Essential QuestionEssential Question: How did new inventions & improved

transportation help facilitate a national market economy in the 1840s?

In the 1830s & 1840s, territorial & technological growth led to important changes in America: Improved transportation Rapid technological innovation A growing nationalnational economy Mass European immigration Desire for transcontinental expansion (“Manifest

Destiny”)

In 1816, Henry Clay’s American SystemAmerican System initiated federally funded “internal improvements” The National RoadNational Road became the 1st federal

transportation project Thousands of private turnpikes were built by

entrepreneurs Roads were useful but they did not meet the

demand for low-cost, over-land transportation

America's 1America's 1stst Turnpike: Turnpike: Lancaster, PA 1790Lancaster, PA 1790

By 1832, nearly 2,400 miles of roads By 1832, nearly 2,400 miles of roads connected most major citiesconnected most major cities

Cumberland (National Road), 1811

Steamboats & canals stimulated commercial agriculture by providing for the free-flow of

manufactured goods to the West

Mississippi & Ohio Rivers helped farmers get their goods to the East but there was no way to get manufactured goods to the West: Fulton’s invention of steamboats helped connect

the West with Northern manufacturing State-directed canal projects cut shipping costs

by 90% between the West & the North

Steamboats provided upstream shipping with reduce costs & increased speeds

Robert Fulton’ s Steamboat

The Clermont

The Erie Canal (1825) provided the 1st link between East & West

The Erie Canal made New York City the commercial

capital of the U.S.

Inland Freight Rates

Inland Freight Rates

From 1840 to 1860, the greatest new transportation advance was the expansion of railroads In 1840s, railroads began to challenge canals’

dominance Stimulated industrial & commercial agricultural

growth Led to new forms of finance, such as “preferred

stock” & state & local gov’t subsidies

The “Iron Horse” Wins! (1830)

Immigrant labor built railroads in the North

Slave labor built railroads in the South

The Expansion of Railroads by RegionRailroad Expansion by 1860

Jackson’s assault on the 2nd BUS in the 1830s, killed Clay’s “American System” but it did

not stop transportation improvements

In the 1840s, American industrial production became more efficient: Due to numerous industrial innovations, growth

of factories, & a demand for goods from farmers in West & South

Led to an increased division of labor & urbanization in the North & an increase in staple-crop commercial farming

The antebellum era saw a boom in specialized, staple-crop, “commercial” farming due to: Lower transportation costs New agricultural innovations like McCormick’s

mechanical reaper, Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, the steel plow, thresher, & cultivator

The use of long-distance marketing & credit to sell crops

Ohio, NY, & PA specialized in wheat while the South grew tobacco, rice, & cotton

Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin, 1793

Actually invented by a slave!

John Deere & the Steel Plow

Cyrus McCormick& the Mechanical Reaper

In 1815, 65% of all U.S. clothing was made by women at home in the “putting out” system

By 1840, textile manufacturing grew, especially in New England, due to a series of new inventions The most famous factory was the Lowell Mill in

Boston Still, only 9% of Americans were involved in

manufacturing

Brought families extra income

“Cottage Industry”

Samuel Slater(“Father of the Factory System”)

Early Textile Loom

Early Textile Loom

Elias Howe & Isaac Singer

1840sSewing Machine

Eli Whitney’s Other Critical Invention

Introduced Interchangeable Rifle Parts

Samuel Morse’s Telegraph in 1840

Cyrus Field’s Transatlantic Cable, 1858Cyrus Field’s Transatlantic Cable, 1858

The Lowell System:The 1st Dual-Purpose Textile Plant

Francis Cabot Lowell’s town - 1814

Lowell Boarding Houses

Francis C. Lowell studied the British spinning machine.

Lowell helped invent a power loom and built the first integrated cotton mill near Boston in 1814.

The mill drove smaller competitors out of business.

Lowell’s successors soon built an entire town to house the new enterprise.

Lowell Girls

What was their typical “profile?”

Young women from New England farms worked in the Lowell textile mills.

Initially, the women found the work a welcome change from farm routine, but later conflict arose with their employers.

By the 1830s, mill owners cut wages and ended their paternalistic practices.

The result was strikes and the replacement of the young women with more manageable Irish immigrants.

