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What did the rise of Andrew Jackson reveal?
The American people’s desire to march westward.
What was life like for pioneer families?
They were poorly fed, ill-clad, lived in hastily erected shanties, victims of disease, depression, and premature death. Most of all, there was an unbearable loneliness and women particularly felt this as they were often cut off from human contactn, even their neighbors, for days or even weeks, while confined to a cramped and dark cabin in a secluded clearing.
What were pioneering Americans like?
Ill informed, superstitiuos, provincial, and individualistic. Additionally, they were individualistic but also asked for help when needed.
What is the essay “Self-Reliance?
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote it and it serves as a foundational text promoting the idea of self-trust and individualism. The rise of self-reliance in American culture coincided with the westward expansion, as individuals sought new opportunities and faced the challenges of frontier life.
How did the westward movement change the environment?
Pioneers exhausted the land in the tobacco regions and pushed on, leaving behind barren and rain-gutted fields.
What is Kentucky bluegrass?
Settlers in Kentucky had found out that when cane was burned off, European bluegrass thrived in the charred canefields. They dubbed this European bluegrass as Kentucky bluegrass, which made ideal pasture for livestock, luring more American homesteaders into Knetuy.
What is the rendezvous system?
The fur-trapping business was based off this system. Each summer, traders went from St. Lousi to a Rocky Mountain vallye, made camp, and waited for trappers and Indians to come with beaver pelts to swap for manufactured goods form the East. This trade thrived for some 2 decades till beaver hats had gone out of fashion.
Why was the bison population in the western prairies annilhilated?
Trade in buffalo robes flourished.
What was trade like on the California coast?
Traders bought tons of sea-otter pelts, driving the population to a point of near-extinction.
What is ecolgolical imperialism?
The idea that European colonization of the Americas was not only a political, economic, and cultural process but also an ecological one. This concept highlights how European settlers brought plants, animals, diseases, and farming practices that dramatically transformed the ecosystems of the New World. These changes often displaced or destroyed indigenous environments and ways of life, giving Europeans a significant advantage in colonizing the Americas.
How did Americans in this period feel about nature and what were its effects?
They revered nature and admired its beauty. This attitude toward the wilderness inspired literature and paintings, and eventually started a conservation movement.
Who was George Catlin?
HE was a painter and student of Native American life. He was one of the first Americans to advocate the preservation of nature as a deliberate national policy. After seeing Sioux Indians slaughter buffalo to trade the toungues for whiskey, he proposed the creation of a national park as he feared for the preservaiton of INdians and buffalo alike. This ultimately laid the groundwork for the establishment of the first national park system in the world, with the first one being Yellowstone Park in 1872.
What happened to the population of Americans as they moved west?
The population was growing at an amazing rate.
What was urban growth like during this time?
There was a rapid increase in the population of cities. 1790 there had been only 2 American cities that had populations of 20,000 or more. By 1860 there were 43.
What is urbanization and what were the effects during this time?
Urbanizaiton is the process where a large population shifts from rural areas to urban centers, meaning there’s a significant increase in the amount of people living in cities. Urbanization intensified the problems of slums, weak street lighting, inadequate policing, impure water, foul sewage, rats, and improper garbage disposal.
What caused the increase of populaiton in the 1840s?
A high birthrate had accounted for most of the incrase in population, but by the 1840s immigration was adding tons of people to the population. Among the immigrants included the Irish, Germans, and people from dozens of different nations.
Why weas there an influx of immigrants starting from the 1840s to the 1850s to the US?
They came partly because Europe was running out of room. The population of the Old World more than doubled in the 19th century, causing Europe to generate a pool of “surplus” people. These people that were displaced were drawn toward America, the “land of freedom and opportunity”.
Why was America considered the “land of freedom and opportunity.”
There was freedom from aristocratic caste and state church; there was abundant opportunity to secure broad acres and better one’s condition. Compared to the Old World, America had low taxes, no compulsory military serivce, and more food.
How did transoceanic steamships affect immigration to the US?
Immigrants could travel more quickly and cheaply. The journey to the US took 10-12 days instead of 10-12 weeks on a sailing vessel. It was also much less expensive than a voyage to more distant immigration destinations.
What caused many Irish people to immigrate to America?
