Antebellum American SocietyForging a National Economy

&

Ferment of Reform and Culture

&

The Nature and Condition of Slavery

Forging the National Economy

Theme 1: The American population expanded and changed in character as more people moved to the West, cities, and immigrant groups such as the Irish and Germans arrived in great numbers.

Theme 2: The American economy developed the beginnings of industrialization with the greatest advances coming in the area of transportation -canals and railroads united the nation.

The March Westward

“Europe stretches to the Alleghenies, America lies

beyond” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The young America (half of all Americans were under

the age of 30) was expanding westward at a rapid pace.

The geographic center of population is the point at

which half of the population is east, half west, half north

and half south. In 1790, this point was in Maryland

(near Baltimore). By 1820, it had moved to what is

today West Virginia (along 39°N). By 1840, the center

of West Virginia, and by 1860 it was in the center of

southern Ohio.

Population Growth 1790-1860

0

5,000,000

10,000,000

15,000,000

20,000,000

25,000,000

30,000,000

1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860

White

Non-White

Growth of the Cities

In 1790, there were only 2 cities with populations over 20,000 - New York and Philadelphia. By 1860, there were forty-three and about 300 other cities had populations of at least 5,000 inhabitants.

Broadway, looking North, in New York City,

1834. These walk-up buildings held the

workshops and boarding houses for Irish and

German immigrants who provided mostly

semi-skilled labor.

Changing Cities

At first the laborers in the textile, garment, and steel mills were of American birth, many of them agricultural laborers who moved into nearby towns looking for work as soil exhaustion and

a series of

economic crises pushed them off the land. But in the two decades

after a serious blight destroyed Ireland's potato crop in 1845, two

million Irishmen left their island for jobs in England and the U.S.

Immigration by Decade

0

100,000

200,000

300,000

400,000

500,000

600,000

700,000

800,000

900,000

1,000,000

1831-

1840

1841-

1850

1851-

1860

1861-

1870

1871-

1880

Irish

German

“Native” Reaction

Many of the immigrants of the 1840s and 1850s were Catholics. Irish Catholic immigrants flooded into coastal cities, accepting lower wages than native workingmen, creating economic grievances that were added to

suspicions against "Popery." One of the early large-scale public

outbreaks of anti-Catholicism occurred in the "City of Brotherly

Love" during the presidential election campaign of 1844.

Key Differences

Irish Immigrants

Fleeing crop failure and starvation

Young (under 35) and literate in English

Catholic

Poor (could not buy land in the west)

Concentrated in east coast cities, such as NY and Boston

German Immigrants

Fleeing crop failure and seeking political asylum

Spoke German (and preserved their language)

Protestant - but not Puritan

Modest wealth (“middle class”)

Scattered across the Midwest on purchased farms; sometimes created German communities

Question for Discussion:

Why did nativists think that the Irish and

German (but most especially the Irish)

immigrants pose a threat to American

society and democracy?

Industrialization Begins

Britain had begun the march towards mechanization

in the 1750s when machines used to produce textiles

were perfected. However they didn’t share that

information with their colonies in an effort to keep them

dependent.

Samuel Slater, a British

machinist, left England for

America in the late 1780s

and brought with him

memorized plans of how

the British machines were

constructed.

He established the first American textile mill in 1790 at

Pawtucket, Massachusetts where the rivers could provide

power to the mill.

The early mills only

produced cotton yarn but

there was still a huge

problem - Cotton fiber

was tremendously

expensive. It took a full

day to pick 1 pound of

fiber from 3 pounds of seed

so cotton cloth was

relatively rare.

The Cotton Gin

Eli Whitney, a Yale

College graduate who

was tutoring in the

South, designed an

“engine” that would

speed up seed removal.

This simple machine

was 50 times faster

than hand-picking the

seeds and soon spread

throughout the south,

making cotton a very

profitable crop

By 1860, more than 400 million pounds of cotton

poured into more than 1000 northern mills annually.

But just who was working in these mills?

In 1820, half of the nation’s industrial workers (not just

in the mills) were UNDER 10 years of age.

There were few opportunities for women to be self-

supporting (mostly nursing, domestic service, and

teaching) but eventually, significant numbers of

industrial workers were women. About 10 % of white

women worked for pay outside of the home in 1850 and

about 20% of all women had been employed at some

point before they married.

