First Turnpike- 1790 Lancaster, PA
By 1832, nearly 2400 mi. of road connected
most major cities. Funded by states.
Cumberland (National Road),
1811
Conestoga Covered Wagons
Conestoga Trail, 1820s
Robert Fulton
& the Steamboat
1807: The Clermont
STEAMBOATS
•
•
•
•
NEW ORLEANS BECOMES MAJOR PORT
MADE 2-WAY RIVER TRAFFIC PRACTICAL
QUICKER THAN ROADS
DISADVANTAGES: FREQUENT FIRES,
COLLISIONS, ICE, SANDBARS
CANALS
•Even more efficient than roads for moving goods – lower
costs & less time
•Locks regulated the water level
•Encouraged growth of cities & towns
•State funding
•Disadvantages: freeze in winter, dry up in summer
Erie Canal – “Clinton’s Big Ditch”
From Buffalo to Albany
Begun 1817 & completed by 1825
Economic effects?
Principal Canals in 1840
Inland Freight Rates
RAILROADS
• MOST PRACTICAL
METHOD OF
TRANSPORTATION
SLOWER TO TAKE
HOLD BECAUSE
STATES SPENDING
MORE $ ON ROADS &
CANALS
– POSSIBLE IN ALL KINDS
OF WEATHER
– ANY KIND OF TERRAIN
– FASTEST
• VERY DANGEROUS!
– HIGH SPEEDS
– FIRES & COLLISIONS
– BAD BRAKES
The “Iron Horse” Wins! (1830)
1830  13 miles of track built by Baltimore & Ohio RR
By 1850  9000 mi. of RR track [1860  31,000 mi.]
The
Railroad
Revolution,
1850s
 Immigrant labor
built the Northern
RRs.
 Slave labor
built the Southern
RRs.
Stagecoaches
The Pony Express
• Stagecoaches
traveled from MO
River to California
– Calling “shotgun?”
• Pony Express, 1860
– Carried mail 2000 miles
from MO to CA
– Stations 10 miles apart
– Could make it in 10
days!
– Brought to an end by?
Clipper Ships
Why short-lived?
Cyrus Field
& the Transatlantic Cable, 1858
From Newfoundland to Ireland
American Population Centers in 1820
Population doubling every 22 years
American Population Centers in
1860
National Origin of Immigrants:
1820 - 1860
THE IRISH:
•
•
•
•
1840s; Largest group of immigrants
1845 potato famine in Ireland
Very poor; Catholic; lots of whiskey
Stayed in North & were in direct competition
with free blacks for jobs
– worked in factories (over 50% of mill labor
force by 1860) but . . . “NINA?”
– many go into police work
– built canals, RRs
GERMANS:
• 1850s; 2nd largest group
• Many come to escape political persecution
(failed democratic revolutions of 1848)
• wealthier than Irish; Catholic
• settle in Midwest -- Wisconsin, etc.
• form their own militia, fire companies,
schools, newspapers, etc.
• Not as politically influential as Irish – WHY?
• Levi Strauss; Henrich Steinway
• American cultural changes from the Germans?
KnowNothing
Party:
“The Supreme
Order of the
Star-Spangled
Banner”
NATIVISM:
• Prejudice against foreigners (threats to jobs)
• 1844 rioting between Catholics & Protestants - over 100
injured
• Samuel Morse – wrote against Catholics
• Order of the Star Spangled Banner - Know-Nothings, form
in 1849
– secret, anti-immigrant society
– wanted to keep immigrants out of political office, restrict
immigration & increase naturalization period to 21 years
– later become a viable political party
• Note: prejudice existed even among the immigrant groups
themselves (Irish disliked blacks for ex.)
WESTWARD WE GO!
• Americans continually on the move West!
• Greatest lure was the cheap, fertile land
available
• Farmers from South, farmers from Northeast
& immigrants from Europe all came West
• Rapidly growing towns sprang up along rivers
where cargo was transferred
– Cincinnati (“Queen City”), Louisville &
Nashville
• New farming inventions aided the move west:
John Deere & the Steel Plow
(1837)
Cyrus McCormick
& the Mechanical Reaper: 1831
1 man could do the work of 5 men with a sickle
New technology/cash crop farming/leads to more debt
The Factory System
• Spreads from BR to US – slowly
• Northeast – Industry is King!
–
–
–
–
Bad soil
Lots of labor
Ports
Rivers for Power!
