Forging the National Economy (1790-1860)

1. Forging the National Economy (1790-1860) Chapter 14

2. A. The Westward Movement • Westward moving population • Alleghenies • Ohio Valley • Incredibly hard life • Isolated • Ill-informed • Dangerous • Superstitious

3. Mythical, lone-wolf figures • Natty Bumpo • Captain Ahab

4. B. Shaping the Western Landscape • Clear-cut agriculture • erosion, • Over-cultivation • Beaver trappers in Rocky Mountains

5. Buffalo hides • Ecological imperialism

6. Natural resources • George Caitlin

7. C. The March of Millions • 1860- US 4th largest nation in the world • Growth of American cities • Urbanization • Slums • High birth rate & immigration • Land of freedom & opportunity • Faster transportation

8. Railroad carriages are pulled at the enormous speed of 15 miles per hour by engines which, in addition to endangering life and limb of passengers, roar and snort their way through the countryside, setting fire to the crops, scaring the livestock, and frightening women and children. The Almighty certainly never intended that people should travel at such breakneck speed.” • -Martin Van Buren

9. D. The Emerald Isle Moves West • Potato famine of 1840s • Boston & New York • Hated by natives • Did low class & dangerous jobs • NINA • -No Irish need apply

10. Slowly rose in prominence- Tammany Hall • Political machines

11. E. The German 48ers • 1830s-1860s • Crop failures • Failed democratic revolutions • Not as poor as Irish • Midwest • Against slavery • Drinking on the Sabbath • Temperance

12. F. Flare-ups of Antiforeignism • Anti-foreign & anti-Catholic • Catholics gained prominence (1850- majority) • Immigrants helped economy grow

13. American nativists • “Order of the Star Spangled Banner” • Know-Nothings • American Party • Fictional literature • Attacks on Catholic schools, churches, & convents

15. G. Creeping Mechanization • Slow to move to factory system • Cheap land • Cheap manufactured items from Britain • British laws

16. H. Whitney Ends the Fiber Famine • Eli Whitney & the Cotton Gin- 1793 • Spread cotton production west • Started American industrial revolution • Revived slavery (manumission)

19. Samuel Slater- to Rhode Island- 1791 • Textile mills started in the Northeast (water) • 400 million lbs. annually

20. I. Marvels in Manufacturing • Factories spread slowly until 1807 • Embargo & non-intercourse • Treaty of Ghent- 1815 • Protective Tariff of 1816 • Eli Whitney- Interchangeable Parts • Early method of assembly line • Gave north manufacturing advantage • Rapid growth in patents- 1800-1860

21. New inventions • 1837- John Deere- steel plow • 1830s- Cyrus McCormick- automatic reaper

23. “What hath God wrought…” • Samuel Morse’s telegraph- 1844

24. J. Workers & “Wage Slaves” • Owners vs. workers • Factory conditions • Labor unions forbidden • Child labor • Early demands of workers • Higher wages, better conditions, shorter day, education for children • Strikes by 1830s & 40s • Strikebreakers

25. Win for the Unions • MA supreme court- Commonwealth vs. Hunt- 1842- unions legal

26. K. Women & the Economy • Factory girls of New England (young, unmarried); 12-14 hr days • Lowell Factory System • Women in teaching • Women in domestic work

28. Most women didn’t work, those that did were mostly unmarried • Fewer arranged marriages • Lower birth rate (domestic feminism) • Cult of domesticity

29. Increased educational opportunities – Mount Holyoke (Mary Lyon)

30. it is needful that certain relations be sustained, that involve the duties of subordination. There must be the magistrate and the subject, one of whom is the superior, and the other the inferior. There must be the relations of husband and wife, parent and child, teacher and pupil, employer and employed, each involving the relative duties of subordination. The superior in certain particulars is to direct, and the inferior is to yield obedience. Society could never go forward, harmoniously, nor could any craft or profession be successfully pursued, unless these superior and subordinate relations be instituted and sustained. In this Country, it is established, both by opinion and by practice, that women have an equal interest in all social and civil concerns; and that no domestic, civil, or political, institution, is right, that sacrifices her interest to promote that of the other sex. But in order to secure her the more firmly in all these privileges, it is decided, that, in the domestic relation, she take a subordinate station, and that, in civil and political concerns, her interests be entrusted to the other sex, without her taking any part in voting, or in making and administering laws.

31. L. Western Farmers Reap a Revolution in the Fields • Corn farming in western pioneer families • Hogs & liquor • Corn to the south

32. M. Highways & Steamboats • PN Turnpike- 1790s • Prompted western migration • Little federal funding • National/Cumberland Road- 1811-1852

33. Steamboats- Robert Fulton’s Clermont- 1807 • 2-way transportation • 1820- 60 on the MS River • 1860- 1,000 on MS • Drew populations to river banks

35. N. Clinton’s Big Ditch in NY • Erie Canal- 1817-1825 • Linked Great Lakes to Atlantic • Not federally funded • Cost, speed, population

36. O. The Iron Horse • More versatile than canals • Cheaper • Easier to build • Could go almost anywhere • 1828-1860- 30,000 miles of track • Different gauges • Poor brakes- Westinghouse • Pullman sleeping car- 1859 • Iron

38. P. Cables, Clippers, & Pony Riders • 1819- transatlantic steamer • 1858- transatlantic cable • 1840s & 1850s- clipper ships • 1860- pony express • 1861- cable to CA

39. Q. The Transport Web Binds the Union • Sections of nation tied together • Depended on each other • North made manufactured goods- sent south & west • South grew cotton- sent north to mills • West grew grains & livestock- food for other regions & Europe

40. R. The Market Revolution • Turning into a nation of consumers • Growth of corporations (limited liability) • Boston Associates • No longer self-sufficient households • Social mobility or improving standard of living?

41. 1. “A relatively insignificant experimental crop in the 1780s, cotton provided nearly 40% of American exports by 1810. By the 1840s, cotton represented over half the total value of exports.” Account for this change. 2. In 1820 it cost $100 to ship a ton of grain to New York City from the Great Lakes. Just five year later, this transaction cost only $9. How can this change be accounted for. In what way did this change alter the traditional New England economy? 3.An English businessman wrote following the War of 1812 that it was “well worthwhile to incur a loss upon first exportations, in order, by glut, to stifle in the cradle the rising maufactures in the US which war has forced into existence.” For what reasons were Americans still able to compete with English manufacturers during the 1820s? 4. “Increasingly planters [were] separating large numbers of slaves from their families and selling them out of the Chesapeake into newly settled frontiers beyond South Carolina and Georgia.” Explain why. 5.In 1798 the US faced with a growing crisis with France needed a more steady supply of firearms. Explain how Eli Whitney responded to this demand in a novel way. 6. Explain how either Alexander Hamilton or Thomas Jefferson would have responded to the beginnings of the market system.