New Inventions Change America.US 1.8 b,c

Overcrowding in the original 13 colonies

Cheap/fertile land

Freedom

Economic opportunity

Population in the eastern United States was booming and cities were becoming very overcrowded.

The availability of cheap land helped farmers to buy large plots for little money.

Runaway slaves and free blacks moved out west for more opportunities and a chance to start over.

Rivers

Steamboats

Trails

Canals

Settlers used rivers like the Mississippi and Ohio to help them travel from east to west.

Steamboats allowed cargo and people to be transported faster than ever before.

Settlers used the Santa Fe Trail (1821) to get to land in the southwest. The Oregon Trail (1843) helped settlers migrate to the northwest.

River bottoms were dug out very deep in order for steamboats and other water transportation to pass. The Erie Canal, a famous canal connecting Albany, NY to Lake Erie, was completed in 1825.

Gold Rush Miners (forty-niners)

Logging

Farming

Settlers wanted to strike it rich after gold was found in California in 1849. Although few found gold the idea of becoming rich motivated thousands (80,000) to migrate west.

The west had tall trees and dense forests. Settlers cut lumber for train tracks, homes, ships and more.

Families settled inexpensive pieces of land in the Great Plains area, growing grain, corn and raising livestock.

The cotton gin was invented by Eli Whitney and mechanically picked seeds out of the cotton plant. Before workers had to do it by hand. Now that cotton could be deseeded quickly, slaves had more time to grow more cotton. Therefore, the cotton gin increased the need for slave labor.

The steam locomotive was powered by steam. Famous for its chug-a-chug and toot-toot sounds, it provided faster transportation of settlers. The locomotive was also a better way to transport large farm and industrial products and crops out west and back to the east. It was now easier for all areas of the country to transport and trade supplies and goods all over the United States. Inventor: Richard Trevithick

The steamboat engine was not invented, but improved by Robert Fulton. It provided faster transportation on rivers and connected Southern plantations and farms with Northern industries and territories out west. People located near waterways shipped their goods to other places.

Jo Anderson (a slave) and Cyrus McCormick worked to invent the reaper. Before the reaper was invented, slaves or farm workers had to cut down and gather crops by hand. The reaper increased productivity by gathering them mechanically, rather than by hand. Larger fields of crops were planted in order to keep up with the reaper. Therefore, more slaves were needed to plant the larger fields.

In the south, inventions like the cotton gin and the reaper increased productivity. This caused the need for an increase in slave labor to keep up with the demand from customers and foreign buyers.

We will soon study the controversy that the need for slaves caused..