The Lowell Mills

The textile mills,

concentrated in

New England

employed mostly

young farm girls

who were seeking to

raise money before

they were married.

The Boston

Associates’ mill at Lowell, Massachusetts was a prime

example. Girls would work for a number of years in a

rigidly controlled environment to save up money for a

dowry.

The mills were a model

of efficiency. The great

water wheels located in

the basements powered

machinery that processed

raw cotton on the first

floor, spun it into thread

on the second, wove it

into cloth on the third, and finished and printed it on the

fourth. These cotton mills were the height of American

inventive creativity: filled with machinery built for the

specific type of cloth being woven, and therefore relatively

simple to operate, the mill was itself a kind of giant machine.

Changes on the Farm

The growth of farms changed the look of America.

Initially, farms were self-sufficient for families but as

transportation improved, northern trans-Allegheny farms

began to produce large amounts of corn. As they moved

westward in search of more land to cultivate, their

wooden plows failed to cut through the prairie sod.

In 1837, John Deere (IL) produced a steel plow that

could handle the tough sod. It was doubly effective

because it could be pulled by horses instead of oxen.

In the 1830s, Cyrus McCormick (VA) created the

“cotton gin of the west” - the mechanical mower-reaper.

The mower-reaper was a horse-drawn machine that cut

wheat that was ready to be harvested. It’s major advantage

was it’s speed. It allowed one man to do the work of five

men working with sickles and scythes.

Farmers rushed to cultivate more land so that more

product could be brought to market. Essentially, wheat

became a “cash crop” of the trans-Allegheny west.

There was still one major disadvantage the farmers in

the west had to face - how to get their crops to market.

They were still dependent on the North-South river

systems to get their goods to the eastern cities.

A transportation revolution was necessary...

The Transportation Revolution

Three Stages:

◦ Canals - man made waterways where horses

could tow flat-bottomed barges

◦ Steamboats - ships that relied on the steam

engine for power and could be used on rivers,

canals or even on ocean-going ships

◦ Railroads - first using horse power then

shifting toward steam powered propulsion

Canals

DeWitt Clinton, governor

of New York, used state

money to build the first

canal in America. It

would allow western

farmers direct access to

bustling New York City

via both rivers and canals.

The Erie Canal promoted the development of routes

for commercial trade with, and rapid settlement of,

the newly-opened regions of the old Northwest, and

the territories beyond the Mississippi.

The Appalachian

mountain chain presented

a barrier to continental

transportation: rivers east

of the mountains flowed

toward the Atlantic, and

those to the west flowed toward the Mississippi. The best location for a water link

was through the Mohawk river valley gap in upstate New York,

where a relatively short canal could link the port of New York

with the vast water system of the Great Lakes. Clinton

convinced the NY legislature to issue bonds for the construction

of the Erie Canal in 1818; by 1825 the 364-mile-long canal

was finished. Here at Lockport, a deep gorge required a series of

locks to move barges to the higher water level.

This system of locks and canals that connected to navigable

rivers allowed farm produce from the west to reach

consumers in NY by traveling only a few hundred miles

rather that a few thousand miles down the Mississippi River

and around Florida.

5 of the Erie Canal’s

84 locks were here

at Lockport, NY.

But the Erie Canal

was not the only one

built. Pennsylvania

built a 395-mile

canal between

Philadelphia and

Pittsburgh; Ohiodeveloped a series of canals which linked the Ohio river

to Lake Erie; in the 1840s, Illinois funded a canal to link

Chicago and the Great Lakes with the Illinois and

Mississippi rivers. Although not as profitable as investors

wished, all of these canals played important roles in

moving manufactured goods and raw materials, and in

linking regional economies within the nation.

Introducing Steam Power

The age of steam-

powered travel began in

1807 with the successful

voyage up the Hudson

River of the Clermont,

built by Robert Fulton.

Commercially operated steamboat lines soon made

round-trip shipping on the nation’s rivers both faster

and cheaper. The ship above, the “Walk-in-the-Water,”

operated on the Great Lakes in the 1820s and was typical

of early steam ships.

the Ohio and

Mississippi

Rivers; in St.

