1.Effects of the Industrial
Revolution
-Industrial Revolution began in Britain
around 1750: more machines, unskilled
labor, large factories, and national
trade
• Major industry = textiles (products
made of cotton)
-Took almost a century for revolution
to get to the US
• Too focused on farming, lacked raw
goods and capital
• British had a monopoly over textile
industry
-New wave of immigration in the
1840s gave America enough available
workers for the factories
Industrialization in Britain was the result of a
series of technological changes in the textile
trade. Prior to the Industrial Revolution,
manufacturers dispersed work into many
individual households, a process known as the
putting-out system. The Industrial Revolution
created factories filled with machines that
could produce products more quickly.
America entered the Industrial Revolution a
century late, primarily because most early
Americans were descendants of land-starved
peasants who were thrilled with the idea of
owning and working their own land.
Britain enacted laws preventing the
export of its valuable machines and the
emigration of its skilled workers, in order
to keep the market cornered. At age
21, Samuel Slater, a British mechanic,
came to America to collect a bounty
for the sell of the British designs. He
dressed as a farm laborer, and slipped
out of England without notice. Slater
had committed the designs to memory
and thus built the first American spinning
machine.
Effects of the Industrial
Revolution
-Samuel Slater is known as the
“Father of the Factory System” in
America
• British mechanic who memorized plan
for British machines ; secretly
brought them to the US
-Developed the first machine capable
of spinning thread in 1791
-Created the Rhode Island Mill
System in 1804
• Water-powered equipment, young
children and women work in factories,
men working on machines
-Also developed company towns for
workers to live in that were owned and
managed by Slater
2.Northern Society:
Industry Leads the Way
-Manufacturing in the US mainly in
New England due to plentiful streams
and rivers needed to power mills
-First modern factory was the Lowell
Mills formed by Francis Lowell when he
created the first power loom in the US
• All steps of manufacturing in one mill
(from cotton to cloth)
-Hired young New England farm women
to work in mills
• Opportunity for cultural/economic
growth for women
-Worked long hours under strict
conditions and lived in well-regulated
company towns
The Boston investors who financed the
Lowell mills wanted to keep the mills free of
the dirt, poverty, and social disorder that
made English factory towns notorious. The
Lowell towns boasted six neat factory
buildings grouped around a central clock
tower, the area pleasantly landscaped
with flowers, shrubs and trees. The
company agent lived in a Georgian style
mansion, the overseers in trim houses, the
mechanics and their families in row houses,
and the New England farm women – the
workers- in boardinghouses.
Northern Society:
Industry Leads the Way
-Eli Whitney perfected the concept of
interchangeable parts
• Machines make each part the same
-Goods could be mass-produced and did
not need much skilled labor
• Workers to just run the machine
-Northern manufacturers wanted to
ensure that Americans bought their
goods, so advocated protective tariffs
• Made the cost of imports higher than
that of goods made in US
-Angered southerners who depended on
imports to survive
Effects of a Protective Tariff
BRITAIN
THE UNITED STATES
British-made hat costs $2.50 to produce
American-made hat costs $3.00 to produce
+
+
$ 1.00 Profit
$1.00 Profit
+
30% Tariff of $1.05
+
NO TARIFF!!
= Total Cost to American Customer
= Total Cost to American Customer
$ 4.55
$ 4.00
All things being equal, which hat would be sold first, British or American?
Why would southerners object to the tariffs? Why would northerners support
them?
3.Northern Society:
A New Workforce
-Majority of northern workforce made
up of immigrants
• Immigration surges in the 1840s
-Two main groups of immigrants in the
1840s were Irish and German
• Irish came to US because of potato
famine; Germans came due to political
persecution
-Irish had little money and stayed in
port cities working in factories
• Irish would eventually gain political
power in those major cities
- Germans were able to move west and
farm new lands
In Ireland in 1845 a terrible rot attacked
the potato crop. Famine ensued, with
starved people found dead by the
roadsides with the grass they were trying
to eat still in their mouths. All told over 2
million people perished and another 2
million fled to the US. Families pooled
their money and sent their strongest sons
to America to earn wages to pay the
fares of those who were still in Ireland.
How would you define a “push factor” and a “pull factor”?
What do you think were the two largest push factors for Irish and German
immigrants in the mid-1800s?
Years
Irish
German
1831-1840
207,381
152,454
1841-1850
780,719
434,626
1851-1860
914,119
951,667
What trend do you notice in Irish and German immigration from 1831-1860?
What can you reason may have occurred between 1840 and 1850?
”This is a good place and a good country
for if one place does not suit a man he can
go to another and can very easy please
himself. But there is one thing that’s ruining
this place… The immigrant has not money
enough to take them to the interior of the
country, which obliges them to remain here
in New York and the like places, which
causes the less demand for labor and also
the great reduction in wages.
