APUSHWeber

Agenda

Benchmark exam

Market Revolution lecture (20 minutes)

Explicating quotes from Voices of Freedom in groups (15 minutes)

Individualism discussion (30 minutes)

Reading for Friday debate (time permitting)

The Factory System

Samuel Slater establishes first factory in 1790

First large scale factories in 1814 in Waltham, Mass. Then Lowell, Mass.

Nature of work shifted from skilled artisan to that of factory worker.

Mass production of interchangeable parts assembled into standardized products.

New England textile mills relied primarily on female and child labor.

South lagged behind the North in terms of factory production.

Growth of Immigration

Economic expansion fueled demand for labor

German and Irish settled primarily in Northern cities.

Reasons for migration (push and pull factors)

Filled mainly low-wage unskilled jobs

Nativism

Racist reaction to immigration

Response to growing Catholic presence (Irish)

Nativists blamed immigrants for:Urban crime

Political corruption

Alcohol abuse

Undercutting wages

Individualism

Freedom linked to availability of land (Manifest Destiny)

National myth and ideology surrounding the “West”

Transcendentalists responded to competitive materialists individualism of emergent capitalism with idea of self-realization through which individuals remake themselves and their own lives

Ralph Emerson (“Self-Reliance”)

The Second Great Awakening

Added religious element to celebration of individual self-improvement, self-reliance, and self-determination.

Charles Grandison Finney became a national celebrity for his preaching in upstate N.Y.

Democratized Christianity

Promoted doctrine of human free will

Used opportunities of market revolution to spread their message

Limits of Prosperity

Opportunities for the “self-made man”Jacob Astor and Heratio Alger

Market revolution produced a new middle class.

Barred from schools and other public facilities most free African Americans and women were excluded from economic opportunities.

Cult of Domesticity

New definition of femininity emerged based on values of love, friendship, and mutual obligation

Virtue became personal moral quality

Women should find freedom fulfilling their duties in their sphere

Early Labor Movement

Some felt that the market revolution reduced their freedom

Economic swings widened gap between rich and poor

First workingman’s parties est. 1820s

Strikes were common by the 1830s

Wage-earners evoked “liberty” when calling for improvements in the workplace

Some described wage labor as slavery: “wage slaves”

Voices of FreedomYou picked a quote from Emerson’s “The American Scholar” and from Orestes Brownson’s “The Laboring Classes” to explicate.

Now, share with the class in discussion groups.

1. How does Emerson define the freedom of what he calls “the single individual?”

2. How does Brownson define economic freedom for workers?

3. What does the contrast between these two documents suggest about the impact of the market revolution in America?

Individualism

What are some examples of individualism, the competitive me-first attitude, in modern society?

How do you think these things came about? Are they products of human nature or of social convention?

Do you think there are different kinds of individualism? If so, how would you classify them?

Emerson’s Individual

Focus quote:

“It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great individual is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

Ch. 10 Politics

We will be debating whether the election of 1828 was a democratic revolution tomorrow.

Read ch. 10 in preparation and for Thursday’s test.