Chapter 14
p. 303 - 311
Workers and “Wage Slaves”
• The system of factory labor led to
impersonal relations between
employers and workers.
• Employees worked long hours in
hazardous conditions for little
pay.
• Roughly half of the workforce
comprised children under 18.
• Especially vulnerable to
exploitation were child workers.
In 1820 a significant portion of
the nation’s industrial toilers were
children under ten years of age.
A couple of “wage slaves”
• In the 1820s and 30s,
conditions for adult
workers improved
significantly due largely to
the enfranchisement of the
working man.
• Laborers were granted
shorter ten hour work days,
higher wages, and debt was
made no longer punishable
by imprisonment.
• In the 1840s, President Van
Buren established a ten
hour work day for federal
employees.
• Before unions, striking
workers were often
replaced by cheaper
immigrants.
President Martin Van Buren
(in office 1837-1841)
• Labor unions began to form in the 1830s, but struggled with the Panic
of 1837.
• In 1842, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled (in the case of
Commonwealth v. Hunt) that unions formed for the purpose of
“peaceful and honorable protest” were lawful.
• Early unions were ineffective due to the high availability of “scab”
labor, and it would take another 100 years before laborers could meet
with management on relatively even terms.
A political cartoon accusing the Jacksonian Democrats of being the cause of the Panic of 1837.
Women and the Economy
• Women also toiled in
factories under harsh
conditions.
• An exception was a textile
mill in Lowell,
Massachusetts. The mill
employed mostly women,
and was a model of good
treatment for employees.
• Opportunities were rare and
women mainly worked in
nursing, domestic service,
and teaching (inspired by
Catharine Beecher).
An engraving of a textile mill in
Lowell, Massachusetts.
• Women were mostly employed
before marriage, becoming
housewives and mothers afterward.
• Betrothment died down as marriages
of actual love tied families closer.
• The average family became smaller
(only six members!) as fertility rates
dropped sharply. “Domestic
feminism” became a form of birth
control. Families began to center
around the children.
• A “cult of domesticity” glorified the
traditional role of women as
homemakers.
• Home transformed from a place of
labor into a place of refuge from
labor.
• Women were in charge of the family,
and the home became a small arena
for talented women.
The very first “family game night.”
Western Farmers Reap a
Revolution in the Fields
• The trans-Allegheny region (Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois) became
the nation’s breadbasket. Corn and hogs became staple crops.
Cincinnati came to be known as the “Porkopolis” of the West.
Almost makes you proud, doesn’t it?
• A series of inventions were of great benefit to
the agricultural industry.
• John Deere invented the steel plow that cut
through hard soil and could be pulled by horses.
• Cyrus McCormick (whose name you almost
never find on trucker caps) invented the
mechanical mower-reaper to harvest grain more
expediently.
Far Left: Cyrus McCormick (1809-1884)
Near Left: His mower-reaper
Far Above: John Deere (1804-1886)
Near Above: His logo
• The new developments led to
large-scale productions and the
prevalence of cash crops.
• While the North produced
mostly food, the South grew
cotton. Products were shipped
between the North and South
via the Atlantic Ocean and
rivers (primarily the
Mississippi).
Cotton
Highways and Steamboats
• Improvements in transportation were needed for raw material
transport.
• The Lancaster Turnpike, first used in 1795, was a paved road
from Philadelphia to Lancaster, PA that brought economic
expansion westward.
• Constructed by the federal
government, the National Road
(a.k.a. Cumberland Road)
began in Cumberland, MD. It
traveled through Wheeling, OH
and ended in Vandalia, IL.
Following the heyday of the National Road,
the towns of Cumberland, Wheeling, and
Vandalia were never heard from again.
• In 1807, Robert Fulton invented the first steamboat.
Dubbed “Fulton’s Folly” by skeptics, it came to be called
the Clermont. By the 1830s, steamboats were
commonplace.
• The powerful steamboats didn’t have to wait for fair
weather conditions to travel, and trade in the United States
boomed. The steamboat further contributed to the
development of Western and Southern economies.
Robert Fulton (1765-1815)
A sketch of the Clermont