Chapter 14

1. Chapter 14 Forging the National Economy, 1790–1860

2. I. The Westward Movement • The rise of Andrew Jackson, the first president from beyond the Appalachian Mountains, exemplified the inexorable westward march. • The Republic late 1850s: • Half of Americans were under the age of 30 • By 1840 the “demographic center” of the American population map had crossed the Alleghenies (see Map 14.1). • By the eve of the Civil War, it had marched across the Ohio River.

3. I. The Westward Movement(cont.) • Life across the Ohio River: • Life was downright grim for most pioneer families • Perpetual victims of diseases, depression, and premature death • Unbearable loneliness, especially for the women • Breakdowns and madness were all too frequent • Frontier life could be tough and crude for men as well

4. I. The Westward Movement(cont.) • Pioneering Americans, marooned by geography, were often ill-informed, superstitious, provincial, and fiercely individualistic. • Popular literature abounded with portraits of unique, isolated figures. • Even in the days of “rugged individualism” there were exceptions. • Pioneers called upon their neighbors for help and upon the government for internal improvements.

5. Map 14-1 p277

6. II. Shaping the Western Landscape • The westward movement also molded the physical environment: • The American West felt the pressure of civilization: • By the 1820s American trappers were trapping in the vast Rocky Mountain region • The fur-trapping empire was based on the rendezvous (French for “meeting” system • Trappers and Indians would come together to trade beaver pelts for manufactured goods from the East.

7. II. Shaping the Western Landscape(cont.) • The beaver had all but disappeared from the region • The buffalo eventually were totally annihilated • On the California coast, other traders brought sea-otter pelts, driving to the point of near-extinction. • Some historians called this aggressive and heedless exploitation of the West’s natural bounty ecological imperialism. • Yet Americans in this period revered nature and admired its beauty. • Many found the wild, unspoiled character of the land, especially the West, to be among the young nation’s defining attributes.

8. II. Shaping the Western Landscape(cont.) • America had the pristine, natural beauty, unspoiled by human hands • This national mystique inspired literature and painting and a powerful conservation movement. • George Catlin, a painter and student of Native American life, was among the first to advocate the preservation of nature as a deliberate national policy. • He proposed the creation of a national park, beginning with Yellowstone Park in 1872.

9. III. The March of the Millions • As the American people moved West, they also multiplied at an amazing rate: • By midcentury the population was doubling every twenty-five years (see Figure 14:1) • By 1860 the thirteen colonies had more than doubled in numbers; 33 stars graced the flag • The United States was the fourth most populous nation in the western world: • Exceeded only by Russia, France, and Austria.

10. III. The March of the Millions(cont.) • Urban growth continued explosively: • 1790 only two American cities that could boast populations of 20,000—Philadelphia, New York • 1860 there were 43 and 300 claimed over 5,000 • New York was the metropolis; New Orleans, the “Queen of the South;” and Chicago, the swaggering lord of the Midwest—destined to be “hog butcher for the world.”

11. III. The March of the Millions(cont.) • Over-rapid urbanization brought undesirable by-products: • It intensified the problems of smelly slums, feeble street lighting, inadequate policing, impure water, foul sewage, ravenous rats, and improper garbage disposal • Boston (1823) pioneered a sewer system • New York (1842) abandoned wells and cisterns for a piped-in water supply, thus eliminating the breeding place for many disease-carrying mosquitoes

12. III. The March of the Millions(cont.) • A continuing high birthrate accounted for the increase in population: • By the 1830s the rate of increase was 60,000 a year • The influx tripled in the 1840s and then quadrupled in the 1850s • During the 1840s and 1850s a million and half Irish, and nearly as many Germans came (see Table 14.1)

13. III. The March of the Millions(cont.) • Why did they come? • Partly because Europe seemed to be running out of room; had “surplus people” • Majority headed for the “land of freedom and opportunity” • The introduction of transoceanic steamships meant that immigrants could come speedily and cheaply • The United States received a far more diverse array of immigrants than other countries • The United States beckoned them from dozens of different nations

14. Figure 14-1 p279

15. Table 14-1 p279

16. IV. The Emerald Isle Moves West • Ireland was prostrated in the mid-1840s: • 2 million perished as a result of the potato famine • 10,000s fled the Land of Famine for the Land of Plenty in the “Black Forties” • Ireland’s great export has been population, they took their place beside the Jews and the Africans as a dispersed people: (see “Makers of America: The Irish,” pp. 282-283) • Many swarmed into the larger seaboard cities.

