Unit 6 notes
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Transformation of American agriculture (274)
o Ninety percent of people in the 1820s still lived and worked in farms
o many urban people ran little shops
o in the nineteenth century industrial labor came from transformation of american agr.
 Improved transportation system + New farm machinery made it possible to
increase in food production
 Less labor intensive
 Number of workers required dropped
 People abandoned unprofitable land and worked in factories
o Two systems of recruitment emerged
 1. Mid-atlantic states brought wholes families from farm to mill
 2. Common in Mass. Which enlisted young women
 Known as the Lowell or Waltham system
o Labor were better in America than in England
 England hired orphans
 Americans hired children with parents
Lowell system (276)
o Relied on young unmarried women
o Condition of work in England for women was bad
o In America factory owners placed emphasis on maintaining a proper environment for
their employees
o Wages were low but generous
Women workers (276)
o Transition from farm to factory was difficult
o Hours were long
o Unthinkable for women to travel the country along
Decline of the Lowell system(277)
o Lowell system did not survive for long
o 1830s and 1840s competitive textile markets developed
 Longer hours, wages declined, condition of boarding houses deteriorated
o 1834 mill workers in Lowell organized the factory girls association
 Strike to protest 25 percent wage cut
 2 years later and rent increased in the boarding houses
 Both strikes failed
o Recession in 1837 almost destroyed the organization
o 8 years later Lowell women created female labor reform association
o Mill girls were getting into other occupations
Economic advantages of immigrant labor(277)
o Used immigrants because of their vast numbers and their unfamiliarity with their new
country
o Encountered far worse working conditions
o Irish workers’ arrival accelerated the deterioration of working conditions there.
o Employers began paying wages tied to how much a worker produced, or piece rate
Harsh working conditions(277)
Unit 6 notes
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Skilled artisans valued their independence, stability and relative equality within their
economic world
o Average work day in 12-14 hrs a day
o 4-10 dollars a week skilled men
o 1-6 dollars per week unskilled laborers
o Women and children earned less than men
Deskilling (277)
o Artisans were unable to compete with the price of factory-made goods.
 Craftsmen began to form organizations
 Workingmen’s political party
 First American labor union
 Mass production threatened livelihood and independence and status in their
community
National trade unions (278)
o In some cities skilled workers formed societies for mutual aid
o During 1820s-1930s craft societies began to combine on a citywide basis and set up
central organizations called the trade union
o 1834 delegates from 6 cities founded the national’s trade
o Early craft union movement was bad because labor leaders struggled against the
handicap of hostile law and hostile courts
 Courts thought it was an illegal conspiracy
o The panic of 1837 was a dramatic financial collapse that weakened the movement even
more
o Some states made a ten hour limit to work unless they signed express contract
o Mass, Hampshire, and penn. Passed laws regulating child labor
 Limited children to 10 hrs
Commonwealth v. Hunt (278)
o Declared that unions were lawful organizations
o Artisans and skilled workers had more success to stage strikes than workers
o Primary purpose was to protect the favored position of their members in the labor force
o The organizing effort that failed in 1830s, was successful in the 1850s
 National typographical union was founded in 1852
 Stonecutters in 1853
 Hat finishers in 1854…etc
Female protective unions (278)
o Women began establishing their own protective union by the 1850s
o Women’s protective unions had little power in dealing with employers
o Serve important role as mutual aid societies for women workers
o In England workers were becoming a powerful force
 Creating widespread social turmoil
o Nothing like this happened in America
American’s divided working class (278)
o Immigrants were usually laborers in the country
 Willing to work for lower wages than natives
Unit 6 notes
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Immigrants and native workers channel their resentment into internal bickering
 Should’ve been taking their grievance out on employers
o Industrial capitalist had economic, political, and social power
Increasing inequality in wealth (279)
o Commercial and industrial growth greatly increased in America
o Wealth had been unequally distributed in the US
 Era of revolution 45 percent of the wealth went to 10 percent of the population
 Boston in 1845 4 percent of the citizens are estimated to own 65 percent of the
wealth
 Phili in 1860 1 percent of the pop. Possessed more than half the wealth
o Overall in 1860 5 percent of the families possessed 50 percent of the wealth
o Character of wealth was changing due to the commercial revolution
o Merchants and industrialists were gaining enormous fortune
o Distinctive culture of wealth emerged
o Rich people founded clubs and developed elaborate social rituals
The urban poor (279)
o Most Americans were entirely without resource and often homeless
 Dependent on charity or crime for survival
o They were immigrants who can’t find work, widows and orphans
Female education (283)
o Women had been denied many legal and political rights that are enjoyed by men
o Men ruled the family and women bowed to his demand
o Impossible for women to get a divorce
o Most states husbands retained absolute authority of the property and persons of their
wives
o Women were encouraged to attend school at an elementary level but discouraged to go
on to higher education
o Oberlin became the first college to accept female students.
