Ch. 14 Forging the National Economy

1790-1860Ch. 14 Forging the National EconomyPopulation Facts1850: Half of Americans are under the age of 30.Midcentury: The population is still doubling approximately every 25 years.1840s and 1850s Immigration booms! Europe is running out of roomAmerica is seen as the land of freedom and opportunity. Free from state church and possibility of owning land beckons...Over 1.5 million IrishOver 1.5 million GermanThe IrishTerrible rot attacks the potato cropbetween 1-2 million die from starvation. Migrate to the United States during the Black Forties.Most too poor to move west. Cannot afford the land, equipment, and livestock.Most live and work in large seaboard cities building canals and railroads: Boston and New YorkCompete with Blacks in the North for low skilled jobs, causes tension and race riots.Treated badly by Bostonian Protestants who consider the Irish Catholics to be low class and a menace to society. Attracted to politics and eventually dominate police departments.Loading the transoceanic steamships.The journey to America now only took 10-12 days

The voyage across the Atlantic Ocean

Arriving at Ellis Island

The GermansMost were uprooted farmers Some were liberal political refugees whose best chance of democracy was the United States.Most come to the U.S. with a modest amount of material possessions and are able to move west to establish farms.Contributions: Conestoga wagon, Christmas trees, and the word kindergarten (childrens garden)Did seek to preserve their language and culture which was sometimes regarded as suspicious by old stock Americans.Westward MovementPioneer Familiespoorly fed victims of disease, depressionhastily erected shanties (sticks, scrap wood, etc)

Popular literature romanticizes the rugged individualism of pioneer life. Ralph Waldo Emerson writes the essay Self RelianceEcological ImperialismPioneers molded the physical environmentLand was overused and fences were put up.Fur-trappers nearly cause the extinction of beavers.Massive bison herds of the Great Plains are annihilated.Sea-otter on the CA coast are also driven to near extinction.The artist George Catlin is one of the first Americans to propose national parks.

George CatlinIn 1830 he traveled west, leaving a law career to paint Native Americans. Self-taught as a painter, he traveled in 1832 up the Missouri River aboard a steamer, first painting portraits of famous chiefs, and then shifting his attention to rituals, dances, every-day village activities, the hunt and the chase.

The White Cloud, Head Chief of the Iowas

He depicted Indians he met in St. Louis or on excursions into Indian country, sketching and painting some 600 Indian portraits, scenes of native life and landscapes. He also documented his paintings with notes on customs of the approximately 48 tribes he contacted.Catlin formed some of the earliest Wild West Shows in order to highlight the plight of the Native Americans and show their culture. His works are the only known portrayals of some western tribes, including the bulk of those of the Mandan tribe.

Native American LifeAnti-foreignismNativists: people who feared immigrants (people who were foreign born) They believe the newcomers to America will outbreed, outvote and overwhelm the native stock Anti-Catholic sentiment in some larger cities like Philadelphia and Boston. Churches and convents burnedKnow-Nothing Party: Group of nativists who propose rigid restrictions on immigration and naturalization and tougher deportation laws. Very secretivehence the name.

Mechanization1750: British inventors, mass production of textiles, ushers in the modern factory system and the Industrial Revolution. British inventors keep their machinery patents secret!Transformation inagriculture, transportation, and communication.U.S. was slower to embrace the machineWHY?-Land was cheap in America-Land-starved immigrants want land!-Most prefer working outside to working in factories-As immigration increases, more are forced to work in the factories

The United States is still a young country. It is difficult for them to produce high quality products that can compete with the factories in Britain which had been established longer and could produce products cheaper.

Samuel Slater, Father of the Factory System in AmericaSkilled British mechanic who memorized the plans for the machinery in a British factory and then escaped to the united States.

With the help of blacksmith and a carpenter, in 1791, first efficient American machinery for spinning cotton thread.

Eli Whitney and the cotton ginHandpicking one pound of cotton lint from three pounds of seed took one slave an entire day!Eli Whitney created a device that separated the seed from the cotton fiber hoping to make the lives of the slaves easier. Instead, the cotton gin increased the demand for slaves now that plantation owners could turn a higher profit with the help of his machine.Cotton became king of the south and headed west as well.

How do some Northerners benefit from slavery?Factories in New Englandsoil is rocky, much shorter growing season. Abundant water, able to harness to create energy. Seaports allow products to be shipped out easily.Cotton from the south can be sent north to the Yankee machines to be turned into textiles.By 1860: more than 400 million pounds of cotton being send north to New England factories.Marvels in ManufacturingManufacturing of firearms (guns)Eli Whitney: mass production of muskets for the U.S. Army. Created the idea of interchangeable parts. Basis for modern mass-production and eventually assembly lines.The Sewing Machine: invented by Elias Howe and perfected by Isaac SingerTelegraph (Morse Code): Samuel F. B. Morse

Wage Slaves

Women and the EconomyPreindustrial economy, spinning yarn, weaving cloth, making candles, soap, butter, and cheese.Manufactured goods can be made much faster in factories than by hand at home. Factories offered employment to young women whose work had been displaced.Factory Girls, Lowell, Massachusetts. Girls were escorted to church regularly and forbidden to form unions.Opportunities for women to be economically self-supporting were scarce. Women are nurses, domestic service (nanny, housekeeper, etc), or teaching.Cult of domesticity glorified the functions of a homemaker.

The Iron Horsehttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Walschaerts_motion.gifCheaper than canals to construct and dont freeze over in the winter1860: 30,000 miles of railroad track in the U.S. of those tracks are in the North.Originally considered a public menace. Sparks form tracks set nearby haystacks on fire.The difference in gauge (the distance between rails) meant frequent changes for passengers until gauges became standardized.

Transportation RevolutionInternal ImprovementsGoods were finally able to move eastward on trains or canals.Each region specialized in a specific type of economic activity.South raised cottonWest grew grain and livestockEast made machines and textiles

Market RevolutionUnited States economy is transformedsmall scattered farms and tiny workshops turns into a national network of industry. More mechanization and technologies change every day life for people.People are no longer self-sufficient. People now make money to purchase goods rather than making necessities themselves.The home had once been the center of economic productionnow a place of refuge from work.