17. IV. The Emerald Isle Moves West(cont.) • Boston and particularly New York became the largest Irish city in the world • The Irish did not receive red-carpet treatment • The friendless “famine Irish” were forced to fend for themselves • The Ancient Order of Hibernians, a semisecret society founded in Ireland to fight rapacious landlords, served in America as a benevolent society, ailing the downtrodden • It also helped to spawn the Molly Maguires, a shadowy Irish miner’s union that rocked the Pennsylvania coal districts in the 1860s and 1870s

18. IV. The Emerald Isle Moves West(cont.) • Irish conditions in America: • They tended to remain in low-skill occupations • Gradually improved their lot, usually by acquiring modest amounts of property • The education of children was cut short • Property ownership counted as a grand “success” • Politics attracted these Gaelic newcomers • They gained control of powerful city machines, notably New York’s Tammany Hall, and reaped the patronage rewards

19. Iv. The Emerald Isle Moves West(cont.) • American politicians made haste to cultivate the Irish vote: • Especially in the politically potent state of New York • Irish hatred of the British lost nothing in the transatlantic transplanting • Nearly 2 million arrived between 1830 and 1860—and Washington glimpsed political gold in those emerald green hills

20. V. The German Forty-Eighters • The influx of refugees from Germany between 1830 and 1860 was hardly less spectacular than that from Ireland • Over a million and a half Germans stepped onto American soil (see “Makers of America: The Germans,” pp. 286-287) • The bulk were uprooted farmers • Some were liberal political refugees • Germany’s loss was America’s gain

21. V. The German Forty-Eighters(cont.) • Germans: • Carl Schurz was a relentless foe of slavery and public corruption • They possessed a modest amount of materials goods • Most pushed to the lush lands of the Middle West, notably Wisconsin for farming • They formed an influential body of voters whom American politicians wooed • They were less potent politically since they were more widely scattered

22. V. The German Forty-Eighters(cont.) • The hand of the Germans in shaping American life was widely felt: • The Conestoga wagon, the Kentucky rifle, and the Christmas tree were all German contributions • They warmly supported public schools, including their Kindergarten (children's garden) • They did much to stimulate music and the arts • They were relentless enemies of slavery

23. V. The German Forty-Eighters(cont.) • They were sometimes dubbed “damned Dutchmen”: • Were regarded with suspicion • Seeking to preserve their language and customs, they sometimes settled in compact “colonies” • Keeping aloof from the surrounding communities • Accustomed to “Continental Sunday” and uncurbed by Puritan tradition, they made merry on Sunday • Their Old World drinking habits spurred advocates of temperance to redouble their efforts

24. VI. Flare-ups of Antiforeignism • The invasion of the immigrants in the 1840s and 1850s inflamed the prejudices of American “nativists” • They feared they would outbreed, outvote, and overwhelm the old “native” stock • They took jobs from “native” Americans • They were Roman Catholics • The Church of Rome was regarded as out of line by many old-line Americans as a “foreign” church.