MAP 12.3 Lowell, Massachusetts, 1832 This town plan of Lowell, Massachusetts in 1832, illustrates the comprehensive relationship the owners envisaged between the factories and the workforce. The mills are located on the Merrimack River, while nearby are the boarding houses for the single young female workers, row houses for the male mechanics and their families, and houses for the overseers. Somewhat farther away is the mansion of the company agent.

This timetable from the Lowell Mills illustrates the elaborate time schedules that the cotton textile mills expected their employees to meet. For workers, it was difficult to adjust to the regimentation imposed by clock time, in contrast to the approximate times common to preindustrial work. SOURCE:Baker Library,Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University.

The rise of the garment industry led many women to work, sewing ready-made clothing for piece rates.

So poorly paid were these tasks that women might work fifteen to eighteen hours a day.

Women’s work in 1837 was centered in the manufacture of hats, bonnets, boots and shoes.

New England Dominance in

Textiles

New England Dominance in

Textiles

1840s: Factory labor begins shifting from women, children to men

Immigrants dominate new working class Employers less involved with laborers Post-1837 employers demand more work for

less pay Unions organized to defend worker rights

Middle-class women managed their homes and provided a safe haven for their husbands.

Attitudes about appropriate male and female roles and qualities hardened.

Men were seen as steady, industrious, and responsible; women as nurturing, gentle, and moral.

The gap between rich and poor grew rapidly. Economic class was reflected by residence as:

poor people (nearly 70 percent of the city) lived in cheap rented housing

middle-class residents (25-30 percent) lived in more comfortable homes

very rich (about 3 percent) built mansions and large town houses.

About half of the nation’s free African Americans lived in the North, mainly in cities, where they encountered: residential segregation job discrimination segregated public schools limits on their civil rights

Free African Americans formed community support networks, newspapers, and churches.

The economic prospects of African-American men deteriorated.

Free African Americans engaged in antislavery activities, but were frequent targets of urban violence.

Competition for the votes of workers shaped urban politics.

Big-city machines arose reflecting the class structure of the fat-growing cities.

The machines cultivated feelings of community by: appealing directly for working-class votes through mass

organizational activities creating organizations that met basic needs of the urban poor

The machines also had a tight organizational structure headed by bosses who traded loyalty and votes for political jobs and services, leading to charges of corruption.

The Five Points neighborhood in lower Manhattan illustrates the segregated housing patterns that emerged as New York City experienced rapid growth. Immigrants, free African Americans, the poor, and criminals were crowded together in New York’s most notorious slum, while wealthier people moved to more prosperous neighborhoods. SOURCE:1859 lithograph;The Granger Collection.

Increased cotton demand from New England textile factories

Eli Whitney and the cotton gin New, fertile land available in old Southwest Slavery permitted large-scale operation

90% of slaves lived on plantations or farms Most slaves on cotton plantations worked

sunup to sundown, 6 days/week About 75% of slaves were field workers, about

5% worked in industry Urban slaves had more autonomy than rural

slaves

By 1840, improved transportation & innovation reduced time & cost to ship goods & allowed for a nationalnational market economy: U.S. developed a self-sustaining national

economy of commercial farming & manufactured goods

But, the U.S. economy was driven by regionalregional specialization

Northern industrySouthern cotton production

Western commercial farming

The Antebellum SouthThe Antebellum South Cotton production divided society in the Deep

South: Large plantations with lots of slaves made

good money Poor yeoman (with few or no slaves) mixed

commercial & subsistence farming

Slave Population, 1840Slave Population, 1860

The Antebellum WestThe Antebellum West Land was cheap Settlers transformed the West from wilderness to cash-producing farms:

Wheat & corn Hogs & cattle

Better transportation made it easier for farmers to get their goods to market

The Antebellum The Antebellum NorthNorth

Shifted from yeoman to small commercial farming

Made manufactured goods for farmers in the West & South

Experienced rapid urbanization

American Population Centers in 1820American Population Centers in 1860American Population Centers in 1860

New innovations made work easier & improved American industry & agriculture

However, the U.S. was not an “industrial society” in the 1840s 60% of the population were still involved in

farming Most production was still done traditionally in

small workshops