Pgs. 254-259

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Farmers began to shift from self-sufficiency – raising a wide variety of food for their own families
– to specialization, raising one or two crops that they could sell at home or abroad.
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Brought a market revolution – people bought and sold goods rather than making them for themselves.

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Economic growth depended on capitalism, the economic system in which private businesses and individuals control the means of production and use them to earn profits
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Examples: factories, machines and land
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Entrepreneurs invested their own money in new industries.
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Huge risk

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Farmers began to use machines to keep up with the demand for goods
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Cheaper prices made products available to all people.

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Goodyear developed vulcanized rubber in 1839
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Didn’t freeze in cold weather or melt in hot weather
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Elias Howe patented the sewing machine in 1846.
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Led to factory production of clothing making it cheaper so all people could buy clothing at the store.

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Samuel F. B. Morse created the telegraph in 1837.
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By 1853 23,000 miles of telegraph wire crossed the country.

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Need for better and faster transportation.
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Steam powered boats became very popular and cut travel time in half.
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Water was very important for transportation, and if there was no water then canals were built.
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Trains were more expensive, but were faster and ran in winter.

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Northeast was the center of American commerce.
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New York City, New York
Farming was centralized in the Midwest.
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John Deere invented the steel plow to help farmers prepare the land faster.
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Cyrus McCormick invented the mechanical reaper allowing farmers to do the work of 5 people.
Southerners didn’t want to industrialize and were agriculturally based.
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Even if Southern plantation owners wanted factories, they were not financially able to do so because they had invested so much in their plantations.
People wanted to move to the West.