Ireleand was heavily under the control of British overlords in the mid-1840s. During this time, a disease attacked the potato crop, which the Irish had become dangerously dependent on. This caused ¼ of the population to be affected by disease and hunger. Many fled the Potato Famine to America in the “Black Forties.”
Waht became Ireland’s main export?
people; many Irish people immigrated from Ireland to America
Where did most Irish live in America?
They were too poor to move west so they lived in the larger seaboard cities. Noteworthy were Boston and New York. New York becaem the largest Iirsh city in the world.
How were Irish immigrants treated in America.
Forced to live in squalor, they were crammed into the slums. They were also scorned by old-stock Americans (Americans descended from the original settlers of the 13 colonies), particulalrly Protestant Bostonians. They hated the Irish because they were Catholic.
What jobs did the Irish take in America?
Bidders (Bridgets) became kitchen maids while Paddies (Patricks) worked in canals and railroads. They tended to remain in low-skill occupations but gradually improved their lot, usually by acquiring modest amounts of property. To the Irish peasants, property ownership counted as a grand “success.'“
Why didn’t native workers like the Irish?
They were competeting for jobs. “No Irish Need Apply” were plastered on factory gages.
Who did the Irish hate?
Due to the competition ofr jobs, they resentend the blacks, who were also at the bottom of society.
What is the Ancient Order of HIbernians?
A semisecret society founded in Ireland to fight landlords. It served in America as a benevolent society, aiding the downtrodden. It also helepd to create the Molly Maguires, an Irish miners’ union.
Who are the city machines?
a highly organized political organization, usually based in a city, that used patronage, bribery, and voter intimidation to control elections and maintain power, often by providing services to immigrant communities in exchange for their loyalty at the polls; essentially, a corrupt political system that dominated urban politics during the late 19th century, with a "boss" at the head who orchestrated the machine's activities.
How were the Irish involved politically in America?
They gained control of powerful city machines, notably New Yokr’s Tammany Hall, and reaped patronage (Patronage refers to the practice of rewarding loyal supporters with jobs, favors, or other benefits in exchange for their political support.) rewards. Before long, Irishmen dominated police departments in many big cities.
What other group of Europeans came to America as much as the Irish?
The Germans who came from 1830 to 1860.
Why did Germans go to America?
Most were uprooted farmers, displaced by crop filaures and other hardships. There were others who were also liberal political refugese who were saddened by teh collapse of the democratic reovlutions of 1848 and decided to hleave the autocratic fatherland and flee to America (the birghtest hope of democracy).
How did Germans affect American politics?
German liberals like Carl Schurz, a foe of slavery and public corruption, contributed to the elevation of American political life.
How did the Germans who came to America differ from the Irish?
Many Germanic newcomers possessed a modest amount of material goods. Most of them pushed out to the lands of the Middle West, notably Wisconsin, where they settled and established farms. German voters were less potent politically because their strength was more widely scattered.
How were the German immigrants similar to the Irish?
They both formed an influential body of voters whom American politicians wooed.
How did Germans contribute to American culture?
the conestoga wagon, the kentucky rifle, and the Chirstmas tree.
What were the Germans like?
They had an isolationist sentiment in the upper MIssissippi Valley due to the miltarism and wars of Europe. They were better educated than the Americans and supported public schools. They also stimulated art and music and became enmies of slavery during the years before the Civl War.
How did old-stock Americans view the Germans?
Dubbed the “damned Dutchment,” there were occasionally regarded with suspicion by them.
What was German culture like in America?
They drank huge amounts of bier (beer). Their Old World drinking habits, like those of the Irish, spurred advocates of temperance in the use of alcohol to redouble their reform efforts.
What are nativists?
people who held beliefs favoring native-born Americans over immigrants, often promoting anti-immigration policies and expressing hostility towards newcomers, particularly those perceived as culturally different, like the Irish Catholics during the mid-19th century; they believed immigrants threatened American jobs, culture, and societal norms, leading to movements like the "Know-Nothing" party aimed at restricting immigration
What were the political effects of the rising rates of immigrants moving to America in the 1840s and 1850s?
It inflamed the prejudices of American nativists. They feared that the immigrants would overwhelm the old “native” stock (people whose ancestors from certain European countries were the first colonizers).
Why did nativitsts hate immigrants?
