Chapter 8: The Emergence of a Market Economy (1815-1850)

market economy

Large-scale manufacturing and commercial agriculture that emerged in America during the first half of the nineteenth century, displacing much of the premarket subsistence and barter-based economy and producing boom-and-bust cycles while raising the American standard of living

railroads

Steam-powered vehicles that improved passenger transportation, quickened western settlement, and enable commercial agriculture in the nineteenth century

market economy

Large-scale manufacturing and commercial agriculture that emerged in America during the first half of the nineteenth century, displacing much of the premarket subsistence and barter-based economy and producing boom-and-bust cycles while raising the American standard of living

railroads

Steam-powered vehicles that improved passenger transportation, quickened western settlement, and enable commercial agriculture in the nineteenth century

clipper ships

Tall, slender ships favored over older merchant ships for their speed; ultimately gave way to steamships because clipper ships lacked cargo space

telegraph system

System of electronic communication invented by Samuel F. B. Morse that could transmit messages instantaneously across great distances

McCormick reaper

Mechanical reaper invented by Cyrus Hall McCormick in 1831 that dramatically increased the production of wheat

Lowell system

Model New England factory communities that provided employees, mostly young women, with meals, a boardinghouse, moral discipline, and educational opportunities

National Trades' Union

Organization formed in 1834 to organize all local trade unions into a stronger national association, dissolved amid the economic depression in the late 1830s

steamboats

Ships and boats power by wood-fired steam engines that made two-way traffic possible in eastern river systems, creating a transcontinental market and an agricultural empire

Erie Canal (1825)

Most important and profitable of the many barge canals built in the early nineteenth century, connecting the Great Lakes to the Hudson River and conveying so much cargo that it made NYC the nation's largest port

Industrial Revolution

Major shift in the nineteenth century from handmade manufacturing to mass producing in mills and factories using water-, coal, and steam-powered machinery

cotton gin

Hand-operated machine invented by Eli Whitney that quickly removed seeds from cotton balls, enabling the mass production of cotton in nineteenth century America

cotton

White fibers harvested from plants that made comfortable, easy to clean products, especially clothing; the most valuable cash crop driving the economy in nineteenth-century US and GB

nativists

Native-born Americans who viewed immigrants as a threat to their job opportunities and way of life

Know-Nothings

Nativist, anti-Catholic third party organized in 1854 in reaction to large-scale German and Irish immigration

professions

Occupations requiring specialized knowledge of a particular field; the Industrial Revolution and its new organization of labor created an array of professions in the nineteenth century