Creating a Business-Friendly Climate
Supreme Court Rulings:
* Fletcher v. Peck (1810)
* Dartmouth v. Woodward (1819)
* McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)
* Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)
* Charles Rivers Bridge v. Warren
Bridge (1835)
General Incorporation Law - passed by many
states, such as NY, by 1848 (could incorporate without a
state charter)
Laissez faire - BUT, government did do
much to assist capitalism!
Samuel Slater
(“Father of the Factory System”)
Helps break BR
monopoly in textiles
First American mill –
Providence, RI 1791
Effects?
Industrial economy wellestablished in N
Slater’s mill & Whitney’s
cotton gin stimulate
cotton economy & slave
labor system
Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin, 1791
Actually invented
by a slave?
Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin, 1791
Actually invented
by a slave?
Eli Whitney’s Gun Factory
Interchangeable Parts Rifle
So, how did Eli Whitney help bring on the Civil
War AND help the North to win the war?
What impact did the Embargo & NonIntercourse Acts and the War of 1812 have
on the Industrial/Market Revolution?
• Capital ($) and labor that
were involved in commerce
move into manufacturing
• Nationalism and necessity
spurred the production of
American goods
• After the War, BR
dumped cheap
manufactured goods on
U.S. – this led to the use
of protective tariffs
Samuel F. B. Morse
1840 – Telegraph
Telegraph brings
an end to….?
Wash., D.C. to Baltimore – 40 miles
“What hath God wrought?”
Elias Howe & Isaac Singer
1840s
Sewing Machine
Women now going to factories to sew, rather than at home.
The Lowell/Waltham System
Mass Production of Cotton Cloth
Francis Cabot Lowell’s town - 1814
Lowell in 1850
Lowell Mill
Early Textile Loom
New England
Textile
Centers:
1830s
New England Dominance in
Textiles
Lowell Girls
What was their typical “profile?”
Lowell Boarding Houses
What was boardinghouse life like?
Lowell Mills
Time Table
Early “Union” Newsletter
I’m a Factory Girl Filled with Wishes
I'm a factory girl
Everyday filled with fear
From breathing in the poison air
Wishing for windows!
I'm a factory girl
Tired from the 13 hours of work each day
And we have such low pay
Wishing for shorten work times!
I'm a factory girl
Never having enough time to eat
Nor to rest my feet
Wishing for more free time!
I'm a factory girl
Sick of all this harsh conditions
Making me want to sign the petition!
So do what I ask for because I am a factory girl
And I'm hereby speaking for all the rest!
Irish Immigrant Girls at Lowell
The Early Union Movement
Workingman’s Party (1829)
* Founded by Robert Dale Owen and
others in New York City.
Early unions were usually local, social,
and weak.
Commonwealth v. Hunt (1842) – didn’t
legalize strikes but held that labor
unions were NOT illegal conspiracies.
Regional Specialization in America by
the 1850s
But….what connections?
• NORTHEAST
Industrial
made textiles & machines for S & W
• SOUTH
Cotton & Slavery
shipped to NE & BR
• WEST
Breadbasket of Nation
fed factory workers in NE & Europe
Changing Occupation Distributions:
1820 - 1860
MARKET REVOLUTION HAS TAKEN HOLD!!
Subsistence economy of scattered farms & tiny
workshops has been transformed into a national network
of industry and commerce.
Distribution of Wealth
v
v
v
v
During the American Revolution,
45% of all wealth in the top 10% of
the population.
1845 Boston - top 4% owned over
65% of the wealth.
1860 Philadelphia - top 1% owned
over 50% of the wealth.
The gap between rich and poor was
widening!
SOCIAL DEVELOPMENTS
• Factory system & growth of
cities undermined family as unit
of economic production
• Few women actually selfsupporting. Jobs in:
– Nursing, domestic service
– Teaching! Becomes totally
feminized largely due to
Catherine Beecher
• Home becomes place of refuge
rather than center of economic
production
• “Separate spheres” becomes
new doctrine
– “Cult of domesticity”
• Decline in birthrate - family
becomes smaller & more childcentered
CULT OF DOMESTICITY
& TRUE WOMANHOOD
• Separate spheres: men off to work to
support family, woman’s place is in the
home
• Popularized in newspapers, magazines,
etc.
• What were the 4 parts of ideal
womanhood?
• Why were women seen as physically
inferior to men?
• Why were women seen as intellectually
inferior to men?
• What strange myths arose as a result?
ALEXIS
de
TOCQUEVILLE
• French; came to study American prisons
– Studies natives - 1831
– Belief that Europe is moving to democracy
• “Democracy in America,” 1835
– Focuses on equality of conditions in US
– Notes whole society seems to have turned into
one middle class