o Coeducation remained very rare
New roles for women (284)
o Women’s role shifted during the 19th century
 Within the family and the larger society, women’s emerged as guardians of the
domestic virtues
 The importance of wives and women grew
o Middle class women now became consumers
 Learned the importance of a clean house and dressing elegantly
Women’s separate sphere (284)
o Some women began to develop a distinctive female culture
o Women began forming their own social network
o Women’s book and magazines started to appear
 These focused on romance, and fashion
Benefits and costs (285)
o In the new era isolation of woman seemed like oppression and discrimination
Unit 6 notes
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Realized that women had special qualities that in some ways are more superior
than men
o Women’s role to provide religious and moral instructions to children
o Cult of domesticity made women live lives of greater material comfort and placed higher
value on female virtue
o By 1840s the ideology of domesticity grew so powerful that very few married women
would work in shops or mills
o Unmarried women had very few choices on what jobs they can consider
Working class women (285)
o Working class women couldn’t stay home and practice domestic virtue
o Had to work to provide for family
o Continued to work in factories and mills, but conditions were far worse than before
Rise of commercial agriculture (288)
o Most people in the 19th century remained in the agricultural world
 Agriculture became increasingly a part of the new capitalist economy
 Agriculture could not compete in the new commercial world
 Agriculture could not compete so it declined
Truck farming in the northeast (288)
o Some eastern farmers moved west establishing new farms
o Some became laborers
o Some stayed and sold their vegetables and fruits to the city
o Half the dairy products were produced in the east
o Agriculture steadily becoming less important
Industrialization in the old northwest (288)
o Manufacturing regions grew
o Most of the industrial activities of the west was agriculture
o Indians were the most numerous inhabitants of the upper third of the great lakes state
o The northwest’s rich and plentiful soil made farming lucrative and expanding process
Agricultural specialization (289)
o Western farmers started concentrating on one specific crop for market
o In the northwest farm prices rose because of the aftermath of the Napoleonic war
o Industrialization provided a great boost for agriculture
 Growth of factories and cities in the northwest made the domestic market for
farm goods increased dramatically
Growing ties btw northeast and northwest (289)
o Northwest sold most of its products to the residents of the northeast
 Became dependent on eastern purchasing power
o Eastern industries found important market for its products in the west.
