Chapter 9
Economic Transformation
1820-1860
The American Industrial Revolution
• Mass Production made luxury items common
• Commonwealth System (chapter 8) allowed manufactures to be sold across the country
The Division of Labor and the Factory
• Increase in production came from changes in the organization of work
• Advantages of “Division of labor”• Coal burning steam engines replaced water power
• Advances in technology and organization alarmed British observers. Why?
The Textile Industry and British Competition
• British government prohibited export of textile machinery and emigration of mechanics to the U.S. Why?
• What lured British mechanics to the U.S.?
• Samuel Slater
American and British Advantages
• British advantages:
• American advantages:
Better Machines, Cheaper Workers
• Americans improved on British technology. How?
• Higher speeds than British looms and needed fewer workers
• In 1820s, use of cheaper labor
• Reassured parents of moral welfare: curfews, temperance, and church
• Conditions were better than those in crowded farmhouses
• Greater independence
American Mechanics and Technological Innovation
• By 1820s, Americans replaced British as the leaders in technology
• From 1820-1860 U.S. patents rose from _____ to _________ per year.
• American craftsmen pioneered in the development of machine tools.
• Eli Whitney
• Crystal Palace Exhibition in London 1851
• Remington
• Singer
• Yale
Wageworkers and the Labor Movement
• American craft workers espoused artisan republicanism
Free Workers Form Unions
• Unlike women, men resented their status as wage workers
• Meager wages and little job security
• Skilled workers were able to form unions
• By 1820s employers demanded more work hours and less breaks
• Specialized shops
• Difficulty forming unions
• NYC fired union workers
• Blacklists
Labor Ideology
• Despite losing cases with the state government, many people supported unions
• Protests
• Judges with light sentences
• Commonwealth vs. Hunt (1842)
• Many judges resisted unions by issuing injunctions forbidding strikes
• Labor theory of value• Women textile operatives
• Walk outs
• Strikes
• Irish immigrants
• Recession in 1850s
• Supply and demand
• Overproduction
• Bankruptcies in railroad industry
• unemployment
The Market Revolution
• The U.S. transportation system set in motion a “market revolution” and a great migration of people.
The Transportation Revolution Forges Regional Ties
• Fertile lands of the Great Lakes basin
• In 1806 Congress approved funds for a National Road
• In 1820 Congress encouraged settlement
• By 1840, 5 million people moved to states and territories west of Appalachians
• State government charters
Canals and Steamboats Shrink Distance
• Overland travel was slow and expensive
• 1817 New York’s legislature decide to build the Erie Canal
• This New York project has 3 things working in its favor:
• 1.
• 2.
• 3.
• Irish immigrants cleared land
• Environmental changes
• An economic success
• Paid off in 2 years
• Prosperity to the farmers of New York
• Manufacturers shipped clothing, boots, and agricultural equipment
• Success of Erie Canal sparked a national canal boom
• Great Lakes region
• Robert Fulton’s steamboat ensured economic success of Midwest
• States subsidized canals and national government passed Post Office Act of 1792
• Gibbons vs. Ogden (1824)
Railroads Foster Regional Ties
• Railroads replace canals with large investments by capitalists
• Chicago expands commerce
• Midwest becomes producers of:
• John Deere (p. 288)
• Linked southern cotton planters to northeast textile plants and foreign markets
• This did not transform the economic and social order of the south. Why?
The Growth of Cities and Towns
• Trade dramatically increased America’s urban population
• Northeast and Midwest
• Fastest growth in industrial towns along the “fall line”
•
•
•
•
Lowell, MA
Hartford, CT
Trenton, NJ
Wilmington, DE
• Commercial cities expanded as transit centers
• Pittsburg
• Cincinnati
• New Orleans
• Midwest commercial hubs
• Atlantic seaports
• New York City and Brooklyn:
• New York
•
•
•
•
Trade
Harbor
Brasil, Peru, and Venezuela
By 1840 2/3rd of US foreign imports, half of foreign trade, and much immigration traffic
New Social Classes and Cultures
• Three distinct social classes emerge: industrial and commercial elite, a substantial middle class, and a mass
of propertyless wage earners.
The Business Elite
• Relationship before industrialization
• The Industrial Revolution shattered this agrarian social order
• The urban economy made merchants, manufacturers, bankers, and landlords elite
• Government tax policies facilitated the accumulation of elite class’s wealth.
• Federal government raised regressive taxes
• States taxes real estate and personal property; not stocks and bonds or inheritances
• Affluent families consciously set themselves apart
• Division based on:
The Middle Class
• Who were they?
• Mostly in Northeast
• Emergence of middle class reflected a dramatic rise in ________ prosperity.
• Saved 15% of income
• Purchased new luxuries: pianos, lithographs, carriages, books
• Hired help
• Moral and mental discipline was another distinguishing mark
• Education
• Diligent work became a secular ideal
• The “self made man”
Urban Workers and the Poor
• Laborers for others
• Check to check
• Child labor
• Effect of immigration after 1840
• Population
• Pollution
• Crime
• Crowding
• Alcohol abuse reached new heights 1820s and 1830s
• Brawl
• Robberies
• Abuse
• Police were unable to control crime
The Benevolent Empire
• Disorder among wage earners alarmed the middle class, wanted safe and disciplined workforce.
• Restore “the moral government of God”
• Persuasion if possible, law if necessary
• Organizations instead of church
• Prison Discipline Society
• American Society for the Promotion of Temperance
• Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children (women)
• Orphan Asylum Society (women)
• Goals:
• Not on Sunday(the Sabbath)!
• General Union for Promoting the Observance of the Christian Sabbath in 1828
• Opposition. Why?
Charles Grandison Finney: Revivalism and Reform
• Presbyterian minister found a new way to propagate religious values.
• Conversion vs. doctrine
• Greatly accelerated the “Second Great Awakening”
Evangelical Beliefs
• “God has made man a moral free agent”
• Conversion at both ends of the social spectrum
• In 1830 moved his congregation to Rochester, NY
• Sunday school
• Opposition
Temperance
• Most successful evangelical social reform =(Prohibition 18th Amendment 1920-33)
• American Temperance Society in 1832
• Annual consumption of spirits fell dramatically
Immigration and Cultural Conflict
• Between 1840 and 1860, about 2 million Irish, 1.5 million Germans, and 750,000 Britons poured into the U.S.
• Most immigrants avoided the south
Irish Poverty
• Fleeing famine caused by overpopulation and bad crops
• New England and New York
• Women were cheap labor
• Neighborhoods were infested with disease
• Church was a cornerstone of community
• Network of institutions helped maintain religion and identify
• Charity, orphanages, political organizations, parochial schools
Nativism
• Protestant fervor stirred by the “Second Great Awakening” led to anti-Catholic/anti-immigrant sentiment.
• Fear papal interference in American life and politics
• Industrialization and job competition fueled conflict
• Called for halt to immigration
• Condemned drinking in Irish culture