They took away jobs from “native” Americans and also a lot of the Irish were Roman Catholics, as were some Germans. Old-line Americans viewed the Church of Rome as a “foreign” church.
What did Roman Catholics do to protect their children from Protestant indoctrination in public schools?
They began in the 1840s to build an entirely separate Catholic educational system. This was extremely expensive for this poor immigrant community, but it revealed the strength of their religious commitment.
How did Catholic population in America increase?
The influx of Irish and German immigrants.
How did nativists react to the growing population of Catholics?
In 1849 they formed the Order of the Star-Spangled Banner, which soon developed in to the American party, more commonly known as the Know-Nothing party. THey wanted rigid restricitons on immigration and naturalizaiton and for laws authorizing the deportation of alien paupers.
What is the book Awful Disclosures by Maria Monk?
Nativists were promoting sensationalist literature, much of it being pure fiction. The authors, sometimes posing as escaped nuns, described the shocking sins they imagined the Catholics hid. One of these books was Awful Disclosures.
Why was violence against the immigrants not as frequent and more violent as one might think?
One reason is the strength of the American economy. The rapid economic growth during this period attracted immigrants and allowed them to seek their share of American wealth without threatening others' prosperity. In fact, immigrant labor and skills helped drive economic expansion. Simply put, immigrants and the American economy depended on each other. Without immigrants, the largely agricultural United States might have fallen behind while the Industrial Revolution transformed Europe in the 19th century.
What is the Industrial Revolution?
the Industrial Revolution refers to a period of significant technological and economic change in the United States, where production shifted from primarily hand-crafted goods in homes to mass-produced goods in factories, driven by new machines, power sources like steam, and the development of a factory system, leading to major urbanization and societal transformations; this period is typically considered to have occurred roughly between the mid-18th and mid-19th centuries
What caused the INdustrial Revolution?
A group of British inventors, beginning about 1750, perfected a series of mahcines for the mass production of textiles. This harnessing of steam significanlty improved production significantly and also ushered in the modern facotry system—and with it the Industrial revolution.
What is the factory system?
a method of manufacturing where workers and machinery are concentrated in a single building, with a structured division of labor and mechanized production
Why did the Industrial Revolution take so long to catch on in the US?
Land in America was cheap and land-starved descendants of land-starved peasants weren’t going to confine themselves in smelly factories when they could just till their own acres in the fresh outdoors. This therefore made labor scarce and made finding enough people to operate the machines difficult (until immigrants began coming in droves).
Money for capital investment was not plentiful in America, whose Industrial Revolution awaited an influx of foreign capital. This meant many of America’s raw materials lay untouched.
America found it hard to produce goods of high enough quality and cheap enough cost to compete with mass-produced European goods. Long-established British factories also provided for cutthroat competition.
The British also had a monopoly of the textile machinery. Parliament also passed laws to forbid the export of machines or the emigration of mechanics able to reproduce them.
When did the output of factories in America exceed that of the farms?
Not till well past the middle of hte 19th century.
Who was Samuel Slater?
He is known as the “Father of the Factory System” in America. A British merchant of 21, he was attracted by bounties being offered to British workers familiar with the textile machines. After memorizing the plans for the machinery, he escaped in disguise to America, where he won the backing of Moses Brown, a Quaker capitalist in Rhode Island. Reconstructing the essential apparatus with the aid of a blacksmith and a carpenter, he put into operation in 1791 the first efficient American machinery for spinning cotton thread.
How were the cotton fibers, used to spin cotton thread, collected?
For a full day’s work, one slave handpicked one pound of lint from there pounds of seed. Additionally, the process was so expensive that American-made cotton cloth was relatively rare.
Who was Eli Whitney and how did he quicken the process for collecting cotton fibers?
After graduating from Yale, Massachusetts-born Eli Whitney went to Georgia. There he was told that the poverty of the South would be relieved if someone could invent a workable device for separating the seed from the cotton fiber. Within 10 days, in 1793, he built a crude machine called the cotton gin that was 50x more effective than the handpicking process.
What were the effects of the cotton gin?
It caused cotton farming to quickly become very profitable and the South became dominated by King Cotton. This new demand for cotton also revived the demand for slaves in the south.
What was the first American phase of the INdustrial Revolution?
Cotton textiles.
Where did factories first flourish?
New England, though it branched out into the more populous areas of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
What was manufacturing in the South like?
