- Transformation of the Economy and Society in Antebellum America

1. - Transformation of the Economy and Society in Antebellum America The transportation revolution and creation of a national market economy Beginnings of industrialization and changes in social and class structures Immigration and nativist reaction Planters, yeoman farmers, and slaves in the cotton South

2. The transportation revolution and creation of a national market economy • Through the first decades of the 1800s, several critical developments occurred in the national transportation infrastructure, linking the previously isolated regions of the country, and leading to a far more unified national market economy. • The lack of maintained roadways linking the agrarian south and west with the markets of the east was a real problem for unifying the national economy. A major improvement came with the Cumberland Road (aka National Road), a trans-Appalachian highway linking Cumberland, MD (on the Potomac), with Wheeling, WV- and thus linking the east with the Ohio River valley. Begun in the 1810s, It was the first road built with federal monies, a controversial subject in its day. Federal sponsorship of road building dried up in the ensuing years, but state-funded turnpikes and other public roads continued rapidly to weave a web of commerce between cities, towns, burgs, and villages across the nation. • River traffic also increased dramatically from the 1810s forward, as steam-powered boats began to ply the waterways, carrying commerce both down and upstream, in all tides and wind. Shipping of all manner expanded exponentially through the antebellum period. • Another important improvement to the national transportation infrastructure was the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825. This vital water link between the Great Lakes and the Hudson River connected the produce of the Ohio River Valley and Great Lakes region with New York City, laying the groundwork for its rise as the preeminent commercial center of the nation. • Arguably the most important transportation development for the future of the United States was the introduction of railroads in the 1830s. Through the 1840s and 1850s , railroad growth exploded (again mostly in the North), providing both personal freedom of movement and bulk freight capacity to further connect markets in small towns and big cities far and wide. • In all cases the result was a reciprocal “market” economy- agricultural and other raw goods were sent east, while finished goods from the rapidly expanding manufacturing sector in eastern cities were shipped south and west.

3. Beginnings of industrialization and changes in social and class structures • Industrialization (the conversion of manufacturing from “hand-made” to machine-made) began in England in the 1750s, but had taken little root in the United States until Jefferson’s non-intercourse and embargo acts forced capitalization of some domestic industry- primarily textiles, and primarily in commerce-minded New England. • Firearms were also an early product to be industrialized. The ingenious Eli Whitney again provided a landmark development in the nation’s economic destiny by innovating “interchangeable parts” for guns, and the foundations of the factory system. • But this early industrialization was quite slow going at first. American industry could not compete with the much larger and more efficient British manufacturers, although nascent American manufacturing was aided somewhat by a protectionist tariff passed in 1816. • After 1820 or so, industrialization picked up speed dramatically, though still confined almost wholly to the north. This concentration of industrialization in the north would prove to be the critical advantage of the northern states during the Civil War. • One important effect of early industrialization were changes in social and class structures of American society. As industrialism spread throughout the bustling northeastern cities, acute labor needs drew many from the farm to the factory floor. While the emergent capitalist/merchant class grew incredibly rich from manufacturing, this new class of factory laborers did not share equally in the fruits of industrialization. Living in crowded urban slums, these “wage slaves” toiled in dangerous conditions for long hours and very little pay- and with little hope to ever break free. • As industrialization continued to spread, labor needs became even more critical, spawning the largest wave of immigration since the colonial period.

4. Immigration and nativist reaction • Immigration rates remained quite modest through the early federal period, slowing to a trickle during the War of 1812. Not until the 1820s-30s did immigration begin to rise significantly. Most of these were Germans and Irish, fleeing oppressive conditions in Europe for the promise of cheap land and better opportunities in the United States. • They filtered into the rapidly growing western towns, and teemed in the slums of industrializing cities in the east. They brought their language, culture, and religion with them, spawning in reaction the beginnings of a “nativist” movement that openly and sometimes violently opposedtheir presence. • Nativist sentiments reached new heights in the late 1840s, as close to 800,000 Irish, escaping a devastating potato famine, poured into cities along the eastern seaboard. Native-born Americans (hence- “nativism”) resented the sudden influx, and in the context of theSecond Great Awakening, especially resented their Catholic faith. Through the 1850s nativism was ingrained enough to be the central plank of a minor political party- The American Party, aka the “Know Nothings.”

5. Planters, yeoman farmers, and slaves in the cotton South • The basic social structures established in the colonial and early federal South were replicated as the southern frontier was extended through the first half of the 1800s. • An oligarchic planter elite- a tiny fraction, proportionately, of southern populations- controlled nearly all of the best lands and held virtually all the political and socio-economic power. • A second tier of the ladder was the “small” slave-owner, (less than 10, most often 1 or 2)- Slave-owners as a whole made up about 25% of the population of the South. Most worked side-by-side with their slaves on rather modest farms. • The mass of southerners, however, owned no slaves. These small landholders made up a majority of the southern population, but were often relegated to the fringes of the best agricultural lands. They eked out a living on subsistence farms. Social mobility was not impossible among the yeoman class, but rare. • At the bottom of the southern hierarchy were the nearly 4 million slaves who toiled from sun-up to sundown (and longer) on cotton plantations large and small. Their labor, and the wealth they themselves represented, were the key to the entire economy of the South. • With nearly all the wealth in the south tied up in slaves and cotton, and controlled by a precious few who also controlled the political destiny of the South, it was inevitable they would mount an all-out defense of their institutions as anti-slavery movements gathered strength through the antebellum period.