting events, and lectures were popular among all classes • P.T. Barnum’s American Museum indulged in the American fascination with the wild and exotic with freak shows that included Siamese twins and midgets. • Barnum drew more people to his museum with lectures by scientists, world travelers, and clergy.

49. The Agricultural North Northeastern Agriculture, The Old Northwest, and Rural Life

50. Northeastern Agriculture • The Northeast region produced wheat, corn, grapes, cattle, sheep and hogs • After 1840, agriculture in the region underwent change and declined. • The soil in the area was not as rich as that in the Northwest, so farmers could not compete.