Chapter 10: America’s Economic Revolution
Objectives:
1. The changes that were taking place within the nation in terms of population
growth, population movement, urbanization, and the impact of immigration.
2. The changes that were taking place in transportation, business, industry, labor,
and commerce as the full impact of the industrial revolution was felt in the United
States.
3. The reasons why the Northeast and Northwest tended to become more dependent
and the South more isolated.
4. The characteristics of the increased immigration of the 1840s and 1850s, and the
immigrants’ effects on the development of the free states.
5. The reasons for the appearance of the nativist movement in the 1850s.
6. The living and working conditions of both men and women in the northern
factory towns.
Main Themes:
1. How the American population changed between 1820 and 1840, and the effect
this had on the nation’s, social, and political systems.
Terms:
1. Division of labor
2. Factors of production
3. Lowell system
4. Cult of Domesticity
Summary:
During this period a combination of a rapid growth in population, the expansion of
communication and transportation systems, and the development of an agricultural
system sufficient to feed an urban population gave rise to the American industrial
revolution. The two sections of the nation most affected by this were the Northeast and
the Northwest, which were drawn closer together as a result. Canals, railroads, and the
telegraph made it easier to move goods and information. Business expanded as
corporations began to shape the world of trade and commerce. Technological
innovations helped expand industries, and soon the factory system began to replace the
artisan tradition. In the Northwest, agricultural also expanded to meet the increasing
demand for farm products. All of this had profound implications for American men and
women, both in the way they worked and in their family lives.
Chapter 11: Cotton, Slavery, and the Old South
Objectives:
1. How cotton became “king” and the role it played in shaping the “southern way of
life.”
2. The continuing historical debate over the South, its “peculiar institution,” and the
effects of enslavement on the blacks.
Main Themes:
1. How society in the South developed both in myth and in reality.
Terms:
1. Manumission
2. “cracker”
3. “Sambo”
4. “Cavalier”
Summary:
In the 1830s and 1840s, as the societies of the North and South developed, the two
diverged, and this had an impact on the growth of the nation. During the period both
sections expanded physically and economically; but while the northern economy was
characterized by industrial expansion, by the growth of transportation systems (especially
railroads), and by an increasingly diverse population, the southern economy continued to
rest on staple-crop agriculture and slave labor. This is not to say that the South did not
experience many of the same changes felt in the North, but in comparison, the slave
states’ way of life seemed more rooted in the past than in the future. As the economic
power of the region shifted from the “upper” South to the “lower,” cotton became “king,”
and trade and business served this master. In a short period of time a planter class spread
across the South, and though planters were a minority, they influenced society and
politics far beyond their numbers. During this period the “cavalier” myth was born and
the “Southern lady” made their appearance. Though most Southerners could be
considered “plain folk,” they supported the slaveholding elites and hoped someday to be
part of it. All the while slaves worked, endured, resisted, and under the most trying
conditions created a culture that remains an important part of American life.