 Strong economic relationship
New agricultural techniques (289)
o Increased new production by reducing the labor necessary for producing crops
o Started importing new seeds to plant
o Improved farming machines
McCormick reaper (289)
Unit 6 notes
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Two new machines revolutionized grain production
 Automatic reaper
 Invention of Cyrus H McCormick
 Enabled 6 or 7 men to harvest in a day as much wheat as 15 men
 Created in 1834
 Thresher
 Separates the grain from the wheat stalks
 Appeared in large numbers by 1840s
 Manufactured by Jerome J case in Racine
Importance of religion in rural communities (290)
o Religion drew farm communities together
o Town or village churches were popular meeting places
o Most dominated by women
The transcendentalists (318)
o Romantic impulse in America came from group of new England writers and philosophers
called transcendentalists
 Borrowing from german philosophers
 Believed the individuals that rested on a distinction between what they called
reason and understanding
 Involved the repression of instincts
 And the victory of externally imposed learning
 They believed everyone’s goal should be setting themselves free from the
confines of liberation
Ralph waldo emerson (318)
o Leader was Ralph
 Unitarian minister in his youth
 Left church in 1832 to devote himself to writing and teaching of
transcendentalist
 Really good at writing essays and lectures
 Talks about full exploration of inner capacities
 Committed nationalist
o Henry david Thoreau
 Went further than emerson in repudiating the repressive force of society
 Should work for self realization by resisting the repressive forces of society
Thoreau and civil disobedience (319)
o rejection of what he considered the artificial constraints of society
o Thoreau went to jail in 1846 because he did not agree to pay poll tax
 Wouldn’t give financial support of the government who supported slavery
 1849 thoreau explained his refusal by claiming person morality had the first
claim on his or her actions
The defense of nature (319)
o Tribute to Thoreau and emerson to the power of nature suggest, a small group of
Americans who was eneasy of the rapid economic development
Unit 6 notes
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Rapid march of industrialization expressed horror at the destruction of the
wilderness
 Began to mount defense for preservation
 First americans to anticipate the environmental movement of the 20th century
Brook farm (319)
o Transc. Helped spawn the most famous of all 19th century experiments in common
living: brook farm
 Established by George Ripley in west Roxbury
o Individuals would gather to create a new form of social organization
 Permit every member of the community full opportunity for self realization
 Share labor equally
o Individualism gave way to socialism
 Many people left
 Experiment dissolved in 1847
New harmony (320)
o Robert owen founded an experimental community in Indiana in 1825 which was named
new harmony
 Village of cooperation in which every resident worked and lived in total equality
 Economy was a total failure
Redefined gender roles at the Oneida community (320)
o Oneida community was established in upstate New York by john Humphrey Noyes
 Rejected tradition notions of family and marriage
 Declared that all residents were “married” with all other residents
 No permanent conjugal ties
The shakers (321)
o No one could be born to Shakerism
 shakers had to choose the faith voluntarily
o Shaker communities attracted about 6000 members in the 1840s
 Contact between men and women was very limited
 Endorsed sexual equality
o Women exercised most power
o wanted to create a society separated from the chaos and disorder that had come to
characterize American life
Joseph smith (321)
o Mormonism began in upstate New York
 Was the result of Joseph Smith
 Economically unsuccessful man
 1830 created a book called the book of Mormon
o Named for the ancient prophet who claimed he had written it
 Smith believed darkened people were descendent of American Indians
 Smith believed the Hebrew kingdom can be a model for a new holy
community
 In 1831 smith gathered people and began to search for a sanctuary for the new
religion
Unit 6 notes
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 Searched for 20 years but failed
 Smith was imprisoned
Establishment of Salt Lake City (321)
o Angry mob attacked the jail and killed smith
o Under the leadership of Brigham young, the Mormons traveled across the desert
o Went to Salt Lake City and created a permanent settlement
Revivalism morality and order (323)
o Philosophy of reform arose from 2 sources
 One who supported the transcendentalists and hated Calvinist doctrines
 Preached divinity for individuals
 Second was the protestant revivalism
 Begun in the second great awakening
 Believed everyone was capable of salvation
Revivalism in the burned over district (323)
o Finnie helped launched a series of passionate revivals in towns along the eerie canal
o Revivalism was happening because of the construction in eerie canal
o This transformation made men and women feel baffled and disorientated
Finney’s doctrine of personal regeneration (323)
o Biggest successful of revivalism was in Rochester, New York
o Finney staged religious meetings which captured mostly women
 Women found the message of revivalism appealing
 Women provided access to their male relatives
 Not only personal salvation but a mandate for the system
The temperance crusade (323)
o Evangelical Protestantism added major strength to the reform movement of alcoholism
o Supply of alcohol was growing rapidly
 Particularly in the west
