The Transformation of American Society

1. The Transformation of American Society 1815-1840

2. Questions • Why did westward migration accelerate after the War of 1812? • How did the market economy develop? • What brought about the transportation and industrial revolutions that occurred and how did these affect the lives of Americans? • Who benefitted and who was hurt by the rapid economic and social transformations?

3. Western Expansion and the Growth of the Market Economy • The Sweep West • By 1821 Vermont, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama, Maine and Missouri were added to the Union • Pioneers migrated West as families and settled near rivers, canals and railroads of the 1820’s and 1830’ allowed them to spread out

4. Western Society and Customs • Life was crude and difficult • Easterners saw Westerners as rough and unrefined • Westerners saw Easterners as pretentious and gentile

5. The Far West • John Jacob Astor establishes fur trade in Oregon in 1811 • Jedidiah Smith trapped animals on the Great Plains

6. The Federal Government and the West • Midwestern settlement was encouraged by the Ordinance of 1785, Northwest Ordinance, the Louisiana Purchase, the Transcontinental Treaty of 1819, land warrants given to veterans of the War of 1812, extension of the transcontinental railroad to Illinois by 1838, and the decline of the American Indian

7. The Removal of the Indians • Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaw and Seminoles (Five Civilized Tribes) were under heavy pressure to cede their lands to whites in the South, Supreme Court ruled they could live on the land but had no right of ownership • 1830- Andrew Jackson and Congress pass the Indian Removal Act, Indians forced to move West of the Mississippi • Seminoles fight War of Resistance 1835-1842 • Cherokees were the most assimilated tribe and appealed to the Supreme Court • John Marshall and Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Indians in Worcester vs. Georgia, Georgia and jackson refused to honor the ruling

8. The Agricultural Boom • Removal of Indians • High Demand for Wheat and Corn • Eli Whitney and the cotton gin • British Textile Industry • By 1836 Cotton accounts for 2/3rds of America’s exports

9. The Rise of the Market Economy • Farmers switch from subsistence farming to commercial agriculture

10. The Risks of the Market Economy • Western Farmers had to borrow money to buy land and materials • Commercial farmers had no control over price or supply and demand in world markets

11. Federal Land Policy • Jeffersonian Republicans offered public lands in the Louisiana Territory for purchase at public auctions • Minimum land price, minimum acreage cut so small farmers could afford to purchase land • Land sold at public auctions where land speculators drove up the price • Easy credit available

12. The Speculator and the Squatter • Many poor settlers who could not afford the land simply squatted on it and appealed to the government to let them keep it. • Congress granted them this right in 1841 • When western farmers exhausted the soil fertility, they simply moved on further West

13. The Panic of 1819 • Crops prices and Western land prices drop dramatically • National Bank tightens credit and called in the bank notes of Western banks • Many of them fail. • Farmers blame the National Bank for the crisis • Western Farmers want internal improvements that would cut transportation expenses

14. The Transportation Revolution: Steamboats, Canals and Railroads • By 1820 existing roads are adequate for transporting people but not products • Great Rivers become especially important after Robert Fulton’s steamboat is introduced • By 1855 727 steamboats were in operation • Americans begin to build canals in 1820’s • Between 1817 and 1825 New York constructs the Erie Canal between Albany and Buffalo • Canal building boom was deflated by the depression of the 1830’s • By 1840’s railroads began to supplement canals

15. The Growth of Cities • Transportation revolution stimulates the development of towns and cities • Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis and New Orleans • Cities like Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago and Milwaukee grow because of canals • The period from 1820 to 1860 saw the most rapid urbanization in American History

16. Industrial Beginnings • Introduction • Pawtucket Rhode Island, first cotton mill • Samuel Slater reproduced Richard Arkwright’s spinning frame • New England leads the way in industrialization • The South puts their capital in Slaves and land • Work in the North is regulated by clock and pace of the machine

17. Causes of Industrialization • Embargo Act of 1807 • War of 1812 and High Tariffs • Transportation Improvements • Labor saving techniques such as Eli Whitney’s interchangeable parts

18. Textile Towns in New England • Merchants are hard hit because of the Embargo • Foreign trade disruption • Fast flowing rivers • Population for labor • Waltham and Lowell Mills- Young Women/Mill Towns • Strikes and Protests

19. Artisans and Workers in Mid-Atlantic Cities • Skilled laborers are in decline leading to skilled unions of workers • Shoes, saddles, cloth moved from skilled small shops to large unskilled factories

20. Equality and Inequality • Growing Inequality: The Rich and The Poor • New York Five Points slums • Pauper classes- widows, orphans, destitute, Irish Immigrants (Far and Away)

21. Free Blacks in the North • Discrimination • Segregated schools • Richard Allen- AME Zion Congregation 1816

22. The Middling Classes • Standard of living of the middling classes rose from 1800-1860 • Moved from neighborhood to neighborhood, city to city, region to region

23. The Revolution in Social Relationships • The Attack on the Professions • Criticism of Doctors, Lawyers, Ministers 1820-1850 • Economic changes disrupting traditional relationships

24. The Challenge to Family Authority • Children became more likely to question authority • Young men left home at an earlier age • Young women make their own choices as to who to marry

25. Wives, Husbands • Wives legally subordinate • Separate spheres- areas where women are particularly competent • Moral influence on the family • Home is a refuge • Frequency of their pregnancies • Middle Class families decline in size

26. Horizontal Allegiances and the Rise of Voluntary Associations • Temperance and Moral Reform Societies • Union and Workingman’s Parties • Fraternal Clubs and Organizations

27. Conclusion • After 1815 Americans moved West due to demand for Agricultural products • Removal of Indians and Government programs also contributed to Western Movement • Transportation Revolution- Steamboat, Railroads, Canals facilitated movement of Western products to Eastern Markets • Market Economy made some wealthy but created a deeper division of wealth