Ch 9 - Transforming the Economy

Industrial Revolution

The rapid transformation of manufacturing and the economy between 1800 and 1860, characterized by technological innovation, the rise of the factory system, and increased output of mass-produced goods.

Division of Labor

A manufacturing strategy that breaks down production into a series of distinct, repetitive tasks assigned to individual workers, increasing efficiency and replacing traditional artisan production.

Porkopolis

The nickname given to Cincinnati, Ohio, during the 19th century because of its massive, highly organized pork-packing industry using early assembly-line techniques.

Mineral-based economy

An economy emerging in the 1830s that relied on coal-burning steam engines rather than water power to run machinery and produce metal products like iron and brass.

Waltham Plan; Waltham-Lowell System; Lowell System

A 19th-century early American industrial labor and production model that combined all steps of textile manufacturing under a single factory roof and relied heavily on young, unmarried women from nearby New England farms for cheap labor

Machine tools

Machines that manufacture precision metal parts for other machines, serving as a key driver of American technological development and industrialization.

Artisan republicanism

An ideology celebrating independent, small-scale producers who owned their own shops or farms, defining liberty as self-employment and political equality.

Unions

Organizations formed by craftworkers and wage laborers to bargain collectively with employers for higher wages, shorter working hours, and better working conditions.

Commonwealth v. Hunt

A landmark 1837 Massachusetts Supreme Court decision that declared labor unions legal entities that had the right to form and go on strike.

Labor Theory of Value

The belief that the price of a good should reflect the amount of human labor required to make it, and that the profits from sales should go primarily to the producers rather than factory owners.

Market Revolution

The dramatic growth in regional trade, transportation networks, and commercial farming between 1820 and 1860, connecting Midwestern agriculture with Northeastern industry.

Old Immigrants

The large wave of immigrants arriving between 1840 and 1860, predominantly from Ireland and Germany, who fled economic hardship, famine, or political upheaval.

National Road

The first major highway built by the U.S. federal government (stretching from Maryland to Illinois), designed to facilitate trade and westward migration.

Erie Canal

A 363-mile waterway built by New York state connecting the Hudson River to Lake Erie, lowering shipping costs and establishing New York City as the nation's commercial hub.

Clermont

The first commercially successful steamboat, built by Robert Fulton in 1807, which allowed fast two-way navigation on American rivers and internal trade networks.

John Deere

An American blacksmith who invented the commercially successful steel plow in 1837, allowing Midwestern farmers to efficiently break through tough prairie soil.

Cyrus McCormick

The inventor who developed the mechanical reaper, a machine that vastly accelerated the harvesting of wheat and grain in the Midwest.

Middle class

A distinct social class arising during the Industrial and Market Revolutions comprising merchants, managers, lawyers, and skilled professionals with a unique culture of hard work and material comfort.

Self-made man

A 19th-century American cultural ideal celebrating individuals who rose to wealth and social influence from humble beginnings through hard work, discipline, and temperate habits.

Benevolent Empire

A network of Protestant reform organizations in the 1820s and 1830s led by evangelical ministers aiming to curb vices like alcoholism, crime, and Sabbath-breaking through social discipline.

Sabbatarian values

Religious movement values advocating for strict laws enforcing the Christian Sabbath (Sunday) as a dedicated day of rest and worship, opposing mail delivery and entertainment on that day.

Moral free agency

The doctrine popularized by Charles Grandison Finney stating that God made humans capable of choosing salvation and leading a sinless life through their own free will.

American Temperance Society

A massive social reform organization founded in 1826 where members took pledges to abstain from alcohol in an effort to eliminate drunkenness and family instability.

Temperance Movement

A 19th-century social reform campaign urging individuals to moderate or completely abstain from alcohol consumption

Nativism

Antiforeign sentiment in the United States that fueled anti-immigrant and immigration-restriction policies against Irish and Germans in the 1840s and 1850s and against other ethnic immigrants in subsequent decades

Samuel Slater

A British textile mechanic who emigrated to America in disguise with memorized machine designs, earning him the title "Father of the American Industrial Revolution."

Francis Cabot Lowell

A wealthy Boston merchant who toured British textile mills, copied their machinery designs, and founded the Boston Manufacturing Company to implement the Waltham-Lowell System.

Sellars Family

A prominent Philadelphia family of inventors who developed key machinery for paper mills and founded the Franklin Institute to promote science and technical instruction.

Eli Whitney

An American inventor who built the cotton gin in 1793 (massively increasing raw cotton output and slavery) and developed interchangeable parts for muskets.

Lyman Beecher

An influential evangelical Presbyterian minister and leader during the Second Great Awakening who pioneered moral reform and anti-alcohol campaigns in the Benevolent Empire.

Charles Grandison Finney

A leading revivalist preacher of the Second Great Awakening who preached moral free agency and led major evangelical revivals in Western New York along the Erie Canal.

Lydia Finney

An active evangelical reformer and wife of Charles Finney who led female charitable organizations and established Sunday schools across urban areas.

Irish Potato Famine

A catastrophic blight during the 1840s that destroyed Ireland's primary food source, forcing millions of impoverished Irish Catholics to emigrate to northeastern U.S. cities.

Outwork system

A pre-industrial manufacturing method where merchants hired farm families to perform simple production tasks (like stitching shoes or weaving cloth) at home in workshops.