o In the west they distilled the grain and turned it into whiskey
o In the east commercial distilleries and private stills were widespread
American society for the promotion of temperance (324)
o In 1840, 6 reformed alcoholics in Baltimore organized the Washington temperance
society
 Began to draw large crowds
 Were heavily represented to hear their impassioned and intriguing confessions
of past sins
 Millions of people signed a formal pledge to forgo hard liquor
 As it gained in strength, it also became divided in purpose
 Some advocates urged not only liquor but beer and wine
Cultural divisions over alcohol (324)
o Latter impulse was clear about prohibition laws
 Pitted established protestants against new catholic immigrants
 Many thought drinking was an important ritual and integral part of life
 new immigrants thought that the restrictions of alcohol seemed to them a way
to curb the disorder
Unit 6 notes
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health fads and phrenology (324)
o some americans the search for social and individual perfection led to an interest in new
theories of health and knowledge
o Sense antibiotics wasn’t around lots of people died due to cholera especially in New
Orleans
o People thought that the “water cure” in health spas would improve health, but it had no
therapeutic value
Phrenology (325)
o Science of phrenology first appeared in Germany by Orson and Lorenzo Fowler
 Argued that the shape of an individual’s skull was an important indicator of his
or her character and intelligence
 Thought that different parts of the brain controlled a specific kind of intelligence
or behavior
Medical science (326)
o The profession to become a physician were beaten back in the 1830s and 1840s by
those who considered the licensing of physicians to be a form of undemocratic
monopoly
o Prestige of the profession was low
o Biggest problem of the time was that Americans didn’t know the basic knowledge about
disease
 Many cures like small pox and anesthetic was a coincidence
discovery of contagions
o Very different for doctor to make progress in treating disease
o In 1843 Oliver Wendell Holmes published his findings of puerperal fever
 Concluded the disease can’t be transmitted from one person to another
 Lots of criticism
 Was transmitted by corpses
Horace mann’s reforms
o Greatest educational reformers was Horace mann, first secretary of the mass. Board of
education
o He thought that education was the only way to counterwork this tendency of dominion
of capital and servility of labor
o Mann lengthened school year, doubled teacher’s salaries, enriched the curriculum and
introduced new methods of professional training
Rapid growth of education
o Other states experienced similar expansions and development
o Penn. Passed law in 1835 appropriating state funds for the support of universal
education
o William seward, governor of new York extended public support for schools throughout
the state
o Black pop was barred from formal education
o In the north 72 percent of white children was going to school
Achievements of educational reform
o End of civil war, US had one of the highest literacy rates of any nation of the world
Unit 6 notes
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o But there were still conflicting impulses that underlay the movement for school reform
The benevolent empire
o Some institutions were formed part of a great network of charitable activities known as
the benevolent empire
 Perkins school for the blind
o More typical was the educational reform to impose social values on children
The asylum movement
o Similar impulses help form the creation of asylums for criminals and for the mentally ill
 They put criminals and mentally ill in jail
 Abandoned mine shaft
 Holes in the ground
 New York build the first penitentiaries at auburn in the 1821
The indian reservation
o 1840s and 1850s created a new reform approach to native american
 Motive was to always move the Indians away from white settlement
 Secondary intent was to move Indians to a place where they would be
protected from whites and allowed to develop to a point where
assimilation might be possible.
o Small step from relocation to reservation
o Served whites above all else
 Moving Indians away from good land
 Served as reform purpose
The rise of feminism
o Women played wide range of reform movements
 Important in the movements on behalf of temperance and the abolition of
slavery
 Women realized that they faced a male dominated society.
Reform movements and the rise of feminism
o Women in 1830 and 1840 suffered traditional restrictions imposed on members of their
sex on society and a new set of barriers that had emerged from the doctrine of separate
spheres
o Women who began to involve themselves in reform movements resented the
restrictions
Seneca falls
o 1840 a group of American female delegates arrived at a world antislavery convention in
London
 Convention was controlled by men so they were rejected
 Decided that their first duty was to elevate status of women
o 1848 organized convention in Seneca falls to discuss the question of women’s rights
 Emerged the declaration of sentiments and resolutions
 Stated that all men and women are created equal
 Most prominent demand was the right to vote
 Launching a movement for woman suffrage that would continue until
the 1920
Unit 6 notes
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 Many of these women were quakers
Early opposition to slavery
o 1817 group of prominent white Virginians organized the American colonization society
 Worked carefully to challenge slavery without challenging property rights
 Received funding from private donors, some from congress, and some from
legislature of Virginia and Maryland.
