Brinkley, Chapter 10 “America’s Economic Revolution”
Main themes of Chapter Ten:

The nature of the rapid immigration and urban growth between 1820 and 1840, and its effect on the nation's
economic, social, and political systems

The pronounced effect of the transportation and communications revolutions of the 1820s and 1830s on the
American economy

The transformation in women's social and economic roles as a consequence of the factory system

The social changes wrought by America's economic revolution in the fields of public leisure and northern
agriculture
A thorough study of Chapter Ten should enable the student to understand the following:
1. The significant changes taking place within the nation in terms of population growth, population movement,
urbanization, and immigration
2. The reasons for the appearance of the nativist movement in the 1850s
3. The importance of the Erie Canal for the development of both the West and New York City
4. The influence of burgeoning railroad and telegraph networks on the economic development of the United States
5. The transformations taking place in business, industry, labor, and commerce as the full impact of the industrial
revolution was felt in the United States
6. The vast changes taking place in the Northeast as agriculture declined while urbanization and industrialization
progressed at a rapid rate
7. The patterns of society, including social inequality, familial relationships, and leisure activities, that characterize
early nineteenth-century American life
8. The living and working conditions of both men and women in the northern factory towns and on the northwestern
farms
Key Persons / Events / Terms / Concepts







Population increase – birth rate
Population increase – immigration
Rapidly growing cities of the
Northeast (New York, Boston,
Philadelphia)
Rapidly growing cities of the
Midwest (St. Louis, Pittsburgh,
Cincinnati, Louisville)
Important river ports and new
urban centers near the Great Lakes
(New Orleans, Buffalo, Detroit,
Milwaukee, Cleveland, Chicago
German immigrants and reasons
why they came
Irish immigrants and reasons why
they came








Difference in settlement patterns
of Irish and German
Nativism as an ideology
The Native American Party
(“Know-Nothings”)
The canal age – economic
advantages
Importance of the Erie Canal
Introduction of railroads, and
timeline of when they supplanted
other means of transportation
How railroads shifted economic
and sectional connections
Who financed the expansion of
railroads?









Samuel B. Morse and the
telegraph
Western Union
Associated Press
Newspapers: from unifying
factor to feeding sectional
discord
Emergence of the corporation
Emergency of the factory
Eli Whitney and interchangeable
parts
Importance of Charles
Goodyear, Elias Howe, Isaac
Singer
Decline of merchant capitalism











Transformation of agriculture
from Northeast to Midwest
The Lowell (Waltham) system for
factory workers
Reasons for decline of the Lowell
system
Decline of conditions in the
factories
Decline of the artisan tradition
National trade unions
Commonwealth v. Hunt
Increasing inequality of wealth
The urban poor
Social mobility in the US
Geographic mobility in the US









Significance of the American
middle class
Changing domestic patterns,
particularly in houses
Changing family patterns as the
economic roles shifted
Falling birth rates
Women and the “cult of
domesticity”
The notion of “separate spheres”
Godey’s Lady’s Book
Working class women and the
worsening working conditions
Leisure time – the importance of
Sundays









Importance of the Fourth of July
Minstrel shows
The popularity of Shakespeare’s
plays, P.T. Barnum shows
Truck farming in the Northeast
Ties between agriculture and
industrialization for the Northeast
Ties between the Northeast and
the Northwest
John Deere and his steel plow
Cyrus McCormick and his
automatic reaper
Importance of religion in rural
communities