Possible essay topics
 Strengths and weaknesses of the American economy
 The future of USD as a global currency
 Is the double deficit of the American economy sustainable?
 Future of American economy – prosperity or collapse?
 Lessons from the Great Depression (1929-33)
 The role of entrepreneurship in the economic success of the USA
 American health care reform – is Obamacare successful?
 The role of innovation in the American economy
doc. Ing. Tomáš Dudáš, PhD.
USA – A new nation state
 The Thirteen Colonies began a rebellion against British rule in 1775 and
proclaimed their independence in 1776
 Americans in the Thirteen Colonies demanded their rights as
Englishmen to select their own representatives to govern and tax them
 The 1783 Treaty of Paris represented Great Britain's formal
acknowledgement of the United States as an independent nation.
 The original 13 member states - Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey,
Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, New
Hampshire, Virginia, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island
 1789 – new constitution (federation state)
Westward expansion (1789–1849)
 1803 – Lousiana purchase
 From France for 15 million USD
 It doubled the territory of the USA
 1819 – Treaty with Spain
 Florida
 1845 – Texas joins the USA
 Texas became independent from Mexico in 1836
 1846 – Border treaty with Britain
 Oregon country
 1848 – Mexican cession
 After a war with Mexico USA gained what is today
Calirornia, Utah, Nevada, part of Wyoming, Colorado
and New Mexico
 1853 – Gadsden purchase
 From Mexico
 1867 – Pruchase of Alaska
 From Russia
 1898 – Annexation of Hawaii
 1899 – Annexation of Puerto Rico
Division of the land
 By 1853, the land area of the USA was 7,6 million km2
 Two thirds of this land was still empty and in the public
domain
 The government had a plan of land disposal, but nothing
went according the plan
 Land speculation and corruption were common
Basic population data between 1790 and
1860
Total
(millions)
White
Nonwhite
Urban
1790
3,9
82,1 %
17,9 %
5,2 %
1800
5,3
81,1 %
18,9 %
6,1 %
1810
7,2
81,9 %
18,1 %
7,3 %
1820
9,6
82,3 %
17,7 %
7,2 %
1830
12,9
81,4 %
18,6 %
8,7 %
1840
17,1
83,0 %
17,0 %
10,8 %
1850
23,2
84,5 %
15,5 %
15,3 %
1860
31,4
85,7 %
14,3 %
19,8 %
Basic population facts
 By 1860 the population of the USA exceeded that of United
Kingdom and from the European countries only France and
Russia had larger populations
 The population growth was approximately 3,3 % from 1790,
which meant that the population doubled roughly every 23
years
 Very high fertility – 55 births per 100o persons (15,7 in 1993)
 Very young population – in 1820 the median age was less than
17 years
 Plentiful land
 Rural/urban division
Immigration before 1860
 Policy of unrestricted immigration
 Until the 1830s the number of immigrants was not really
significant
 1821-1825 – annual average number of immigrants 8 000
 1826-1830 – annual average number of immigrants 20 587
 Series of poor harvests and the failure of potato crops in Europe
 1831-1835 – 50 498
 1836-1840 – 69 330
 1841-1845 – 86 067
 Huge inflows of immigrants between 1845/1850 – 1,4 million people
and between 1850/1857 2,2 million people
Immigration - sources
 The first upsurge came from the British Isles
 Famine in Ireland (more than 1 million dead in the
1840s)
 Between 1846-1855 approx. 1,3 million Irish entered the
US officially
 The events of 1848 created a new wave of immigrants
 Nearly 1 million of German speaking immigrants
 Harvest failures
Labor data
 In 1860 the US labor force numbered 11 million (35 %
of the total population)
 Approx. 79 % of these (58 % free and 21 % slave)
worked in the agriculture
 In 40 years, the proportion of the agriculture was cut
in half
Transportation and urbanization
 Government improved transportation for the new settlers
 Turnpikes - intercity toll roads (27 800 miles in 1820)
 Not very profitable business – profit rate of 3-4 %
 Canals – great canal building era between 1815 and 1843
 PPP projects
 First success – Erie Canal in 1825
 Steamboats
 Mississippi, Ohio and Missouri rivers
 817 steamboats in operation in 1860
 Railroads
 Total investment in railroads up to 1860 was more than 1 billion USD
Slavery
 The enslavement of Africans in the USA began in 1619 at
Jamestown
 Black slaves were servants for life, their children were born
into slavery
 1780 – nearly half a million of slaves concentrated in the
South
 Expansion of slavery in the 19th century
 Production of cotton
 By 1860 most slaves were freed in the North and in the
Middle colonies, leaving the South the major user of slaves
US Civil war 1861-1865
 The divisions on slavery became fully exposed with the 1860 presidential election
 Lincoln, (Republican), won with a plurality of popular votes and a majority of
electoral votes. Lincoln, however, did not appear on the ballots of ten southern
states: thus his election necessarily split the nation along sectional lines.
 11 states seceded from the USA and established the Confederate States of America
 Northern leaders had viewed the slavery interests as a threat politically, and with
secession, they viewed the prospect of a new southern nation, the Confederate
States of America, with control over the Mississippi River and the West, as
politically and militarily unacceptable.
 January 1st 1863 - Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation