Chapter 13 Section 1
Life in the North
Technology and Industry
• Industrialization changed the way
Americans worked, traveled, and
communicated.
• In the North, manufacturers made
products by dividing tasks among
workers.
• They built factories to bring specialized
workers together. Products could be
made more quickly.
•
Mass production of cotton textiles began in
New England after Elias Howe invented the
sewing machine in 1846.
• By 1860 factories in the northeast produced
about two-thirds of the country’s manufactured
goods.
• Advances in transportation sparked the
success of many new industries.
1. Robert Fulton’s steamboat, developed in 1807,
enabled goods and passengers to move along
inland waterways more cheaply and quickly.
Elias Howe
Sewing Machine
2. Thousands of miles of roads and canals
were built between 1800 and 1850,
connecting many lakes and rivers.
3. Canal builders widened and deepened
the canals in the 1840’s so steamboats
could pass through. Steamboats
created the growth of cities such as
Chicago, Cincinnati, and Buffalo.
4. Clipper, or sailing, ships were built in the
1840’s to go faster, almost as fast as
steam ships. They could travel an
average of 300 miles per day.
5. Railroad growth in the 1840s and 1850s
connected places that were far apart.
Early railroads connected mines with
nearby rivers. Horses, not locomotives,
powered the early railroads.
a. The first steam-powered locomotive, the
Rocket, began operating in Britain in
1829.
b. Peter Cooper designed and built the first
American steam locomotive, Tom
Thumb, in 1830.
Peter Cooper
Tom Thumb
6. A railway network in 1860 of nearly 31,000
miles of track linked cities in the North and
Midwest. Railway builders tied the eastern lines
to lines built farther west so that by 1860, a
network united the East and Midwest.
7. Railways transformed trade and settlement in
the nation’s interior. With the Erie Canal and
Railway network between the East and West,
grain, livestock, and dairy products moved
directly from the Midwest to the East. Prices
were lower because goods traveled faster and
more cheaply.
• People needed to communicate faster to keep
up with the industrial growth and faster travel
methods.
• Samuel Morse developed the telegraph in
1844. It used electric signals to send messages
along wires. To transmit messages, Morse
developed the Morse code, using a series of
dots and dashes to represent the letters of the
alphabet.
• By 1860 the United States had constructed more
than 50,000 miles of telegraph lines.
Morse Code
Samuel Morse
Agriculture
• Farmers were able to sell their products in
new markets as a result of the railroads
and canals.
• New inventions changed farming methods
and also encouraged settlers to develop
larger areas in the West thought to be to
difficult to farm.
1. John Deere invented the steel-tipped plow in
1837. Its steel-tipped blade cut through hard
soil more easily than previous plows, which
used wood blades.
2. The mechanical reaper sped up harvesting
wheat. Cyrus McCormick designed and
constructed and made a fortune in
Manufacturing it and selling it. The mechanical
reaper harvested grain much faster than a
hundred hand operated sickles. Farmers
began planting more wheat because they
could harvest it faster. Growing wheat became
profitable.
John Deere
Steel-Tipped Plow
Cyrus McCormick
Mechanical Thrasher
3. The Thresher separated the grain from the
stalk.
• Midwestern farmers grew large quantities of
wheat and shipped it east. Farmers in the
Northeast and Middle Atlantic states increased
production of fruits and vegetables because
they grew well in Eastern soil.
• Agriculture was not a mainstay of the North.
Farming the rocky soil was difficult. Instead,
the North continued to grow industrially.
• More and more people worked in factories,
and the problems connected with factory labor
also grew.