Early American Life
Study Notes
Colonial Agriculture
*Northern states: rocky soil allowed for only small, subsistence farms
well-timbered land, great for shipbuilding
cold waters filled with fish
fur-bearing animals for the fur trade
primarily a commercial economy (buying and selling goods, making things
to sell)
*Middle states:
“bread basket” states – grew most of the young nation’s grain
a mixed economy – both agricultural and commercial – raising grain as a
cash crop so that it could be sold, and buying and
selling goods and products
*Southern states: an agricultural economy, based on a few cash crops, which were sold so
that other necessities could be bought
the main crops were tobacco (which declined in the mid-1700s), rice, indigo
and cotton
Eli Whitney’s cotton gin made cotton growing more profitable than ever
By 1850, slaves produced 90% of American cotton, rice and sugar
Improvements in Farming
Charles Newbold 1797
*was granted a patent for a cast-iron plow, stronger and more durable than the old-fashioned wooden one,
which wore down easily and had a tough time slicing through hard soils – Newbold’s design for plows is still in
use today
Jethro Wood 1819
*patented a cast-iron plow that used a moldboard first designed by Thomas Jefferson, which had removable
pieces so that repairing or replacing worn out parts was easy
American Inventiveness and the Industrial Revolution
*Oliver Evans 1785 – 1803
*developed 1st automatic production line in a grist mill -- invented machinery which cut milling labor and costs
in half
a) previously, several men had to carry sacks of wheat to an upper loft, where they were
then emptied down a hopper by a “hopper boy”
b) the wheat was then tumbled down through the millstones, where it was cracked and
ground
c) the ground wheat was then carried back up the steps, spread out to dry, and then sifted
-- all by hand
d) Evans’ refinements ultimately allowed only 2 men to operate an entire mill – one man
poured wheat down the chute, and the other closed and rolled away the flour barrels at
the end of the process
e) Evans’ production line, four stories of automatic machinery geared to a water wheel,
did the weighing, the cleaning, the grinding, and the packing
*Evans’ innovations were so cost-effective and efficient that wheat could be sold at a lower price and still
provide a profit – and allowed the flour to even be sold at a profit in England, despite the shipping costs
*Evans published the 1st mechanical engineering textbook
*Evans licensed his product out to millers who wanted to duplicate it
*in 1805 Evans created the 1st powered land vehicle, an amphibious steam-powered garbage scow
*Evans continued to refine steam engines
Eli Whitney 1792 – 1800
*invented the cotton “engine” or gin in 1792/3, which removed seeds from cotton bolls faster and more
efficiently than picking them out laboriously by hand (separating the seeds by hand from just one pound of
cotton fibers usually took one slave or one indentured servant a full day) – Whitney’s cotton gin was able to
separate seeds from 50 lbs. of cotton in just one day – an incredible leap in productivity and thus profitability
*by 1793 Whitney had refined his simple hand cotton gin into a water-powered machine, which could clean as
much as 1000 lbs. of cotton a day – unfortunately this provided an impetus to the “peculiar institution” of
slavery – freeing more land for cotton production b/c it was now much easier to process the cotton
*1798 - 1800 Whitney created the “uniformity method” or “interchangeable system” of mass production with
rifles
a) previously gunsmiths made muskets, painstakingly crafting each separate piece and
fitting them together individually – this was a labor intensive and time-consuming
process, which made each piece very expensive
b) Whitney broke the process down into its component parts, and had the idea to
assign different workers to different tasks, using machines to stamp out “uniform”
parts
c) since each worker was trained to do only one thing, instead of years’ long
apprenticeships to learn how to make an entire gun, each worker could be trained in
just a day or two to operate a machine which, when properly calibrated, could stamp or
cut out parts made precisely to measure – which were interchangeable, allowing guns
to be made quickly and to be easily repaired
d) it took Whitney 2 years to create the machines to make the various parts of the guns,
but once they were perfected, assembling each gun went quickly and easily
Samuel Slater 1792 Pawtucket, Rhode Island
*England considered its industrial machinery and factory systems national secrets, and made it a crime to take
these designs and skilled workers out of England
*Slater memorized the design for the machinery in one of England’s cotton mills, and carried these designs,
albeit only in his head, to the US
*in 1792 he set up the 1st American textile factory – with a work force of 9 children
*in 1796 Slater established a Sunday school program for his workers, to instill in them Christian values – the 1st
school of its kind in the US
Francis Cabot Lowell and the Waltham, MA factory system 1813
*Lowell brought all the processes for making cotton cloth together under one roof, for the first time
*unlike factories in England, those in New England used water power instead of coal-fired steam engines –
early American factories were built near waterways, and often out in the country
*Lowell purposely hired young women to work in his factories, not men
a) he claimed that in this way America would not have a permanent, underclass of
slum-dwellers, imprisoned by factory work
b) he believed that these young women, now freed by mechanical farming tools from
the drudgery of farm work, would enjoy the opportunity to make money in the new
factories, for a few years before they married and had families of their own
c) he believed that the daughters of these young women would themselves work in
his factories for a time, and then naturally move on, get married, and have children
of their own who would also work in his factories for a while – thus a permanently
changing, renewable work force, not tied forever to factory life, nor part of a
permanently poor underclass
*Lowell built clean, airy boarding houses for his workers, and set up libraries and lecture halls and churches in
his factory towns
*this idyllic system did not last long – Slater followed the English system of employing entire families,
including very young children, in his factory
*Southern slave-owners argued that northern factory workers were actually “wage-slaves” – and often
mistreated by factory overseers, made to work in brutal and unhealthy conditions, and discarded when sick,
injured, or too old to work any longer. Southerners claimed that at least they provided shelter, food, clothing,
and medical care for their slaves, unlike northern factory owners. However, no factory worker was actually
“owned” by his boss – they were always free to seek other work or move elsewhere.