Compared to the North, there was little manufacturing being done as the South became focused on the production of cotton. Most of the money (capital) in the area was invested in enslaved people, rather than other things like businesses or factories.
Why was New England favored as an industrial center?
Its soil made farming difficult, which made manufacturing attractive. A relatively dense population provided labor and accessible markets, shipping brought in capital, and seaports made easy the import of raw materials and the export of the finished products. Finally, the rapid rivers—notbaly the Merrimack in Massachusetts—provided abundant water power to turn the cogs of the machines.
Where were cotton mills mostly located?
New England
Why did America’s factors start spreading quickly in 1807?
events like the embargo, trade restrictions, and the War of 1812 forced the country to make its own goods instead of relying on imports. Since trade with Europe stopped, New England’s shipping industry suffered. As a result, money and workers moved from sailing and trade to factory work.
Why did the manufacturing boom break abruptly?
It was due to the peace of Ghent in 1815. British competitors unloaded their surpluses at extremely low prices, and the American newspapers we full of British ads for goods on credit.
How did Congress react to the inpouring of British goods?
In response to public complaints, Congress took action by passing the Tariff of 1816. This tax on imports was meant to help American businesses by making foreign goods more expensive. It was one of the first major political debates about how the government should shape the economy.
What is the factory system?
The Factory System is a method of manufacturing that emerged during the Industrial Revolution, characterized by the use of machinery and the organization of labor in a single location to produce goods on a large scale.
What other industries, other than textiles, emerged as the factory system flourished?
The manufacturing of firearms.
How did Eli Whitney contribute to the manufacturing of firearms?
After failing to take full control of the cotton gin business, Eli Whitney started making muskets for the U.S. Army. At that time, gun parts were made by hand, so if a piece broke, finding a replacement that fit was difficult. In 1798, Whitney had an idea—he would use machines to make identical parts. This meant that all triggers, for example, would be exactly the same.To prove his idea worked, he traveled to Washington. In front of government officials, he took apart ten of his muskets, mixed up the parts, and then put them back together without any trouble. Thus Whitney developed the idea of interchangeable parts.
What became the foundation for modern mass-production and assembly-line methods?.
the principle of interchangeable parts
What were the effects of interchangeable parts?
It gave the North a large industrial base, which helped them have a stronger military advantage over the South.
How did Eli Whitney help cause the Civil War?
By perfecting the cotton gin, Eli Whitney gave slavery a renewed lease on life.
What were the effects of the sewing machine.
Invented by Elias Howe and perfected by Isaac singer, the sewing machine gave another strong boost to northern industrialization. The sewing machine became the foundation of the ready-made clothing industry. Clothes making transferred from the home to the factory.
What is a Patent Office?
the government agency responsible for reviewing and granting patents for new inventions. In 1800, only 306 parents were registered in Washington, but the decade ending in 1860 saw an amazing total of 28,000.
How did technical advances affect the legal status of business organizations?
Technological advances also brought important changes to business organizations that included the principle of limited liability, investment capital companies, and laws of “free incorporation”.
What is the principle of limited liability?
The idea of limited liability allowed investors to only risk the money they put into a company, protecting them from losing more if the company faced legal issues or bankruptcy.
What are investment capital companies?
They’re companies that follow the principle of limited liability and refer to groups of wealthy investors who pool their money together to fund large-scale business ventures. Oneco f the earliest examples was when fifteen Boston families formed the Boston Associates. They eventually dominated the textile, railroad, insurance, and banking business of Massachusetts.
What were laws of “free incorporation,”?
First passed in New York in 1848, these laws meant that businessmen could create corporations without applying for individual charters from the legistlature.
Who was Samuel F. B. Morse and what did he do?
He was a poor portrait painter that secured $30,000 from Congress to support his experiment with “talking wires.” In 1844 he strung a wire 40 miles from Washington to Balitmore and tapped out the message, “What hath God wrought?” The invention made him famous, as he put distnatly separted people in almost instant communcation with one another.
What did the telegraph revolutionize?
News gathering, diplomacy, and finance.
What was London’s Fair in 1851 like?
Also known as the Great Exhibition, American products were on display among the world’s commercial wonders. Fairgoers went into the Crystal Palace to see McCormick’s reaper, Morse’s telegraph, etc.
What was one negative effect of the factor system?
