Industry and Sectionalism
Chapter 7 Section 2
Objectives
• Analyze why industrialization took root in the
northern part of the United States.
• Describe the impact of industrialization on
northern life.
• Analyze the reasons that agriculture and
slavery became entrenched in the South.
Jefferson and Industry
• Democratic Republican
policies in contributed to the
growth of American industry in
the early 1800s.
• The embargo of 1807 and the
War of 1812 cut off the supply
of British goods, leading to the
growth of American industry.
• The Tariff of 1816 protected
American industry by
increasing the price of
imported goods. American
manufacturers benefited from
the tariff, but the higher prices
hurt farmers.
Sectional Differences
• North embraced industry
• Factory owners had
access to capital, or
money, for investment.
• Immigrants provided
inexpensive labor.
• Swiftly flowing rivers
provided cheap power.
Labor Unions
• In the early nineteenth century,
workers tried to unite but were
not very successful.
• The Workingmen’s Party
supported the right of workers
to form labor unions,
organizations that unite to
improve pay and working
conditions.
• Early labor unions focused
primarily on helping skilled
tradesmen, such as carpenters
and printers.
Early attempts
to force employers
to raise pay through
strikes seldom
succeeded.
• The Lowell girls were
forced to accept pay
cuts when their protests
failed in 1834 and 1836.
• Factory owners
frequently turned to
sympathetic judges for
assistance.
• A New York court
convicted twenty tailors
of conspiracy for forming
a union in 1835.
Middle Class
• The industrial
revolution brought
about the emergence of
a middle class.
• Made up of managers,
clerks, accountants, and
retailers, who worked in
offices outside the home.
• The middle class
moved away from the
crowded city, which
led to socially
segregated
neighborhoods.
• Middle class women
began to stay at
home.
Immigration
• Most immigrants
came to Northern
cities. Few went to
the South.
• Immigration grew
from 600,000 per
year in the 1830s to
2,800,000 per year
in the 1850s.
The Irish arrived
following a potato
famine.
The Germans came for
economic opportunity.
For the first time, many immigrants
were Catholic or Jewish.
Many Protestants distrusted the Catholic Church and
resented immigrants as competitors for jobs.
Nativist politicians in the new Whig Party exploited
ethnic prejudices and campaigned against immigration
and immigrants.
In response, most Catholic and Jewish immigrants
joined the Democratic Party.
• The rapid influx of people
Most immigrants
became urban
laborers, though
some set up
businesses or
moved to the
Midwest.
caused social, economic and
political strains in cities.
• Various immigrant groups
and free Africans competed
for jobs and for housing in
shabby neighborhoods.
• This competition led to riots
in Philadelphia in 1844 and
in Baltimore in 1854.
City problems
Slavery Expands
• Three developments
caused cotton
production to surge,
making slavery very
profitable in the
Deep South.
#1 The invention of the cotton gin.
# 2 The expansion of cotton
production westward
#3 Huge demand for cotton
because of industrialization
The new plantations filled a demand from factories
in the Northeast and Europe as “King Cotton” soon
accounted for half the value of all U.S. exports.
Importation of slaves was
abolished in 1808, causing
a huge increase in the cost
of a slave from $600 in
1802 to $1,800 in 1860.
The slave population grew
from 1.5 million in 1820 to
4 million in 1860.
King Cotton
– Unlike the North, the
South saw very little
urban growth. Few
immigrants were
attracted to the South.
– The South failed to
develop the
commercial towns
common in the
Northeast and
Midwest.
As the North’s urban population grew, the
South lost political power, especially in the
House of Representatives.
Southerners feared that Northerners would
threaten their investment in slavery.
Little was done for poor whites. Illiteracy was
three times the rate in the North.
Southerners rationalized that slavery was a
positive that Christianized and helped Africans.
Slaveholders
• Slaveholders were
actually a small
minority.
• In 1860, only one in
four southern families
owned slaves.
• The typical
slaveholder lived in a
farmhouse and
worked beside his
four or five slaves.
Defending the Slave System
• Most aspired to acquire slaves
and a plantation.
• Southern whites shared a
sense of racial superiority and
pride in their independence.
• Most believed that slaves were
better off than poor northern
factory workers.
• Most feared that freed blacks
would seek a bloody revenge.
Jefferson, Madison, and Washington apologized for slavery as
a necessary evil. But by the 1850s, proslavery Southerners
defended slavery as a positive good.