NOTE-TAKING GUIDE: Of the People: A History of the United States CHAPTER 9 “A Republic in Transition: 1800 – 1819”
COMMON THREADS

Why was overseas trade so important to Washington, Adams,
Jefferson, and Madison? To ordinary farmers?

How did the way average Americans lived change over the first
quarter-century of the republic?

How were the political debates of ratification and of the 1790s still
playing out during Jefferson’s and Madison’s administrations?

What important changes in context and content occurred in U.S. Indian
policy over the period of the first four administrations?

What roles did organized religion play in shaping the society of the
early republic?

Was the market revolution important in the South?
OUTLINE
A Politics of Transition
Democratic-Republicans in Office
The Louisiana Purchase
Embargo
The War of 1812
Madison and the War
The Federalist Response
An Economy in Transition
International Markets
America and the World: The United States in China
Crossing the Appalachian Mountains
Invention and Exploration
Early Industrial Society in New England
The Rule of Law and Lawyers
Ways of Life in Flux
Indian Resistance to the Yeoman’s Republic
Winners and Losers in the Market Revolution
American Landscape: Religion in the Backcountry: Cane Ridge,
Kentucky
The Problem of Trust in a Changing Society
The Panic of 1819
Conclusion
WHO?
WHAT?
Thomas Jefferson
Revivalism
James Madison
Market revolution
John Marshall
Robert Fulton
De Witt Clinton
Tecumseh
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. What was the market revolution? What concrete changes did it
make in Americans’ daily lives?
2. How would you account for the timing of the many innovations in
transportation at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of
the nineteenth century?
3. By 1816, were the differences between the Federalists and the
Democratic-Republicans matters of politics, or principle, or both?
4. What were the main themes of Jefferson’s presidency?
NOTES: TO FOLLOW UP / QUESTIONS TO ASK IN CLASS