Many Hands Make Light Work – the Pioneer “Bees”
*”bees” were pioneer work parties, events at which communal work was done and socializing followed or
accompanied the task
*one worker bee can do little by itself, but hundreds or thousands of bees, working together, provide food and
support for the whole colony
*one family usually played host to a bee party, while those attending brought musical instruments, their own
tools and dishes, and sometimes food
*There were corn-husking bees (a husking pin tears the outer husks from the ear of corn), apple bees and
sugaring bees (to preserve apples and make maple syrup), quilting bees, threshing bees, fulling bees (shearing
sheep and then cleaning and stretching the wool), spinning bees, and house and barn raising bees.
*House or barn raising bees were so well organized that these structures could often be raised or built in one
day – the “host”, who needed the structure built, prepared ahead of time for the raising by having logs/wood cut,
notched and numbered, and the foundation already placed.
Colonial Housekeeping
*All work had to be done by hand, including pumping water from a well or cistern, keeping fires lit, gathering
wood or buffalo chips for fuel, etc.
*Wash Day was literally just that – an entire day spent hauling and heating water, beating and rubbing clothes
clean in a tub, rinsing them, hanging them up or out to dry, and then heating several irons on a stove or over a
fire to iron them
*Pioneer families often made all their own clothes, and sometimes the cloth that made up the clothes (from
cotton or flax or wool)
*All sewing was done by hand
*Even soap and candles were made at home
*Food had to be preserved by smoking, pickling, salting or drying – there was no refrigeration
*Sugar was a luxury – food was sweetened with honey or molasses
*Winter diets were dull and scanty – before refrigeration, it was very difficult to preserve fruits (remember how
expensive refined sugar was!) and vegetables
Camp Meetings of the Early 1800s
*Camp meetings were open-air church services
*People traveled for miles to attend these events, camping out in their wagons and staying for several days or up
to a week
*These events combined fiery, emotional preaching with the heartfelt testimony of attendees and spiritual
reawakenings or conversions – what is today called being “born again”
*Symptomatic of the Great Revival or Second Great Awakening (1800 – 1830s) – these were intensely
emotional and cathartic events, where the preaching emphasized emotional appeals and confessions and
conversions, rather than appeals to the intellect
*Camp meetings were aimed at the backwoodsmen, the frontiersmen, the uneducated, the pioneers who were
pouring west and expanding America’s frontiers
*For many of the attendees, camp meetings were their only opportunity to attend church services, to socialize
with other pioneers heading west, and to be baptized or have their children baptized – since the frontier was as
yet so raw and new, few established churches existed in these young settlements.
*These camp meetings gained thousands of converts for the Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian denominations
*All camp meetings urged behavioral reform – urging attendees to forswear drunkenness, liquor of all kinds,
loose living, and swearing
*Some camp meetings focused attention on creating missions to the Indians, and on working to end slavery
*the most famous was the Cane Ridge meeting in Bourbon County, KY in August 1801.
Circuit Riders & Early Schooling 1800s
*The camp meetings of the Second Great Awakening spurred an interest in reading – particularly in reading the
Old and New Testaments
*Itinerant or traveling preachers, called “circuit riders”, who belonged to no settled congregation, rode around
and around several counties, preaching the word of God where there was no established church, performing
marriages and other rites of passage life ceremonies
*The circuit riders, as de facto Christian ministers, helped civilize raw frontier settlements by preaching
temperance, fidelity, and honest dealing – some also agitated for the abolition of slavery
*The early Northwest Ordinance, passed under the Articles of Confederation, had decreed that all new territory
in the US be divided into townships of a certain size, and that each township set aside a portion of land for a
public school and the lands/crops to support that school
*Most families with school-aged children cooperated to build a school early in a settlement’s history, and then
combined their funds to pay for a resident teacher, who usually took turns “boarding” with individual families
*Early schools were primitive, often unheated or poorly heated buildings, with desks all of one size, and no
indoor plumbing (which most Americans themselves lacked until the 1930s)
*Most schools had few books, so students shared what few there were
*Most schools had no blackboards, so children used small slate boards they had to purchase themselves
*Corporal or physical punishment was the accepted and usual method of discipline (“Spare the rod and spoil the
child” was the common belief)
*Early American schools were usually one-room affairs, where students of all ages and grades of ability sat
together
*Lessons were often recited in unison, and the 3 “R’s” were the main subjects (Reading, Writing, and
Arithmatic)
*Horace Mann, of MA, is the man most responsible for making public schooling accessible to all American
children by:
a) calling for tax monies to be used to support schools
b) creating a standardized, more interesting and comprehensive school curriculum
c) insisting that teachers meet certain educational standards