For this reason I would advise no one to
come to America that would not have some
money after landing here that would enable
them to go west in case they would get no
work to do here. But any man or woman
without a family are fools that would not
venture and come to this plentiful country
where no man or woman ever hungered or
ever will …, but I can assure you there are
dangers upon dangers, but my friends, have
courage and come all together
courageously and bid adieu to that lovely
place, the land of our birth.”
Letter by Margaret McCarthy written in New
York to her family in Ireland in 1850
Northern Society:
A New Workforce
-Immigrants faced persecution from
Nativists (native born Americans who
resented immigrants)
-Irish faced greatest discrimination
• Mostly due to Roman Catholic beliefs
and lower wages
- Nativists formed a political party
known as the Know Nothings to work to
limit immigrant power
• AKA – the “American Party”
The Nativists promoted fictional literature
that bashed the lifestyle of immigrants. In
one book, the author pretended to be
an escaped nun and made up shocking
sins that took place in the convent, such
as the secret burial of babies. This
particular book sold over 300,000 copies.
Northern Society:
A New Workforce
-Immigrants also treated poorly in
factories
• Low wages, long hours, harsh
conditions, use of child labor
-Most immigrants lived in
overcrowded and unsanitary homes
known as tenements
In 1820, half of the nation’s industrial
workers were children under the age of
10. Many of these children were
mentally blighted, emotionally starved,
physically stunted and brutally whipped
in special “whipping rooms.” In Samuel
Slater’s mill of 1791, the first people to
tend the machines were seven boys
and two girls, all under 12 years old.
Children were paid only a fraction of
what an adult would get, and
sometimes orphans would be paid
nothing at all.
-Labor Unions began to form and use
strikes to improve conditions
• Most strikes were unsuccessful
-Became known as “wage slaves” or
“slaves without a master”
• When North criticized slavery,
South condemned practices of
northern factory owners
4.Southern Society:
Focus on Farming
-Economy of South relied on export of
cash crops
-1793 Eli Whitney invented the Cotton
Gin to separate the cotton seed from
the cotton fibers
-Cotton becomes King in South
-Slavery increases
• Planting more cotton more slaves to
pick cotton
-Over-farm the land (no nutrients)
-Few immigrants come South (no work)
- South only focuses on farming
• Little To No manufacturing; depends
on North and Europe for most goods
 dislikes tariffs
During a visit to the South in 1793, an
acquaintance of Whitney’s suggested
that he try to build a machine that
would pick the seeds out of cotton. In
only ten days, Whitney built a simple
cotton engine. The machine pulled the
cotton through a rotating cylinder with
openings that were too small for the
seeds to pass through. Unknowingly,
Whitney had changed the future of the
South and its slave population for
decades to come.
Southern Society:
Focus on Farming
-Cotton economy helps to develop a
distinct class system in the South
-Planter Elite = less than 1% of
southern population
• Owned large farms with more than 20
slaves
• Had most political power and wealth
-Yeomen Farmers = Majority of
southerners; mainly subsistence
farmers
-Poor Landless Whites
• Disgraced in southern society
-Enslaved People
• Only 25% of southerners own slaves
5.Southern Society:
An Enslaved Workforce
-Most slaves in the South lived on
plantations
-Slaves on plantations worked using the
gang system (Work morning to night in
fields with an overseer)
-Slaves on small yeomen farms used the
task system (Work on assigned jobs and
then have time to do as they choose)
-Urban slaves worked with craftsmen to
earn money for masters, while house
servants tended the homes and children
-Slaves tried to maintain elements of
their African culture through leisure
activities and religious practices
- Southerners saw slavery as a
necessary evil
• Morally wrong but vital to the economy
of the South
6.Attempt at Economic Unity
- The American System was created by
Henry Clay and adopted in 1816
• Purpose: unite regions of America to
make us less dependent on Britain
-3 Parts:
NORTH
Produce the
manufactured
goods; buy
grain, meat
and cotton
SOUTH
Produce the
meat
and cotton; buy
manufactured
goods
WEST
Produce grain
and meat;
buy
manufactured
goods and
cotton
1) Form a National Bank to finance
large federal projects
2) Create a Tariff to protect northern
manufacturers
3) Build a System of Internal
Improvements (roads, bridges, canals)
to connect the nation
• Created the National Road to connect
Maryland to Illinois
-Created the Erie Canal to connect the
Great Lakes to the Hudson River
• Made NY commercial hub of US and
inspired building of other canals
North
Primary Occupation
Primary Residence
Class System
Laborers
Opinions on Tariffs
Opinions on Slavery
Inventions That Helped
How did both sections of the nation benefit from slavery?
How does the American System benefit both sections of the nation?
South