UNIT 3 LECTURE NOTES
CHAPTER 9
I. THE MARKET & INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTIONS
A. THE AMERICAN SYSTEM
1.
Overview
- Nationalists Henry Clay would for many years promote the American System
o Protective tariffs
o Internal improvements
o National bank
- This system would foster national economic growth
2.
The National Bank
- In 1816 Congress chartered a Second Bank of the United States
o headquartered in Philadelphia
o could create another bank whenever it wanted
o government would deposit funds in the bank
- After the economic nightmare of the war of 1812, most representatives wanted to move towards
a national currency and centralized control of money and credit instead of the chaos of
unregulated state banks
3.
The American System: Tariffs and Internal Improvements
- In 1816 Congress creates the first overly protective tariffs in U.S. history
o Pushed heavily by Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun (Warhawks), the Tariffs of 1816
raised tariffs an average of 25%
o Aimed to protect the nation’s infant industry and the expense of foreign trade
o Congress considered American development of industry a patriotic necessity
- Tariffs for internal improvements would have a harder time passing (roads and canals)
- The War of 1812 brought to light the terrible condition and organization of U.S. roads, but
consensus was hard to reach
o Congress could not agree on one transportation plan
o Many of these were subject to local ambitions
o Many also doubted the constitutionality of federally funded roads
- James Madison and James Monroe both refused to support further improvements without an
amendment
- This left states to take up the cause which created an unbalanced road system throughout the
U.S.
4.
Markets and the Law
- During the market revolution, disputes generated in the transition to a market society
- The Supreme Court thus became a heavy influence
- John Marshall presided over the court from 1801 to 1835
- He saw the court as a conservative protection against democratic excesses of elected
legislatures
- From 1816 onward his decisions encouraged business and strengthened the national
government at the expense of the states
5.
Important Cases
- McCulloch v. Maryland (1816)
o The Maryland legislature doubted the constitutionality of the Bank of the U.S.
o Maryland attempted to tax the Bank’s Baltimore branch – the bank challenged the
states right to do so
o Marshall decided in favor of the bank
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He ruled that the constitution granted the federal government implied powers,
including chartering the bank
Denied Maryland’s right to tax any federal agency
The power to tax is the power to destroy” Marshall
It was his most overt attack on strict constructionism
Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)
o Marshall court broke a state granted steamboat monopoly in New York
o The steam boat line interfered with federal jurisdiction over interstate commerce
o It also encouraged private entrepreneurialism
B. THE TRANSPORTATION REVOLUTION
1.
Improvements: Roads and Rivers
- After 1815 dramatic improvements in transportation tied communities together
o Roads, steamboats, canals, and later on railroads
o These improvements made the transition to a market society possible
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In 1816 Congress resumed construction of the National Road, looking the Potomac River with
the Ohio River
o Road was first authorized in 1802
o This opened the first road connecting east to west
The steamboat opened the west to commercial agriculture
o The steamboat transformed the interior from an isolated frontier into a busy
commercial region that traded farm and plantation products for manufactured goods
o Robert Fulton
 Launched the Clermont in 1807
Railroads will slowly gain steam as a mode of transportation and by 1860 they are the main form
of travel
2.
Time and Money
- The transportation revolution brought a dramatic reduction in the time and money it took to
move heavy goods
o Turnpikes cut the cost of wagon transport in half by 1860
- Improvements in speed were just as dramatic
- A Cincinnati to New York trip in 1815 would have been by boat upriver and wagon the rest of the
way lasted 52 days
- By 1852, through the Erie Railroad the trip could be made in 6 to 8 days (at a higher cost
however)
- By 1840 transportation improvement had and a market revolution
- Exports now consisted mostly of southern cotton than northern food
- Most imports went to the south as the rest of the country became self sufficient, and developed
self sustaining domestic markets for farm produce and manufactured goods
3.
