Economic
• Westward Migration:
ANTEBELLUM
ERA
Economic, Social,
and Intellectual Trends
American Population
Centers in 1860!
– need non-depleted soil
– purchase land or “squatter sovereignty”
– population growth (doubled every 20 yrs!)
Population
centers in
1820
Transportation Revolution
• Lancaster Turnpike (1790)
Conestoga Wagons
• heavy freight
• link to RRs
• to/from frontier stores
and settlements
• National/Cumberland Road
by 1832 over 2400 mi of roads
fed $$$ used for construction
Transportation Revolution
Inland Freight Rates
•Steamboats
Robert Fulton’s Clermont sailed up
the Hudson River in 1807
(NYC to Albany)
• Canals
in 1820s and 1830s, linked all major
lakes and rivers east of MS River
linked western farms/eastern cities
lower food prices in East
more immigrants settled West
Erie completed in 1825
How were
canals &
roads
funded??
1
Transportation Revolution
• Clipper Ships
400 miles/day
high $$ cargo
not practical for wide range of
products
• Railroads
MOST reliable/rapid of all
by 1830s, RR’s were competing with
canals as an alternative method for
carrying passengers/freight
new cities become commercial
centers (Detroit, Cincinnati, Chicago)
immigrants built the northern RRs
slaves built the southern RRs
Inventors and Inventions
1. John Deere
A. cotton gin (1793)
2. Cyrus Field
B. interchangeable parts rifle
3. Elias Howe and Isaac C. “father of the factory system”
Singer
D. mechanical reaper (1831)
4. Cyrus McCormick
E. sewing machine (1840s)
5. Samuel Morse
F. steel plow (1837)
6. Samuel Slater
G. telegraph (1840)
H. transatlantic cable (1858)
7. Eli Whitney
*** big RR era not until 1850s and
beyond ***
Early Industrialization
• patents (legal protection)
• corporations form
raise capital by selling shared of stock
Limited Liability Corps
“Incorporated”
14th Amendment privileges
• factory system
end of “putting out” system
encouraged growth of financial businesses
(banking, insurance)
• labor
hard to find (lure of cheap land in West)!
Lowell Mills
young, farm middle class women
housed in company dormitories
child labor
early unions (Commonwealth of MA v. Hunt)
The “American Dream”
Americans regarded material advance as the
natural fruit of American republicanism and
proof of the country’s virtue and promise.
A German visitor in the 1840s, Friedrich List, observed:
“Anything new is quickly introduced here,
including all of the latest inventions.
There is no clinging to old ways. The
moment an American hears the word
‘invention,’ he pricks up his ears.”
Creating a Business-Friendly Climate
Supreme Court Rulings
• Charles River Bridge (1835)
• Dartmouth v. Woodward (1819)
• Fletcher v. Peck (1810)
• Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)
• McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)
A. upheld the sanctity of contracts (use twice)
B. business competition (i.e., no monopolies)
supports community interests
C. BUS constitutional; states can’t regulate a federal
institution
D. only Congress may regulate interstate commerce
Agricultural Economy
• Commercial Agriculture
farming more of commercial
enterprise
less subsistence for family:
□ cheap land/easy credit
□ new markets in eastern cities, not just
down the OH & MS Rivers to
southern markets
• King Cotton
cotton gin = higher profitability
2
Market Revolution
Social Effects
• women
• definition
dramatic changes (1800 to 1860)
gave rise to new forms of social life, politics, etc.
• economic impact
NATIONALIZING the economy through regional inter-dependence
independent, selfreliant, yeoman
farmer/artisan/shop
dependent on market
forces (supply/demand)
far beyond one’s control
no longer worked with husbands on family farms
jobs limited to domestic service or teaching
largely only for single women (Lowell was the exception!)
married women expected to be in domestic sphere
still no legal rights
yet fewer parental arranged marriages
some had fewer children
• slavery
expanded along with cotton industry
• social mobility
• specialization
farm, cities, industries adjusted production to certain products
meant end of self-sufficient households
growing interdependence of regions (esp. W and N)
Sectionalism
real wages improved
gap between rich/poor WIDENED
social mobility was generational
economic opportunities still better than in Europe
“The Industrial Juggernaut”
• definition: loyalty to a particular region
• Northeast and Old Northwest
West
North/East
South
• 1826 – 50th anniversary of independence
big celebrations!
proud of working/flexible Constitution
• while strong nationalism, sectionalism
persisted (BUS, tariffs, states’ rights, slavery)
Industrial Northeast
bound by transportation and economic growth
based on commercial farming/industrialization
manufacturing was expanding
most still agriculture
most populous region
(high birthrate, immigration)
Industrial Northeast
• textile industry
first to industrialize
expand to other consumer
goods, farming tech.