Failure of colonization
o In the end the ASC managed to only to colonize fewer slaves than were born in the US in
a month.
o There had been far too many black men and women in America in the 19th century to be
transported to Africa
o Some African Americans didn’t even want to go back
Garrison and the liberator
o William Lloyd garrison was assistant to Benjamin lundy
 Believed in anti-slavery movement
 Should not talk about the evil influence of slavery on white society but instead
about the damage the system had done to the blacks
American antislavery society
o Garrison attracted a lot of a large group of followers throughout the north
 Enough to enable him to found the new England antislavery society in 1832
o 1835 there were more than 400 chapters of the societies
o By 1838 there were 135 chapters with more than 250,000 members
Free blacks’ commitment to abolition
o Majority of the liberators were free blacks
Frederick douglass
o Frederick douglass was an orator
 born as a slave in Maryland and escaped to Massachusetts
 became an outspoken leader of antislavery
 1847 douglass purchased his freedom from his master in Maryland
 Founded an antislavery newspaper called the north star in New York
 Held their first convention in 1830
Violent reprisal
o Escalating waves of violence were directed at abolitionists in the 1830s
 Prudence Crandall wanted to admit several African American girls to her private
school
 Arrested Crandall
 Forced her to close down the school
o 1834 a mob attacked the abolitionist headquarters, the temple of liberty
o Many abolitionists faced harassment
Moderates vs extremists
o Abolitionists began to experience serious internal strains and divisions
 Violence of the anti-abolitionists made some abolitionist members of the
movement turn to a more moderate approach
 Growing radicalism of William Lloyd garrison
Unit 6 notes
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 Attacked not only slavery but the government itself
o 1840 garrison precipitated a formal division within the American antislavery society
 By insisting that the women in the organization can be permitted to participate
in any movement in terms of full equality
o 1840 and on abolitionism moved in many channels and spoke with many different
voices
The Amistad case
Garrisonians helped fund the legal battle over the Spanish slave vessel, Amistad.
o Africans seized ship in 1839
 US navy had seized ship and held the Africans as pirates
 Abolitionists declared the Africans free
 Reached to the supreme court
 Court declared the Africans free in 1841
o Abolitionists never formed a political party
Harriet Beecher Stowe
o Most powerful abolitionist propaganda was written by Harriet, Uncle tom’s cabin
o Became a book in 1852
o Stowe combined sentimental novel with the political ideas of the abolition
movement.
Crash course 12
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Market revolution happened in the first half of the 19th century
Era of good feelings between 1812 and 1836
o Only one political party
Market revolution moved away from independent needs to producing goods for sale to others
o Closer to hamilton’s dreams, not jefferson’s
transportation and communication enabled a massive economic shift
o transporting goods were easy now due to new roads and other revolution
o national road: reached all the way from Cumberland, Maryland to west Virginia
o canals made transports much cheaper and more efficient
 steamboats were a massive reason why they built canals
 New York created the erie canal which linked the great lakes to the Hudson river
o rail roads begun in 1828 and by 1860 there were more than 30,000 miles of rails in the
US
o communication: telegraph
factories gathered people in one place and split up tasks among them
o making production much faster and more efficient
limited liability corporation: enabled investors to finance business without being responsible for
losses
1830 states began passing incorporation laws
o Made it easier to create corporations
Unit 6 notes
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o Supreme court upheld them and protected them
Gibbons vs ogden
o Struck down a monopoly that New York had granted to a steam boat company
Market revolution changed the landscape of work
o Before the landscape of work was at home
 Factory owners would produce some of the products ant then farm the finishing
out to people working in their houses
o Eventually realized that they can gather workers in one place
Market rev. also changed how we imagined work and leisure time
o On farms the season and hrs of daylight regulated the time for work
o In factories they used clocks
o Also made it possible for more people to do industrial work
o In colonial America artisans worked for their “price” which was linked to what they
produced
o In factories workers were paid a wage
With less and less land in new England young men migrated west for decades
o Between 1790 and 1840s 4.5 mill people crossed over Appalachian mountain and six
new states were created between 1815 and 1821
First half of the 19th century became the age of manifest destiny
o Believed that god wanted them to spread through the US
The transcendentalist was trying to redefine freedom in a changing world
o Transc. Argued that freedom resided in an individual’s power to remake oneself