Chapter 9Economic Transformation

1820-1860

The American Industrial Revolution

• Mass Production made luxury items common

• Commonwealth System (chapter 8) allowed manufactures to be sold across the country

The Division of Labor and the Factory• Increase in production came from changes in the organization of work

• Advantages of “Division of labor”-

• Coal burning steam engines replaced water power

• Advances in technology and organization alarmed British observers. Why?

The Textile Industry and British Competition• British government prohibited export of textile machinery and emigration of mechanics to the U.S. Why?

• What lured British mechanics to the U.S.?

• Samuel Slater

American and British Advantages

• British advantages:

• American advantages:

Better Machines, Cheaper Workers

• Americans improved on British technology. How?

• Higher speeds than British looms and needed fewer workers

• In 1820s, use of cheaper labor

• Reassured parents of moral welfare: curfews, temperance, and church

• Conditions were better than those in crowded farmhouses

• Greater independence

American Mechanics and Technological Innovation• By 1820s, Americans replaced British as the leaders in technology

• From 1820-1860 U.S. patents rose from _____ to _________ per year.

• American craftsmen pioneered in the development of machine tools. • Eli Whitney

• Crystal Palace Exhibition in London 1851• Remington• Singer• Yale

Wageworkers and the Labor Movement• American craft workers espoused artisan republicanism

Free Workers Form Unions

• Unlike women, men resented their status as wage workers

• Meager wages and little job security

• Skilled workers were able to form unions• By 1820s employers demanded more work hours and less breaks

• Specialized shops

• Difficulty forming unions• NYC fired union workers• Blacklists

Labor Ideology

• Despite losing cases with the state government, many people supported unions• Protests

• Judges with light sentences

• Commonwealth vs. Hunt (1842)

• Many judges resisted unions by issuing injunctions forbidding strikes

• Labor theory of value-

• Women textile operatives

• Walk outs

• Strikes

• Irish immigrants

• Recession in 1850s

• Supply and demand

• Overproduction

• Bankruptcies in railroad industry

• unemployment

The Market Revolution

• The U.S. transportation system set in motion a “market revolution” and a great migration of people.

The Transportation Revolution Forges Regional Ties• Fertile lands of the Great Lakes basin

• In 1806 Congress approved funds for a National Road

• In 1820 Congress encouraged settlement

• By 1840, 5 million people moved to states and territories west of Appalachians

• State government charters

Canals and Steamboats Shrink Distance

• Overland travel was slow and expensive

• 1817 New York’s legislature decide to build the Erie Canal

• This New York project has 3 things working in its favor:• 1.• 2.• 3.

• Irish immigrants cleared land

• Environmental changes

• An economic success• Paid off in 2 years • Prosperity to the farmers of New York• Manufacturers shipped clothing, boots, and agricultural equipment

• Success of Erie Canal sparked a national canal boom• Great Lakes region

• Robert Fulton’s steamboat ensured economic success of Midwest

• States subsidized canals and national government passed Post Office Act of 1792

• Gibbons vs. Ogden (1824)

Railroads Foster Regional Ties

• Railroads replace canals with large investments by capitalists

• Chicago expands commerce

• Midwest becomes producers of: • John Deere (p. 288)

• Linked southern cotton planters to northeast textile plants and foreign markets• This did not transform the economic and social order of the south. Why?

The Growth of Cities and Towns• Trade dramatically increased America’s urban population

• Northeast and Midwest

• Fastest growth in industrial towns along the “fall line”• Lowell, MA

• Hartford, CT

• Trenton, NJ

• Wilmington, DE

• Commercial cities expanded as transit centers• Pittsburg

• Cincinnati

• New Orleans

• Midwest commercial hubs

• Atlantic seaports• New York City and Brooklyn:

• New York• Trade

• Harbor

• Brasil, Peru, and Venezuela

• By 1840 2/3rd of US foreign imports, half of foreign trade, and much immigration traffic

New Social Classes and Cultures• Three distinct social classes emerge: industrial and commercial elite, a substantial middle class, and a mass

of propertyless wage earners.

The Business Elite• Relationship before industrialization

• The Industrial Revolution shattered this agrarian social order

• The urban economy made merchants, manufacturers, bankers, and landlords elite

• Government tax policies facilitated the accumulation of elite class’s wealth.

• Federal government raised regressive taxes

• States taxes real estate and personal property; not stocks and bonds or inheritances

• Affluent families consciously set themselves apart

• Division based on:

The Middle Class• Who were they?

• Mostly in Northeast

• Emergence of middle class reflected a dramatic rise in ________ prosperity.

• Saved 15% of income

• Purchased new luxuries: pianos, lithographs, carriages, books

• Hired help

• Moral and mental discipline was another distinguishing mark

• Education

• Diligent work became a secular ideal

• The “self made man”

Urban Workers and the Poor• Laborers for others

• Check to check

• Child labor

• Effect of immigration after 1840

• Population

• Pollution

• Crime

• Crowding

• Alcohol abuse reached new heights 1820s and 1830s

• Brawl

• Robberies

• Abuse

• Police were unable to control crime

The Benevolent Empire• Disorder among wage earners alarmed the middle class, wanted safe and disciplined workforce.

• Restore “the moral government of God”

• Persuasion if possible, law if necessary

• Organizations instead of church

• Prison Discipline Society

• American Society for the Promotion of Temperance

• Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children (women)

• Orphan Asylum Society (women)

• Goals:

• Not on Sunday(the Sabbath)!

• General Union for Promoting the Observance of the Christian Sabbath in 1828

• Opposition. Why?

Charles Grandison Finney: Revivalism and Reform• Presbyterian minister found a new way to propagate religious values.

• Conversion vs. doctrine

• Greatly accelerated the “Second Great Awakening”

Evangelical Beliefs

• “God has made man a moral free agent”

• Conversion at both ends of the social spectrum

• In 1830 moved his congregation to Rochester, NY

• Sunday school

• Opposition

Temperance

• Most successful evangelical social reform =(Prohibition 18th Amendment 1920-33)

• American Temperance Society in 1832

• Annual consumption of spirits fell dramatically

Immigration and Cultural Conflict• Between 1840 and 1860, about 2 million Irish, 1.5 million Germans, and 750,000 Britons poured into the U.S.

• Most immigrants avoided the south

Irish Poverty

• Fleeing famine caused by overpopulation and bad crops

• New England and New York

• Women were cheap labor

• Neighborhoods were infested with disease

• Church was a cornerstone of community

• Network of institutions helped maintain religion and identify• Charity, orphanages, political organizations, parochial schools

Nativism

• Protestant fervor stirred by the “Second Great Awakening” led to anti-Catholic/anti-immigrant sentiment.

• Fear papal interference in American life and politics

• Industrialization and job competition fueled conflict

• Called for halt to immigration

• Condemned drinking in Irish culture