Markets and Regions
- Henry Clay dreamed the Americans System would transcend sectionalism and create a unified
United States
- Instead the Market Revolution produced greater results within regions
o Farmers of New England traded food for finished goods from what was fastly becoming
an industrial NE region
o By the 1840s the Old Northwest was sending produce to the northeast by way of
steamboat and the Erie canal
o This was in exchange for manufactured goods, tools, furniture
- Western farmers and northeastern businessmen and manufacturers were building a national
market from which the south was excluded
C. The Market Revolution
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Jeffersonian Democrats tied their hopes to the yeoman-artisan republic
a. Americans could trade farm and plantation products for European manufactured goods
b. Yeoman is a free man owning his own farm, Work requiring a great deal of effort or labor, came
to be described as "yeoman's work". Thus yeoman became associated with hard toil.
c. Yeoman was also a rank or position in a noble household
But war and problems with neutrality demonstrated the vulnerability of America’s dependence on
foreign economies
- After the War of 1812, there was a push to build enough factories to serve domestic needs
- Americans go further than that when in 1815, the Market Revolution transforms Jefferson’s
Republic into a capitalist society
The Market Revolution led to a different America in the 1830’s and 40’s:
- New Cities and towns provided financing, retailing, manufacturing, and markets for food
- Commercial farms traded food for products that cities made and sold
- Although mostly left out of industrialization the south will become wealthy off of cotton, but will
receive many manufactured goods from European trading partners
The War of 1812 changed Congressional ideals
- It demonstrated that the U.S. was unable to coordinate a fiscal and military effort, and reliance on
foreign trade made us dependent on Europe
- The 1815 Jeffersonian Republican Congress would charter a national bank, enact protective
tariffs, and begin debate on government paid construction of federal roads and canals
The 1811 Republican congress would have ruled such things heresy
They decided the nation must abandon Jeffersonian ideals of export oriented agragarianism and
encourage national independence
D. FROM YEOMAN TO BUSINESSMEN
1.
Shaping the Northern Landscape
- In the old communities of the northeast, the market revolution sent some young people off to
cities and factories, and others to gain land in the west
o Those who remained engaged in new kinds of agriculture and transformed farming
o An early 19th century New England farms geared toward family subsistence and only
required 3 acres of cultivated, 12 acres of pasture and meadow, and another acre for the
home, and a 30 acre woodlot
- In the later 18th century overcrowding had encouraged some farmers to turn woodlots into poor
farmland
o This poor farmland could not compete with fertile lands in the Old NW
o At the same time factories and cities in the NE provided NE farmers with a market for
meat
o Beef became the great New England cash crop, with dairy not far behind
o Their proximity to cities made their perishable goods vital
o Factory growth required large amounts of leather and wool that NE farmers could
provide
- By the 1820s NE farmers were raising more livestock and less grain
o This transformed the woodlands into open pastures
2. Farmers as Consumers
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With industrialization and agriculture now being specialized, farmers began buying goods that
their forbearers had produced themselves
o Heated houses with Pennsylvania coal
o Wore cotton cloth made in factories in Lowell Massachusetts
o Wore shoes produced in factories
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By 1830 many farmers were even buying food
The Old NW was sending flour and grains to farms in New York where grain no longer grew
It became easier and cheaper to do specialized farming at buy flour, dairy and vegetables at the
local country store
3. The Migrants of the NW Territory
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Southern Migrants
o One reason the market revolution in the northeast was a success was that young people
with little hope of inheritance in old settlements moved to new cities or to new
farmlands in the Northwest
o Many settlers of the northwest were yeomen from Kentucky or Tennessee who families
came from old southern colonies
o The moved to north of the Ohio River to the NW with many saying that slavery blocked
opportunities for poor whites
o They also still held to the old New England Patriarchal theme of neighborhood and
bartering for preservation of everyone
Northern Migrants
o Industrial inventions helped farm production
o McCormick reaper, cast iron plows
4. Households
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Americans began to limit the size of their families
o White married women in 1800 gave birth to 6.4 children
o In 1849 it was down to 4.9, more pronounced in the south, in commercialized areas
o Rural communities required on labor of large families for labor-intensive agriculture
With the Market Revolution came the distinction that “male work” was part of the cash economy
and female work was not
o Even smaller gardening and tending to the animals became man’s work
o New kinds of women’s work emerged in the households
o Store bought flour, butter and iron stoves eased burdens of food prep but created
demands for fancier pastries
Domestic Cleanliness
o Availability of manufactured cloth created the expectation that families would dress
more neatly and with greater variety
o This also created demand for greater domestic cleanliness
o Women spent more time maintaining the house and outside it
o Scrubbing floors, brooms became mass produced, maintaining furniture
Before 1820 farmers cared little how their houses looked
o As more farmers turned to cash crops and farming became a business, they turned to
middle class ways
o A new sense of decorum and refinement extended into country life
E. THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
1. Factory Towns: The Rhode Island System
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In the 50 years following 1820 cities grew faster than ever before
o Old seaport cities like new York grew rapidly but the fastest growth was in factory
towns
Jeffersonians held that American must always be rural and rely on new western agricultural
lands
o Trade surpluses for finished European goods
o Avoid the problems of large cities with their segregated elite social classes
Federalists argued that for American to secure independence they must produce their own
manufactured good
Neo Federalists argued that America could avoid large cities through its river systems in
the NE
o Factories using water power could be built across the countryside, this leads to a
decentralized factory system and would provide employment for country women and
children and aid the independence of struggling farmers
o The first American factories are built on this premise
The American textile industry originates in industrial espionage
o The key to producing cotton and wool textiles was a water powered machine that had
been patented by Englishman Richard Arkwright in 1769
o The “water frame”
o To protect industry, England forbade anyone with knowledge of machinery to leave the
country
o Scores of workers would defy that law and make their way to America
One of them was Samuel Slater
o Served as an apprentice in English factories
o Found work in Providence clothing shops
o Working from memory builds the first Arkwright spinning mill in America at Pawtucket
Rhode Island in 1790
Slater’s first mill was in a small town among houses and shops
o It spun only cotton yarn
o It required no large city and provided farm women and children with income to
supplement the farms
o Soon Slater and other mill owners built factory villages in the countryside
This practice became known as the Rhode Island (or family) system
o Mill owners built whole villages surrounded by company owned farmland
o The farmland would be rented to husbands and fathers of mill workers
o Workspace of women and children would be closely supervised and owners had great
control over the villages
By the late 1820’s technology was advancing and the looms were spinning raw cotton into
finished cloth
The factory towns came at a great cost to old forms of household independence
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2. The Waltham System
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The 2nd act of industrial espionage was committed by a wealthy Bostonian: Francis Cabot
Lowell
o He visited English factory district in 1811 and made secret drawings of what he saw
o He forms a manufacturing company and in 1813 builds his first mill in Waltham Mass
o He soon expands into other cities, including one named after himself Lowell, Mass
Waltham System:
o Built mills under 2 ideas
o First, heavily mechanized
o Turned raw cotton into finished cloth with little need for skilled workers
o 2nd - Operatives who tended machines were young, single women recruited form NE
farms
o New England was switching to raising livestock and therefor had little need for the labor
of daughters
The company housed the young women in supervised boardinghouses
o Enforced conduct rules on and off job
o Young women worked steadily, never drank, did not go out much, and attended church
regularly
o They dressed neatly and stylish for the times and educated themselves
o The women would works for a few years, send a small portion of the wages back home
and eventually return home to live as country housewives
o Wages were often saved or spent on themselves on personal purchases such as books or
clothes
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This produced a self respecting class of independent wage earning women
o Many women were on the ground floor or labor movements in the 1830’s and 40’s
o This class of working women also became the first generation of reformers in America
o The factories failed to return these women back to rural paternalism
o One in three would settle in cities, and the others would do other work than farming and
would not accept the same home conditions as their mothers
3. New social dynamic
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When the Market Revolution and Industrial Revolution hit, there is little goal to create a classless
society
o The main goal is wealth
o A new class of wealthy men sought to produce a wide variety of good
o A middle class of management was emerging that bought these consumer goods
o A class of impoverished factory workers would create these goods
o All would live together in a community and create a new social dynamic in America
Metropolitan Industrialization
o Even with this revolution taking place – IT WAS SLOW
o By 1850 most goods are still made by hand
o America is still a farming society
o More people will live in rural areas for the next 100 years
o Most of the industrialization is in making the cloth, leather, or wool, but not in forming
into clothing
o Most all tailoring is done by hand
4. The Market Revolution in the South
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With the end of the war of 1812 the cotton industry expands dramatically
o The resumption of international trade, revival of British textile production,
and emergence of NE American factory production all combine southern
planters to extend their cotton lands across the old SW into Mississippi
and through Texas
o Cotton would soon account for 2/3 of all U.S. exports
o And the south would produce ¾ of the world’s supply of cotton
o Throughout this period there is a widening gap in wealth between
southern plantation owners and yeomen
In the South wealth was in few hands and the South remained a poor market for
manufactured goods
o Factories were only created if it served the plantation
In the North, the market revolution produced commercial agriculture, a specialized
labor force, factory towns that produced manufactured goods and encouraged
technological innovation
In the South, it produced more slavery
o They spent little on internal improvements