Louis, 3,184

steamboat

arrivals were

recorded in

1852

The number of steamboats in service continued to

grow throughout the 1830s and 1840s. Between 1811

and 1880, nearly 6,000 steamboats were built on

Steam Power on Rails

The need for more efficient systems to move goods over

land led to experiments with rails laid on a road bed. The

earliest rail cars were pulled by horses. But as others

experimented with steam power for boats, others worked to

harness steam to land transportation.

In 1830 the Tom Thumb

took part in a famous race

with a horse-drawn rail

car. Within a year the

Baltimore and Ohio

Railroad Company,

founded in 1827, had

switched from horse to

steam power.

The Dewitt

Clinton, built

for the

Mohawk &

Hudson

Railroad by

the West

Point

Foundry,

made the 17-

mile trip from Albany to Schenectady on August 9, 1831

in the then-unheard-of time of less than an hour.

Key Notes

Transportation improvements concentrated in

the North - roads, canals, and railroads

Factories concentrated in New England with

textile mills dominating Massachusetts

Western farms produced cash crops for the

commercial markets in the East

Cotton production transformed the South,

increasing the need for slaves to work the fields

to harvest the crop for overseas sale

Ferment of Reform & Culture

Theme 1: Spectacular

religious revivals of

the Second Great

Awakening reversed

a trend toward

secular nationalism in

American culture,

and helped to fuel a

spirit of social

reform.

Theme 2: The spirit of

optimism and reform

affected nearly all

areas of American life

and culture, including

education, the role of

women and the

family, and literature

and the arts.

Religious Revival

Began during the early decades of the 19th century

Partly a reaction against the rationalism (belief in human

reason) that had been the fashion during the

Enlightenment and the American Revolution

Calvinist (Puritan) teachings were rejected in favor of

more liberal and forgiving doctrines

In 1795, Rev. Timothy Dwight started a series of Calvinist

revivals on the Yale College campus.

A generation of young men were motivated to become

evangelical preachers of the Christian gospels

Evangelical

Methodists and

Baptists challenged

the religious

establishment and

domination of

older

denominations such

as the Episcopalians,

Congregationalists, and Presbyterians, by widespread

popular meetings and by services such as this camp

meeting in 1819.

Revivalism in the North & South

Baptists & Methodists in South

◦ ministers traveled to their congregations

◦ became the largest Protestant denominations

by the 1850s.

Charles Finney (Presbyterian) appealed to

the emotions of New Yorkers

◦ could be saved through faith & hard work

◦ NY became known as the “burned over

district”

Mormons

Founded by Joseph Smith in 1830s

Initially in NY, then OH, MO and IL

In 1844, Smith and his brother were

murdered in IL

Brigham Young took followers west to build

a “New Zion” in Utah

Social organization helped them to succeed

But hostile relations w/ US Gov’t because of

practice of polygamy

Second Great Awakening

Created a difference between older

Protestant Churches and newer

Evangelical sects (still Protestant though)

Played a role in social reform - but only in

the Northern states

Reforming Society

Temperance

◦ began with moral exhortation then moved to

political action

◦ Opposed by immigrants (little power)

◦ supported by factory owners

◦ 1857 Maine prohibited sale/manufacture of

intoxicating substances (13 by the civil war)

◦ Why? 1820 - 5 gals hard liquor per person

per year (includes women/children)

Public Asylums

◦ Mental Hospitals

Dorthea Dix began crusade to separate mentally ill from criminals

led to state paid care

◦ Blind and Deaf

Thomas Gallaudet founded a school for the deaf

Samuel Gridley Howe founded a school for the blind

by 1850s, similar schools had been established in most states

◦ Prisons

Aubern system (rigid discipline w/ moral instruction)

replaced penitentiary (solitary confinement)

Public Education

Before the 1830s, opportunity was limited

Expansion of suffrage led many to think that an educated populace was necessary for wise voting decisions & participation

Horace Mann (Mass.) led campaign for free elementary schools, better teacher training, new methods, improved books, and compulsory attendance.

