APUSH
Weber
Agenda
Benchmark exam
Market Revolution lecture (20 minutes)
Explicating quotes from Voices of Freedom in groups
(15 minutes)
Individualism discussion (30 minutes)
Reading for Friday debate (time permitting)
The Factory System
Samuel Slater establishes first factory in 1790
First large scale factories in 1814 in Waltham, Mass. Then Lowell,
Mass.
Nature of work shifted from skilled artisan to that of factory worker.
Mass production of interchangeable parts assembled into
standardized products.
New England textile mills relied primarily on female and child
labor.
South lagged behind the North in terms of factory production.
Growth of Immigration
Economic expansion fueled demand for labor
German and Irish settled primarily in Northern cities.
Reasons for migration (push and pull factors)
Filled mainly low-wage unskilled jobs
Nativism
Racist reaction to immigration
Response to growing Catholic presence (Irish)
Nativists blamed immigrants for:
Urban crime
Political corruption
Alcohol abuse
Undercutting wages
Individualism
Freedom linked to availability of land (Manifest
Destiny)
National myth and ideology surrounding the “West”
Transcendentalists responded to competitive
materialists individualism of emergent capitalism with
idea of self-realization through which individuals
remake themselves and their own lives
Ralph Emerson (“Self-Reliance”)
The Second Great Awakening
Added religious element to celebration of individual
self-improvement, self-reliance, and self-determination.
Charles Grandison Finney became a national celebrity
for his preaching in upstate N.Y.
Democratized Christianity
Promoted doctrine of human free will
Used opportunities of market revolution to spread
their message
Limits of Prosperity
Opportunities for the “self-made man”
Jacob Astor and Heratio Alger
Market revolution produced a new middle class.
Barred from schools and other public facilities most
free African Americans and women were excluded
from economic opportunities.
Cult of Domesticity
New definition of femininity emerged based on values
of love, friendship, and mutual obligation
Virtue became personal moral quality
Women should find freedom fulfilling their duties in
their sphere
Early Labor Movement
Some felt that the market revolution reduced their freedom
Economic swings widened gap between rich and poor
First workingman’s parties est. 1820s
Strikes were common by the 1830s
Wage-earners evoked “liberty” when calling for
improvements in the workplace
Some described wage labor as slavery: “wage slaves”
Voices of Freedom
You picked a quote from Emerson’s “The American Scholar” and
from Orestes Brownson’s “The Laboring Classes” to explicate.
Now, share with the class in discussion groups.
1. How does Emerson define the freedom of what he calls “the
single individual?”
2. How does Brownson define economic freedom for workers?
3. What does the contrast between these two documents suggest
about the impact of the market revolution in America?
Individualism
What are some examples of individualism, the
competitive me-first attitude, in modern society?
How do you think these things came about? Are they
products of human nature or of social convention?
Do you think there are different kinds of
individualism? If so, how would you classify them?
Emerson’s Individual
Focus quote:
“It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion;
it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great
individual is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps
with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”
Ch. 10 Politics
We will be debating whether the election of 1828 was a
democratic revolution tomorrow.
Read ch. 10 in preparation and for Thursday’s test.