25. VI. Flare-ups of Antiforeignism(cont.) • Roman Catholics were on the move: • To avoid Protestant indoctrination in public schools, they began in the 1840s to construct an entirely separate Catholic educational system: • Very expensive undertaking, but revealed the strength of their commitment • With the Irish and German influx, the Catholics became a powerful religious group • In 1840 they ranked fifth behind the Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians and Congregationalists

26. VI. Flare-ups of Antiforeignism(cont.) • Know-Nothing Party—organized by American “nativists” for political action: • Agitated for rigid restriction on immigration and naturalization • Agitated for laws authorizing the deportation of alien paupers • Promoted a lurid literature of exposure, much of pure fiction • Example: Maria Monk’s Awful Disclosures

27. VI. Flare-ups of Antiforeignism(cont.) • There was even occasional mass violence against Catholics: • Burning their churches and schools • Some killed and wounded in days of fighting • Immigrants were undeniably making America a more pluralistic society: • One of the most ethnically and racially diverse • Thus the wonder that cultural clashes occurred

28. VI. Flare-ups of Antiforeignism(cont.) • The American economy: • Attracted immigrants and ensured them of the share of American wealth without jeopardizing the wealth of others • They helped fuel economic expansion • Immigrants and the American economy needed each other • Together they help bring the Industrial Revolution

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30. VII. Creeping Mechanization • Gifted British inventors in 1750s perfected a series of machines for mass production of textiles: • They harnessed steam to usher in the modern factory system—the Industrial Revolution • Resulting in a spectacular transformation in agriculture • As well as in methods of transportation and communication

31. VII. Creeping Mechanization(cont.) • The factory system spread from Britain— “the world’s workshop”. • Why was America to become an industrial giant? • Land was cheap in America • Labor was scarce • Money for capital investment was not plentiful • The future of industrialization had to wait until the middle of the nineteenth century in America

32. VIII. Whitney Ends the Fiber Famine • Samuel Slater— “Father of the Factory System” • After memorizing the plans for the machinery, he escaped to America • He won the backing of Moses Brown, a Quaker capitalist in Rhode Island: • Laboriously reconstructing the essential apparatus in 1791 he put together the first efficient American machinery for spinning cotton thread

33. VIII. Whitney Ends the Fiber Famine (cont.) • Where was the cotton fiber: • Insatiable demand for cotton riveted the chains of the downtrodden southern blacks • Slave-driving planters cleared more land for cotton • Cotton Kingdom pushed westward • Yankee machines put out avalanches of cotton • The American phase of the Industrial Revolution, first blossomed in cotton textiles, was well on its way.

34. VIII. Whitney Ends the Fiber Famine (cont.) • Factories first flourished in New England: • Then branched out to New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania • The South: • Increasingly was wedded to the production of cotton • Had little manufacturing • Its capital was bound up in slaves • Its local consumers for the most part were desperately poor

35. VIII. Whitney Ends the FiberFamine (cont.) • New England was singularly favored as an industrial center because: • Its narrow belt of stony soil made farming difficult and manufacturing attractive • a relatively dense population provided labor and accessible markets • shipping brought in capital • seaports made easy the import of raw materials and the export of the finish product

36. VIII. Whitney Ends the Fiber Famine (cont.) • The rivers, notably the Merrimack in Mass., provided abundant water power. • By 1860 more than 400 million pounds of southern cotton poured into the mills, mostly in New England.

37. IX. Marvels in Manufacturing • As the factory system flourished it embraced numerous other industries: • The manufacturing of firearms and the contribution of Eli Whitney: • Interchangeable parts adopted in 1850 • Became the basis of modern mass-production, assembly-line methods • It gave the North the vast industrial plant that ensured military preponderance over the South

38. IX. Marvels in Manufacturing(cont.) • Ironically Whitney, by perfecting the cotton gin, gave slavery a renewed lease on life • By popularizing the principle of interchangeable parts, Whitney helped factories to flourish in the North, giving the Union a decided advantage. • The sewing machine: • Invented by Elias Howe in 1846 • Perfected by Isaac Singer • Gave strong boost to northern industrialization • Became the foundation of the ready-made clothing

