Early Industrialization
in the North
HIS 103
Travel Times from New York City in 1800
Copyright 2000, Bedford/St.
Martin's
Transportation Revolution

Turnpikes



built & operated by private
companies (300 by 1810)
Mostly in New England &
Middle States
Canals

Erie Canal (1817-1825)



cut shipping costs from
$100/ton to under $9/ton
Carried $15 million worth of
freight annually
Delaware & Hudson Canal
(1828) connected
Pennsylvania coalfields to
New York City
Transportation Routes, 1840
Copyright 2000, Bedford./St. Martin’s
Erie Canal Map
Transportation Revolution (cont.)

Steamships



Robert Fulton & Robert
Livingston’s Clermont (1807)
1st successful commercial
steamship
Supreme Court ruled in
Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) that
state licenses couldn’t
invalidate federal ones
Packet service


Black Ball Line (NYC –
Liverpool) was 1st (1818)
52 lines by 1845
Railroads

Railroads take over beginning
in 1840s




Railroads in 1860
Copyright 2000, Bedford./St. Martin’s


Baltimore & Ohio Railroad est.
in 1827 to compete against NYC
& Erie Canal
3,328 miles of track by 1840
30,626 miles of track by 1860;
2/3 in the North
Reduced transportation costs by
$150-175 million
1859: 2 billion tons shipped by
rail; 1.6 billion by canal
Panic of 1837 partly due to
states’ heavy investment in
railroads & canals
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad
Replica of
Peter
Cooper’s
“Tom
Thumb”
engine
Charles Carroll laying the Cornerstone, July 4, 1828
Strap iron rails
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad
Carrollton Viaduct, Carrollton, MD
Communication Revolution

U.S. Postal Service est. network of post offices
& post roads, & provided stage transportation


104,521 miles of post roads by 1829
Rates varied by mileage: 6 – 25 cents (1825-38)

Cheap printing
 Telegraph




Samuel F. B. Morse invented it in 1832
1st commercial line established in 1844 between
Baltimore & Washington, D.C.
Western Union & American Telegraph Co. created
national networks in the 1850s
San Francisco connected by 1861
Samuel Morse & the Telegraph
Two-Stage Process of
Industrialization

1st Stage = Involution (1790s - 1820s)




Intensification of local, traditional practices
Merchants needed to introduce cash to bridge gap
between local barter economy & international
cash/credit economy
Young, unmarried women take in “out-work”
2nd Stage = Revolution (1830s - 1860s)



Long-distance, capitalist practices take over
Merchants invest capital in new factories
Young, unmarried women move to factories
Early Factories
Samuel Slater est. 1st power loom
at Pawtucket, RI in Dec. 1790
 Boston Manufacturing Co.
opened 1st full cotton textile factory
at Waltham, Mass. in 1813
 Woolen mills opened in Lowell
(1830) & Lawrence (1845)
 Conn. gunmakers Eli Whitney &
Simeon North introduced use of
machine-made interchangeable
parts
 Conversion from water to steam
(powered by coal), 1830-50
 Value of industrial products
exceeded value of agricultural
products for 1st time in 1859

Slater & his mill
The Lowell System
Merrimack Mills & Boarding
Houses, Lowell, Mass.
Boott Cotton Mill, Lowell
National Historical Park
Weave room
Exterior – canal
No Marxist “Class Consciousness”
 Work
in factories offered independence
from family control
 Wages were low, & kept down by influx
of cheaper immigrant labor
 Factory workers insisted on middle-class
identity as “producers”
 Factory owners also claimed to be
middle-class producers
 Many
had been former master craftsmen
 Way of reducing class conflict
Fueled by Consumerism

More widespread desire to
imitate genteel lifestyle


Gentility now associated with
middle class, rather than
aristocracy
Link between morality &
respectability tied evangelicals to
material culture

Factory goods seen as superior
to, as well as cheaper than,
home-made
 Women played increasing role
as consumers, creating “tastes”
& “styles”
Ackerman Fashion
Plate, 1821
1840s Advertising
Changed Spatial & Social
Relationships

Work separated from home



Production separated from management and
retail space


Women less likely to learn & participate in business
Instead, became moral guardians in domestic sphere
Located in different buildings, in different parts of city
Housing clustered around jobs, creating class
segregation


Had to live within walking distance of work
Ethnic enclaves further segregate working class