Forging the National
Economy
1790-1860
The progress of invention is really a
threat [to monarchy]. Whenever I see a
railroad I look for a republic.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1866
The Westward Movement
• “Europe stretches to the Alleghenies;
America lies beyond.” –Ralph Waldo
Emerson, 1844
• 1850: ½ of Americans were under 30
Map 14.1: Westward Movement of Center of Population, 1790-1990
Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
3
Frontier Life
•
•
•
•
•
•
Life was grim for most families
Poorly fed and dressed
Lived in shanties and lean-tos
Disease, depression, death
Separated from other families
Jacksonian politics and “rugged
individualism”
• Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”
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Map 14.2: Cumberland (National) Road and Main Connections
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Shaping the Western Landscape
•
•
•
•
•
Exhausted land in the tobacco regions
Fur-trapping
“ecological imperialism”
Still revered nature
George Catlin advocated for the creation
of national land preservation
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March of the Millions
• 1850: population was doubling every 25
years
• 33 states by 1860
• Urban growth exploded (New York, New
Orleans, Chicago)
– Slums, limited law enforcement, sewage, rats
– Boston pioneered a sewer system in 1823
– NYC had city water by 1842
.
7
Figure 14.1: Population Increase, Including
Slaves and Indians, 1790-1860
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8
The Irish
• Potato Famine
• Poor moved to Boston and NYC
• Discriminated against and forced into lowpaying, menial jobs
• “No Irish Need Apply”
• Ancient Order of Hibernians
• Molly Maguires: Irish miners’ union in PA
• Political Machines: Tammany Hall in NYC
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Old Immigration Period
(pre-Civil War)
• Immigration tripled in the 1840s and quadrupled in the
1850s
• Million and a half Irish and almost as many Germans
• Journey now only took 2-3 weeks due to steam power
• Push Factors
– Overpopulation in homeland
• Pull Factors
– Freedom from aristocracy and state religion
– Letters home: low taxes, no compulsory military
service, 3 meals a day
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German Forty-Eighters
• Many uprooted farmers
• Few liberal political refugees fleeing
collapsed democratic revolutions in 1848
• Most had a few material goods
• Influential group of voters
• Conestoga wagon, Kentucky rifle,
Christmas tree were all German
contributions
• Many drank “bier” in huge quantities
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Anti-Foreignism
• Immigration sparked “nativism”
• By 1850, Catholicism was the number one
religion
• Order of the Star-Spangled Banner: KnowNothing party
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Creeping Mechanization
• Why was the United States so slow to
mechanize?
– Land was cheap
– Labor was scarce until immigration increased
– Little money for capital investment
– Could not compete with mass-produced
European goods
– British had a monopoly on textile machinery
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Eli Whitney and the Cotton
Gin
• Led to increased number of textile mills in
the North
• Factory system began to flourish
• Interchangeable parts and the early
assembly line
– Colt revolver
– Sewing machine
– 28,000 new patents by 1860
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Other New Inventions
• Morse’s telegraph
• McCormick’s reaper
• Goodyear’s vulcanized rubber goods
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Workers and Wage Slaves
• Pre-Jackson
– Forced to work in unsanitary conditions
– Could not form labor unions
– Child labor
– “whipping rooms”
– Slater’s mill: first machine tenders were all
under the age of 12
• Jacksonian Democracy
– Strikes, improved conditions
– Commonwealth v. Hunt
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Women and the Economy
•
•
•
•
“Factory Girls”
Teachers
House Servants
Once married, women left work and
became part of the “cult of domesticity”
– Women’s and Men’s spheres
– Families became closer and smaller
17
Transportation Revolution
• Highways, Turnpikes, the Cumberland
Road
• Steam Ship
• Canals
• Railroads
• Pony Express
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Map 14.3: Erie Canal and Main Branches
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19
Map 14.4: Principle Canals in 1840
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20
Map 14.5: The Railroad Revolution
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21
Map 14.6: Industry and Agriculture, 1860
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22
Map 14.7: Main Routes West Before the Civil War
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23
All of this creates a Market
Revolution!
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