By mid 1800s, nearly all states offered some form of free elementary education

Secondary Education

Secondary education was slower to

develop

First public high school was founded in

Boston in 1821

Few high schools even by 1860 (New York

only had 41)

High schools were primarily meant for

boys, especially those going on to college

Education for Females

They could (and did) attend public elementary schools

Private high schools known as academies or female seminaries provided secondary education

A few colleges (Oberlin and Antioch) admitted men and women

Some all women’s colleges were established (Wesleyan College in Georgia; Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts)

Notables in Education

Noah Webster wrote a series of spellers, grammars and readers that would help to standardize the educational materials

Horace Mann helped establish many schools, and founded the first school for the training of teachers

Moral Education

Morals were a part of the education received at public schools (essentially basic religious beliefs)

These morals were based on the various Protestant religions, and found in textbooks such as the McGuffy Readers

This led to the development of a system of Catholic schools throughout the US

Women’s Rights Movement

Industrialization had driven down the economic importance of children so family size was dropping

Led to an increased focus on the children that were born and an idea that men and women had two separate spheres of influence◦ Women in the home and over children

◦ Men in business and politics

This is known as the “cult of domesticity”

But was this accurate? Many women did work outside of the home (at some point in their lives)

Women’s Rights (cont.)

Women began to demand equal rights to property, employment, education, and participation in government

Led by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a women’s rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, NY in 1848

◦ Adopted a declaration demanding that women “have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of the US.”

◦ Also that “all men and women are created equal”

To some extent, they were successful – more chance for higher education, western states granted the vote first

But the antislavery movement and the civil war would overshadow their efforts for the remainder of the century

Artistic Changes

American artists began imitating European styles◦ Greek Revival styles became

very popular

Portrait artists focused on the heroes of the American Revolution◦ Gilbert Stuart, Wilson Peale

– painted Washington numerous times

◦ John Trumbull painted scenes of the American Revolution

Literature

Transcendentalism was the focus of literature from the 1820s through the 1850s

◦ Truth could not be achieved by observation alone but with an inner light

◦ There was to be meaning behind writing

Ralph Waldo Emerson

◦ Romanticized the heroes of the American Revolution

Literature

Henry David Thoreau

◦ Wrote “Walden; or Life in the Woods”

◦ Condemned slavery

◦ Wrote “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience”

Walt Whitman

◦ Wrote “Leaves of Grass”

Literature not associated with

Transcendentalism Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – poetry

John Greenleaf Whittier – poetry on social influence

Oliver Wendell Holmes – “The Last Leaf”

Emily Dickinson – poetry

Louisa May Alcott (also associated with Transcendentalism) – “Little Women”

Edgar Allen Poe – “The Raven”

Nathaniel Hawthorne – “The Scarlet Letter”

Herman Melville – “Moby Dick”

Slavery

Existed in the US from 1619 to 1865

Ended with the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution

Was concentrated in the Southern states due to their reliance on a plantation economy and the labor intensive crops of tobacco, rice and cotton.

Expanded with the development of the cotton gin and northern textile manufacturing.

Slaves as % of Black Pop, 1850

State Slaves Free Black Slave %

Delaware 2290 18,073 11.2%

Maryland 90,368 74,723 54.7

Virginia 472,528 54,333 89.7

NCarolina 288,548 27,463 91.3

Missouri 87,422 2618 97.1

SCarolina 384,984 8960 97.7

Mississippi 309,878 930 99.7

Slaves transported across Africa

Slaves were

captured by white

traders as well as

enemy tribes (who

sold them to white

traders)

Early slaves were

only slaves for a

certain number of

years

Slave Ships

Slave ships were

packed with as

many slaves as

possible - the

more slaves, the

higher the profit

• This made conditions especially harsh - many

died on the crossing, sometimes as high as 25%

Slaves on

board a slaves

ship bound for

the US in

1860. Even

though is was

illegal to

import slaves

after 1808, the

practice

continued

until the North

blockaded

Southern ports

during the

Civil War.

Cotton and Tobacco

Upon arriving in the US,

slaves were put to work

- generally as field

hands on tobacco or

cotton plantations

(depending on year and

location)

This was usually

considered the hardest

labor of all

Slave Quarters

On the plantations,

slaves lived in “slave

quarters” - a close

packed collection

of slave houses

This allowed for

some sense of

“community” to

develop among a

plantation’s slaves

The Conditions of Slavery

Most slaves built and lived in simple one-room wooden cabins that housed 8-12 people.

Slaves cooked their own meals in their fireplace - this cabin had a brick fireplace which was more efficient and very unusual for its time and location.

This cabin (located in MD) housed about 10 slaves, has a dirt floor, a simple table and a few chairs, and a couple of simple beds. It was fairly large for it’s time (18’x16’) and was occupied into the 20th century

Slave cabins on the Hermitage plantation, near Savannah,

GA. Each cabin had 2 rooms - a bedroom and a kitchen.

