Industrialization and Technology
Early 1800s
• A shift from goods made by hand to factory
and mass production
• Technological innovations brought production
from farmhouse to factories
– Invented in Britain in 1750; smuggled to U.S.
– Beginning of US Factory System
• US slow to embrace factory system
– Scarce labor
– Little capital
– Superiority of British factories
Workers & Wage Slaves
• With industrial revolution, large
impersonal factories surrounded by slums
full of “wage slaves” developed
• Long hours, low wages, unsanitary
conditions, lack of heat, etc.
– Labor unions illegal
• 1820: 1/2 of industrial workers were
children under 10
Workers & Wage Slaves
• 1820s & 1830s: right to vote for laborers
– Loyalty to Democratic party led to improved
conditions
– Fought for 10-hour day, higher wages, better
conditions
• 1830s & 1840s: Dozens of strikes for higher
wages or 10-hour day
– 1837 depression hurt union membership
• Commonwealth v. Hunt
– Supreme Court ruled unions not illegal conspiracies
as long as they were peaceful
• Population shift because of westward expansion
– the West demanded transportation.
– The Land Act of 1820, gave the West its wish by authorizing a buyer to
purchase 80 acres of land at a minimum of $1.25 an acre in cash
• Erie Canal started in 1817 and completed in 1825
– NY Governor DeWitt Clinton built the Erie Canal
– Connected New York City from Hudson River with the Great Lakes and
the West
• Clinton’s Big Ditch--------Other canals follow
• Navigable rivers and the steamboat
– the first steamboat on western waters was in 1811.
Erie Canal System
•Built first textile mill in 1793 in
Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
Samuel Slater was the "Father
•Born in England on June 9, 1768
of the American Factory
System."
and worked in British factories.
•Slater came to US to make his
fortune in the textile industry.
•Slatersville Mill was the largest and
most modern industrial cotton mill
of its day
The Lowell System
Lowell, Massachusetts, 1832
Produced the first cloth in the US
•
•
•
•
Young New England farm girls
Supervised on and off the job
Worked 6 days a week, 13 hours a day
Escorted to church on Sunday
Early Textile Loom
•1830s,
Industrialization
grew throughout the
North…
•Southern cotton
shipped to Northern
textile mills was a
good working
relationship.
Resourcefulness & Experimentation
 Americans were willing to try
anything.
 They were first copiers, then
innovators.
1800  41 patents were approved.
1860  4,357 “
“
“
The invention
which changed
the South, cotton
and slavery.
•Eli Whitney’s cotton gin revolutionized the
cotton industry.
•He is also noted for the concept of mass
production and interchangeable parts by
creating dyes for pistols and rifles.
•Very important early pioneer in America’s
industrial revolution.
Cotton Production
Whitney Ends the Fiber Famine
• Cotton gin invented in 1793
– 50 times more effective than hand picking
• Raising cotton more profitable
– South needs slavery more than ever for “King Cotton”
 New England factories
flourish with Southern
cotton
John Deere & the Steel Plow
Cyrus McCormick
& the Mechanical Reaper
1807, Fulton's Clermont, was the first
commercially successful and reliable
steamboat. Steam boat would revolutionize
water travel.
The steamboat was often the only mechanical
means of river travel and freight transportation
from 1808 through 1930.
Samuel F. B. Morse
1840 – Telegraph
“WHAT GOD HATH WROUGHT”
Pioneer Railroad Promoters
• 1800 to 1850: Roads, canals, navigable rivers with
steamboats were the main modes of transportation.
• 1850 to 1860, RR proved most significant
development toward national economy
• Led to development of Time Zones
• Competition between Railroads and Canals
• Obstacles
–
–
–
–
opposition from canal backers
danger of fire
poor brakes
difference in track gauge meant changing trains – to combat
this problem standard gauge was introduced meaning all
track was the same size
Cyrus Field
& the Transatlantic Cable, 1858
Highways
• Bad roads made transportation highly unreliable
• The National Road begun in 1811 and completed
by 1832
– Connected Maryland to Illinois.
– Built by US government
Cumberland (National Road), 1811
•Help unite the
country as well
as improve the
economy and
the infant
industry.
•Because of the
British
blockade
during the War
of 1812, it was
essential for
internal
transportation
improvements.
From left to right: Eli Whitney (cotton gin, interchangeable parts), Robert Fulton (steam boat),
Thomas Edison (light bulb), Cyrus McCormick (reaper), Richard Hoe (automatic printing press)