39. IX. Marvels in Manufacturing(cont.) • Drove many seamstresses from the shelter of the private home to the factory—human robot—tended the clattering mechanisms • Each new invention stimulated still more imaginative inventions: • Decade ending in 1800: only 306 patents were registered in Washington • Decade ending in 1860: there were 28,000 • In 1838 the clerk of the Patent Office resigned in despair, complaining that all worthwhile inventions had been discovered

40. IX. Marvels in Manufacturing(cont.) • Technical advances: • Changes in the form and legal status of business organizations: • The principle of limited liability aided the concentration of capital • The Boston Associates was created by 15 Boston families • Laws of “free incorporation” meant that businessmen could create corporation without applying for individual charters from the legislature

41. IX. Marvels in Manufacturing(cont.) • Samuel F. B. Morse: • Inventor of the telegraph • Secured from Congress an appropriation of $30,000 to support his experiment with “talking wires” • In 1844 he strung a wire 40 miles from Washington to Baltimore and tapped out the historic message, “What hath God wrought?”

42. IX. Marvels in Manufacturing (cont.) • By the time of the London World’s Fair in 1851, known as the Great Exhibition: • American products were prominent among the world’s commercial wonders • Fairgoers crowded into the Crystal Palace to see: • McCormick’s reaper, Morse’s telegraph, Colt’s firearms, and Charles Goodyear’s vulcanized rubber goods.

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44. X. Workers and “Wage Slaves” • The factory system created an increasingly acute labor problem: • Manufacturing had been done in the home: • Master craftsman and his apprentice worked together • The Industrial Revolution submerged this personal association into impersonal ownership of stuffy factories in “spindle cities” • Around these the slumlike hovels of the “wage slaves” tended to cluster

45. X. Workers and “Wage Slaves”(cont.) • Workers’ conditions: • Working people wasted away at their benches • Hours were long, wages were low, meals skimpy and hastily gulped • Workers forced to toil in unsanitary buildings, poorly ventilated, lighted, and heated • They were forbidden to form unions to raise wages Thus there were only 24 recorded strikes before 1835

46. X. Workers and “Wage Slaves”(cont.) • Exploitation of child labor: • In 1820 a significant number of the nation’s industrial toilers were children under ten • Victims of factory labor, many children were mentally blighted, emotionally starved, physically stunted, and brutally whipped in special “whipping rooms” • Samuel Slater’s mill of 1791: the first machine tenders were 7 boys and 2 girls, all under 12.

47. X. Workers and “Wage Slaves”(cont.) • Lot of adult wage workers in 1820s-1830s: • Many states granted the laboring man the vote • He first strove to lightened his burden through workingmen’s parties • Many workers gave their loyalty to the Democratic Party of Andrew Jackson: • In addition to goals of ten-hour day, higher wages, and tolerable working conditions, they demanded public education for their children and an end to inhuman practice of imprisonment for debt

48. X. Workers and “Wage Slaves”(cont.) • Employers: • Fought the ten-hour day • Argued reduced hours would lessen production • Increase costs, and demoralize the workers • Laborers would have so much leisure time that the Devil would lead them to mischief • In 1840 President Van Buren established the ten-hour day for federal employees on public works. • In ensuing years many states began reducing the hours of working people.

49. X. Workers and “Wage Slaves”(cont.) • Day laborers tried to improve their lot: • Their strongest weapon was to lay down their tools • Dozens of strikes erupted in the 1830s and 1840s: • For higher wages, ten-hour days and goals such as the right to smoke on the job • Workers usually lost most strikes than they won • Employers imported strike-breakers • Labor raised its voice against these immigrants

50. X. Workers and “Wage Slaves”(cont.) • Labor’s effort to organize: • Netted some 300,000 trade unionists by 1830 • Suffered as a result of the severe depression, 1837 • Toilers won a promising legal victory in 1842 • Commonwealth v. Hunt—Mass. Supreme Court—labor unions were not illegal conspiracies, provided that their methods were “honorable and peaceful.” • This case did not legalize the strike overnight • Trade unions had a long road to go