These are built of brick (rare but this owner owned a brick

works) and were once part of a “quarter” that had 70-80 such

cabins.

The street of a slave quarter in 1860 during the evening

mealtime. Older children were responsible for younger

children (while parents worked in the fields) until the older

ones were themselves sent into the fields.

Communal Life of Slaves

The close quarters led to slaves becoming

very cooperative with one another.

Also, due to the continual breakup of

families, an informal family network

developed among slaves.

In some cases, slaves were able to work

for wages after their usual work was

completed and have celebrations on

holidays.

Slave frolic on Christmas Eve. Music and dancing were very

important in preserving slave culture and community.

“A Kitchen Ball at Sulphur Springs” depicts domestic slaves at play

after hours in an antebellum resort community. Slaves sometimes

adopted the social customs of the dominant white community as well

as maintained their own.

A plantation burial (1860). Slaves were left to follow their

customs but, even in death, were still supervised by their white

owners (far right).

Auctions and Harsh Treatment

Despite the fact that slaves could develop a sense of community, the fact remained that their lives were under control of white owners.

Families could be broken up on a whim by an owner at an auction.

Slaves would often be whipped for various offenses - disrespect, failure to complete a task (or on time), or any rational or irrational reason.

Some would even be killed and although owners could be punished, they rarely were.

Slave auctions

Slave auctions were

conducted throughout

the South although

primarily near ports

The slave trade was

banned in 1808 but

slave ships continued to

smuggle slaves into the

United States

Slave Auction - Richmond, VA

As the need for slaves in the upper south declined, many owners found they could increase their profits by selling surplus slaves into the expanding lower south where cotton production demanded even more labor.

Play Video Clip of “Roots” (AP US History CD)

A “coffle” of slaves being driven out of SC for sales in the

western south. They were marched chained together toward

the sale.

Beatings were

frequently severe

This is the scarred back of a former slave.

Slaves were seldom allowed to forget that they were considered the equivalent of livestock.

Whippings could be handed out for any number of reasons.

Runaways

With the prospect of being separated from

family members, some slaves chose to run

away.

Others left due to harsh treatment or a

desire for freedom.

Owners often went to great lengths to

reacquire their runaway slaves but the most

common was to place ads near where they

may have run to.

Advertisement in NC, 11/10/1837

Runaway Advertisement 1860

Rebellions

Other slaves led rebellions for one reason

or another.

In most cases, rebellion was responded to

swiftly and harshly by the white

population

Many began to believe that the only way

to control the black population was

through slavery and harsh treatment.

Nat Turner’s Rebellion - 1831

60 whites were killed by Turner who, divinely inspired, attempted

to lead slaves to freedom. Whites responded by killing 100 slaves

and hanging Turner then enacting harsher slave codes.

Mutiny on the Amistad - 1839

Following their takeover of the Amistad slave ship, the slaves then

sailed to CT. US authorities arrested them & attempted to return

them to their Spanish owners but abolitionist lawyers successfully

argued for their freedom before the Supreme Court.

Anti Slavery Movement

In 1817, the American Colonization Society was founded to free slaves and return them to settlements in Monrovia and Liberia◦ 12,000 were eventually returned

but it proved to not be very practical (since slavery was growing in the US)

In 1831, William Lloyd Garrison began an anti-slavery newspaper called The Liberator, which denounced slavery as a sin and demanded the immediate freeing of all slaves

This led to the founding of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833

Anti-Slavery (cont)

The Liberty Party was

founded because many

felt that Garrison was too

radical

They wanted to do away

with slavery by legal

means (within the system)

Nominated James Birney

for President in 1840 and

1844

Abolitionists

Frederick Douglas

◦ Gave first hand accounts of

his experiences in slavery

◦ Born into slavery in MD and

escaped to Mass in 1838

◦ Was a newspaper editor and

speaker

◦ Demanded an end to slavery

in the South AND an end to

racial discrimination in the

North

Abolitionists

Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth

◦ Helped to organize the effort to lead escaped slaves to the safety of Canada (where slavery was illegal and they would not return escaped slaves)

Lucretia Mott

◦ An active member of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society who turned her experience there (she was

denied the chance to attend

an international conference

because she was a woman)

into a crusade for women’s

rights