• organized labor
Commonwealth v. Hunt (1842)
limited improvement for workers
periodic depressions
employers/courts generally
hostile to unions
abundant supply of cheap
immigrant labor
• urban life
lots cities, but become crowded, disease, poor
sanitation, crime in working-class neighborhoods
still attracted lots from farms and Euro. immigrants
• African-Americans
small minority
could have family, sometimes own land
no economic/political equality
denied access to early unions
often hired as strikebreakers
3
Agricultural Northwest
Immigration: Changes North
push factors
• linked to rest of North
cheap/faster
transport
famines
revolutions
canals and railroads
military campaigns against Indians
pull factors
econ. opp’s
need for unskilled
workers
1820-1860
• impact of agricultural changes:
steel plow, mechanical reaper
mostly family farms
few seasonal hired hands
appealed to immigrants with $$$
Irish
Catholic
competed with
AfricanAmericans for
jobs
joined Dem’s
(anti-British)
• new cities in “Northwest”
Cincinnati
Chicago
Nativist Backlash
German
more $/skills
move to NW territory
big supporters of
public education
anti-slavery
Changing Occupation
Distributions
St. Patrick's
Day as the
police attack
the Irish with
swords and
batons.
Know-Nothing
Party of the
1850s
“Defenders” of the public school
system being attacked by members
of the Roman Catholic church.
South
• those areas which permitted slavery
included “border states”
• tobacco, rice, & sugarcane …and KING COTTON
• constantly needed new land
When would this become the majority?
Slavery in the South
• “peculiar institution” (apologists’ euphemism)
• wealth measured in land and slaves
• fear of revolts
“positive
Denmark Vesey’s plot (SC)
good” ???
Nat Turner’s Rebellion (VA)
led to slave codes restricted
no more talk of gradual emancipation
following Turner’s Rebellion
inspired hope for many African-Americans
demonstrate evils of slavery to some in North
• free blacks (~ 250,000)
4
Southern Whites
Southern Ideology
• elite wealthy planters (“slavocracy”)
dominated state legislatures & made favorable laws
very small portion of southern population, had most slaves
• farmers
• code of chivalry
• education
majority of slaveholders
worked in the fields WITH slaves & lived modestly
upper class valued college education
not available to lower class
slaves restricted from literacy after revolts
• poor whites
~75% of southern population
subsistence farmers; hillbillies
hoped to one day own slaves
• religion
• mountain people:
tiny portion of southern pop (Ozark & Appalachian Mtns.)
Methodists and Baptists preached Biblical support
for slavery, so gained members
no Unitarians
few Catholics
disliked planters & slaves
remained loyal to Union during Civil War
• cities
few cities (AGRICLTURE!!!!); key for trade but still small
Charleston, Atlanta, Richmond, Chattanooga
West
• beyond MS River,
to CA & OR Country
• Natives
relocation to Great Plains
horses (brought by Columbian Exch.)
change to nomadic from villages
helped avoid settlers
“Frontier”
• concept persisted despite
changing location
fresh start and opportunity
• “mountain men”
• short life expectancy
• women: isolation, work, short
lifespan
• environmental damage
(animal pop., poor farming)
Second Great Awakening
Sectional Divisions
•
• Daniel Webster (MA)
• John C Calhoun (SC)
• Henry Clay (KY)
the “giants of
the Senate”
•
•
•
•
•
causes:
new religious fervor
challenged traditional Puritanism, Deism,
growing secularism and Unitarianism
circuit riders like Peter Cartwright led revivals
Methodist and Baptist camp meetings
Charles Finney in Burned Over District
inspired many secular reform movements
temperance
abolition
public education
utopian socialism
appealed to women
encouraged to become missionaries
and members of laity
would become active in women’s rights movement
5
Religious Communal Experiments
• Shakers
celibacy and sex segregation
common property
high quality work/designs
• Oneidas
believed in perfectionism –’bible communism’
group marriage/ communal child-rearing
econ. Equality/communal property
• Mormons
Book of Mormon
violence against
est. New Zion at Salt Lake
distinctly American faith
most successful/enduring
Secular Utopia
Reform Movements
• education
longer school year
better salaries/training
modernized curriculum
expansion of higher ed.
• New Harmony
est. by Robert Owen
utopian socialism
absolute equality of all
finanical problems and
internal disputes brought end
temperance
Maine Law
TS Arthur’s Ten Nights in a Barroom
• mental illness/prison reform
• legal system
reduce death penalty crimes
abandon flogging/cruelties
lessen public hangings
Reform Movements
•
American Colonization Society (Liberia)
•
abolitionism
Quakers
Grimkes
Garrison
Liberty Party
•
• Transcendentalism
questioned established churches and capitalism
self-reliance and spirituality (Emerson)
conservation and civil disobedience (Thoreau)
Brook Farm (MA) community
intellectual and manual labor
included many intellectuals of time
women
origins in abolition movement
against Cult of Domesticity
Lyon
Culture
• lyceums
Stone
Stanton
traveling lecture programs
adult education and
self-improvement
Willard
Mott
6
Culture
Culture
• patriotic themes (1830s/1840s)
• painting
Crossing the Delaware
The Landing of the Pilgrims
– Hudson River School
landscapes/beauty of
America
- Gilbert Stuart (portraits)
- John Audubon
• frontier themes
noble savage
‘lasts’ and ‘dyings’
Stanley Hawk
Barred Owl
Culture
• architecture
– neoclassical style popular
during Jacksonian era
– glorify democratic spirit of
republic
• literature
Jefferson Rotunda
U. VA
– distinctively American form
began to emerge
– hero was the “self-made
man”
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