Forging the National Economy,
1790-1860
Chapter 14
Manifest Destiny
• God given mission to spread civilization by conquest
to the entire western hemisphere
▫ no matter who it harmed
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Technological innovations
Democracy must continue to grow in order to survive
Desire to expand benefits of American civilization
Southerners were anxious to acquire new lands
▫ Why?
• Pacific ports
• Texas and Great Britain?
Agricultural Boom
• Post war of 1812 farm prices high
• Move west for better farm land
▫ Demand in Europe for corn and
wheat
• Urbanization builds dependence
on commercial farms
• Mississippi River natural highway
from midwest to Gulf
• Cotton Gin
▫ 1793, Eli Whitney from 1 slave
cleaning 1 pound per day to 50
pounds per hour
▫ Large demand in Europe for
cotton cloth
▫ 1815 - MS and AL half nation’s
cotton production
▫ By 1836 cotton 2/3 of all US
exports
 “King Cotton”
Land Policy
• Early preference for orderly
settlement of Public Domain
▫ Ordinance of 1785 - orderly
procedures for survey and sales
▫ Federalists wanted to slow
westward movement (eroded
their northeastern powerbase)
• Federalists encouraged sales to
speculators
▫ Republicans (Jefferson) reduced
minimum purchase amount from
640 acres (a section) which most
farmers couldn’t afford to 320 in
1800, @ $2/acre
▫ 160 acres in 1804 @ $1.64/acre
▫ 80 acres in 1820, 40 acres in 1832
@ $1.25/acre
Land Boom (cont.)
• Speculators
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bought sections, subdivided as small as 40 acres
could clear only 10 to 12 acres annually anyway
US Bank recharter spurred bank note production
Plethora of speculation 1815-1819
• 1819 Panic crashed the economy
• Squatters
▫ settled on unimproved land regardless of ownership
▫ generally gained right of “preemption” (allowed to purchase
and register land at minimum $ that they had settled and
improved)
▫ Had to forgo subsistence crops to pay off debts
▫ forced to produce cash crops to make money, exhausted land,
moved on
Panic of 1819
• Land boom collapsed
▫ State banks poor management
caused much of it
▫ Proliferation of bank notes,
farmers borrowed heavily to buy
more land
• US Bank insisted on specie instead
of paper to repay loans to state
banks
• Land prices from $69/acre to
$2/acre
▫ Farm market prices bottomed
▫ Farmers couldn’t repay loans,
went bust
• Horribly bad press for BUS,
(Jackson lost money in the crash
too)
Why was it difficult for the Industrial
Revolution to come to America?
• people wanted to be farmers,
plenty of land
• had raw materials but not
machines
• a lot of people had technological
ingenuity, but very little
specialized knowledge
• most people didn't have money or
leisure to worry about luxuries
• England wanted to prevent
industrialization in America
• negative attitude about impact of
factories on society
• people invested their money in
trade
Jefferson didn’t think factories were a
good idea, though he liked gadgets
• The new nation was to be a republic, which required a
balance of power, liberty, and virtue
• Who makes a good voter? a farmer--independent,
self-respecting
▫ “ You can't have republic without a virtuous citizenry.” Jefferson
• The workers in British factory cities were clearly
degraded
• The trade embargo by the British in 1807 that led
eventually to the war of 1812 convinced Jefferson to
change his mind
• The new nation couldn't afford to be dependent on
England for imported goods
Equality and Inequality
• Widening rich-poor gap in early
1800s
▫ Small % control majority of wealth
• Rich
▫ Exhibit conspicuous consumption,
flaunt wealth
▫ Live among peers, isolated from
poverty
▫ Many Attempt to look ordinary in
public, keep appearances of
equality
▫ paying minimal wages
 inadequate for male workers to
provide sufficiently from factory
work for family
• Poor
▫ Close to poverty
▫ More affected by panics - laid off,
wages reduced
▫ Paupers (aged, sick) considered the
“deserving” poor
▫ Drunks, loafers considered the
“undeserving” poor
Immigrants
• Numerous, increasing in
number as century progressed
• Irish poorest, evicted by
English landlords, many came
to US
▫ most canal diggers on Erie
were Irish
• Five Points district in NYC
horrible slum, predominately
Irish (“Gangs of New York”)
• Catholic as well as poor,
double whammy for the Irish
• Widely discriminated against
(“dogs and Irish keep off the
grass”, “Help wanted Irish
need not apply”)
Free Blacks in the North
• Bottom of non slave social scale
• Many discriminative laws in North
• Most lost vote between 1800-1850,
or had restrictions which didn’t
apply to whites
• Segregation widely practiced in
schools, hospitals, etc
▫ Barred from many municipal
facilities open to whites
▫ Forced into lowest paying jobs
▫ Paid less than whites for same
work in most cases
• Churches
▫ Blacks form own churches
▫ African Methodist Episcopal
(A.M.E.) Founded 1816, in
Philadelphia by Richard Allen
(first A.M.E. bishop)
Changing Social Relationships
• Principal motives
▫ questioning authority
▫ more than any other world culture
• Notion of women’s “separate sphere” in
the home
▫ no social rights to speak of outside
home
▫ more authority inside home, family
circle
• Attacking the professions
▫ decrease in respect for educated
professionals among middle, lower
classes
▫ value of training, degrees minimized
by many
• Value of the “self made” man
emphasized
• Made ministers more transient, subject
to dismissal by congregations
• Frontier respected authority little, titles
assumed by anyone who cared to,
“judge”, “colonel”, “squire”
Family Authority Questioned
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More choice of spouses by women
Working outside home by choice
Longer engagements
Women remained single rather than
forfeit independence
• Wives and husbands
▫ Separate spheres
▫ mothers expected to be the experts in
child rearing
▫ father provider role unchanged, mother
role increased in scope
▫ Idealized home, provider father, expert
child rearing mother in a safe haven
away from trials and evils
• Women’s issues
▫ birthrate gradually decrease - farming
becomes less prevalent in northeast
• Various forms of pregnancy prevention,
including unnamed abortions in many
cases
• Separate spheres seen by many (mostly
men) as an alternate to real equality of
rights