Hist 110
American Civilization I
Instructor: Dr. Donald R. Shaffer
Upper Iowa University
Lecture 11
Development of American Industrialization

The industrial revolution came to the
United States between 1790 and 1820
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The change involved a shift away from
the artisan system involving skilled labor
to unskilled or semi-skilled labor
involving the outwork system and/or
division of labor
The system eroded the artisan system
and artisans’ control over the
circumstances of their work, as it
increased the supply of manufactured
goods and lowered their price
Increasingly, manufacturers made use
of the factory system in production

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The factory system brought all
production under one roof
A factory did not necessarily mean the
use of machines, although increasingly
mechanization went along with factories
Outwork often involved families
working together at home
Lecture 11
British Competition in Textiles
 The greatest early mechanized industry
was textiles, an industry the British
pioneered but eventually faced stiff
American competition
 The British initially enjoyed a strong
competitive advantage, despite what
amounted to intellectual theft by their
own people like Samuel Slater who
brought textile production to the U.S.

Cheap labor, cheap trans-Atlantic
shipping, and low interest rates meant
the British could buy American cotton,
pay transportation costs both ways, and
still sell textiles for less in the U.S. than
American manufactured textiles
 Americans competed by:
Improving on the British technology
brought over by immigrants
 They also tapped into a new cheap labor
sources like young rural women and after
them immigrants
 Tariffs on British textiles also helped

The Lowell Mills of the
Boston Associates
Lecture 11
American Contributions to Industrialization
 Americans not only improved on British
industrial technology but made their
own original contributions
 Americans pioneered the development
of machine tools
 Eli Whitney
Eli Whitney
More famous for the cotton gin, he
promoted the development of
interchangeable parts
 He used this concept to fulfill a contract
for the delivery of muskets to the U.S.
government

 American System of Manufacturing
Whitney’s use of interchangeable parts
was more fully developed by Whitney’s
partner, John H. Hall, at the federal
armory at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia into
what became known as the American
System of Manufacturing
 Hall’s innovation was the creation of
machine tools, machines that created
parts with very exact specifications
 Although developed for firearms,
machine tools had wide applications

Harper’s Ferry Armory
Lecture 11
Origins of the American Labor Movement
 The industrial revolution fundamentally
changed the nature of work
As outwork and the factory system
spread, increasingly workers in
manufacturing labored for others for
wages rather than for themselves
 This was a contradiction of “Artisan
Republicanism”: the notion that the
stability of the republic needed
independent artisans who were not
dependent on others for their living

 While artisans in certain fields that were
not easily industrialized retained
something of the ideal of artisan
republicanism, in many fields the
prestige of artisans fell victim to
“deskilling”
 To defend their interests artisans began
to form labor unions (often judged by
the law as criminal conspiracies) and
promoted the labor theory of value
The factory system meant workers
came under the control of the
clock and machines
Click here
for a humorous illustration
Lecture 11
The Transportation Revolution
 Americans in the late 1700s were poorly
connected

Interior transportation, away from
waterways, in particular was slow,
expensive, and unreliable
 Turnpikes
 Building “turnpikes” or toll wagon roads
was the initial way Americans tried to
improve the transportation network
 The federal government also built the
National Road, which began in 1811 and
by 1839 had reached Illinois
 Canals
Transportation on turnpikes was still slow
and expensive which encouraged building
canals—essentially artificial rivers
 Erie Canal: built through upstate New
York it connected the Hudson River and
Lake Erie—a tremendous success
 The success of the Erie Canal led to a
canal building boom in the early 19th
century—none of which was a successful
as the Erie Canal

Route of the National Road
Lecture 11
Railroads
 The problem with canals was that they
were not only expensive, but could not
go where there was not a water source

They were vulnerable to flooding, low
water periods, and closure by freezing
during the winter
 The revolutionary solution was the
steam railroad
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
Invented and perfected by the British, it
was adapted and improved by Americans
for whom it was an ideal solution to cover
the vast interior distances of the U.S.
By the 185os, the canal boom was over
and the railroads were on their way to
supplanting canals in moving freight and
passengers, a trend which came to the
fruition by 1860s
 The railroad boom was the making of
Chicago as a center of trade and
manufacturing
The first American steam
Locomotive built in 1825
by John Steven
Lecture 11
Urban Expansion
 In the period before the Civil War, the
United States experienced a period of
tremendous urban expansion
The expansion started in the fall-line river
cities which were ideal locations for
water-powered factories
 Cities also developed on rivers west of the
Appalachian to serve the needs of
commerce, especially the transshipment
of goods
 Midwestern cities also emerged before the
Civil War, initially as commercial centers
fed by steamships and then railroads, but
also later as places for manufacturing
 The old Atlantic seaport cities continued
to grow, as they were still important
centers for foreign commerce, and
increasingly as centers of commerce and
manufacturing

 The one part of the country that
experienced little urban growth was the
South, where much of the cotton trade
was river borne which brought it down
the New Orleans for transshipment
Lecture 11
Changes in Social Structure

The industrial revolution in the U.S.
had the effect of fragmenting the
country into distinct classes and
cultures
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
Wealthy Americans increasingly set
themselves apart, no longer laboring or
associating with ordinary people
A middle class also developed with its
own identity and values
 Social Stratification
The income gap between the richest and
poorest people increased
 Increasing numbers of people did not
own their means of production

 Nonetheless, despite the fears of
political activists early in the 19th
century, lack of economic independence
did not reduce wage earners to political
pawns, slavishly following the bosses’
lead in voting

There also developed a working- class
identity and culture
Lecture 11
Reform and Benevolence
 America in the early 1800s was a viceridden nation, especially when it came to
the consumption of alcohol, which on a
per capita basis was at a historic high
 These vices and other faults in American
society became the concern of a reform
movement, the “Benevolent Empire”
They encouraged people to stop drinking
and pursued all manner of initiatives
aimed at perfecting American society
 Other reforms included abolitionism
(ending slavery), prison reform (to
rehabilitate prisoners), asylum reform (to
insure the insane were treated
humanely), as well as other reforms
aimed at dress, diet, etc

 These reformers were closely tied in to
the 2nd Great Awakening, often being
converts and leaders of the revival

While the leaders of reform were men,
the troops of the Benevolent Empire were
mostly women
A “Bloomer”: an famous example
of (failed) clothing reform
Lecture 11
Industrialization and Revivalism
 A major target of revival and reform were
the industrial working class
 For example, the famous revival leader
Charles G. Finney moved his efforts in
New York State’s “Burnt District” into
industrial towns like Rochester
Charles G. Finney
Business leaders liked his message of
salvation and reform because Finney
encouraged workers to stop drinking and
become moral and punctual employees
 While Finney’s revival found converts, he
also encountered opposition from
Rochester’s skilled workers, who felt that
the revivalist’s priorities were wrong
 They believed what Rochester needed
was higher wages for workers and
better schools for their children, not
the promise of a better life to come in
the hereafter

 Some scholars have longed charged
Finney and the business leaders with
using religion for “social control”
Antebellum Rochester, N.Y.
Lecture 11
Immigration and Cultural Conflict
 The United States experienced a
significant wave of new immigrants in
the decades preceding the Civil War
 The bulk of the new immigrants
between 1840 to 1860 came from:
Ireland (about 2 million): fleeing the
potato famine of the 1840s
 Germany (1.5 million): exiles from 1848’s
failed revolution and seeking economic
opportunity
 England/Scotland/Wales: seeking
economic opportunity

 The arrival of the Irish in particular was
controversial because they were Roman
Catholic and poor
The 2nd Great Awakening had stirred up
Protestant fervor and helped resurrect
residual anti-Catholic feelings
 These feeling manifested themselves in
anti-Catholic writings, political
movements (“The Know Nothings”), and
even riots

Anti-Irish cartoon
What messages does it seek
to convey?