There was a labor problem. When manufacturing was done in the home, or a small shop, the master craftsman and his apprentice could maintain an intimate and friendly relationship. The Industrial Revolution snuffed out this personal association in place of the impersonal ownership of stuffy factories in ‘spindle cities.” Around these cities, the slumlike dwellings of the ‘wage slaves” tended to cluster.
What are wage slaves?
a term used to describe industrial workers in the North who, despite being technically free, were seen as being exploited by their employers due to low wages, long hours, and poor working conditions, essentially being "slaves" to their need to earn a wage to survive, creating a parallel to the chattel slavery prevalent in the South.
What are spindle cities?
cities that developed rapidly during the early Industrial Revolution in the United States, primarily due to the growth of the textile industry, particularly cotton mills, which used large numbers of spinning machines called "spindles" to produce thread.
Why wasn’t the factory system fair?
Many owners grew rich while the working people wasted away at their workbenches.
What was working in a factory like?
Hours were long, wages were low, and the meals were inadequate. Workers were forced to work in unsanitary buildings that were poorly ventilated, lighted, and heated. They were banned by the law to form labor unions to raise wages, for this was regarded as a criminal conspiracy.
What were child workers like in the 1800s?
They were vulnerable to exploitation. iN 1820 a significant portion of the nation’s industrial workers were children under 10. They were abused in the factories (example being whipped in special “whipping rooms.”)
What happened to adult wage workers in the 1820s and 1830s?
Most of their living and working conditions got better. During this time of Jacksonian democracy, many states gave the laboring man the right to vote.
Why did many adult-age workers give their loyalty to the Democratic party of Andrew Jackson?
HIs attack on the BAnk of the United States and against all forms of “privilege” reflected their anxieties about the emerging capitalist economy.
What goals did hte wage workers have?
They wnated a ten-hour work day, higher wages, tolerable working conditions, public education for their children, and an end to the practice of imprisonment for debt.
Why didn’t employers want a ten-hour work day?
They argued that reduced horus would lessen production, increase costs, and demoralize the workers.
What happened in 1840?
President Van Buren establisehd the 10 hour day for federal employees on public works.
What happened in the 1830s and 1840s?
Dozens of strikes erupted, most of them for higher wages, some for the 10-hour day, etc. Strikes were the laborers’s strongest weapons.
What hurt labor’s early efforts at organization?
The depression of 1837. As unemployment spread, union membership shriveled.
What was one win for the unionists?
In 1842, the supreme court of Massachusetts ruled in the case of Commonweatlh v. Hunt that labor unions weren’t illegal conspiracies, provided that hteir methods were “honorable and peaceful.” This decision didn’t legalize the strike overnight throughout the country.
What is a trade union?
an organized association of workers in a trade, group of trades, or profession, formed to protect and further their rights and interests; a labor union.
How long was it before trade unions and mangagement could see eye to eye?
about a century
What did women do before and after the rise of the industrial economy?
Previously, these farm women spun yarn, weaved clothes, and made candles, soap, etc. Factories such as the textile mills in New England undermined these activities, cranking out manufactured goods much faster than that could be made by hand at home. These factories offered employment to the young women they were displacing. Factory jobs promised greater economic independence for women, as well as the means to buy the manufactured products of the new market economy.
Who were the factory girls and what were they like?
young women, primarily from rural areas, who worked in textile mills during the early stages of industrialization in the United States. They usually worked 6 days a week and earned very little. They worked for 12-13 hours a day.
What was the Lowell mill?
The Boston Associates had a textile mill in Lowell Massachusetts. The associates deemed it a showplace factory. The workers were virtually all New England farm girls, carefully supervised on and off the job. Escorted regularly to church from their company boardinghouses and forbidden to form unions, they had few opportunities to share their dissatisfactions over their working conditions. It’s an example of a company town ( a "company town" refers to a community where nearly all the housing, stores, and services are owned by a single company that also employs most of the residents, essentially giving the company significant control over the lives of its workers; these towns often emerged during the Industrial Revolution, particularly in mining and logging regions, and were frequently criticized for exploitative practices and lack of worker autonomy.)
What did most women do as jobs?
Factory jobs of any kind were still unusual for women. Opportunities for them to be economically self-supporitng were scarce and consisted mainly of nursing, domestic service, and teaching.
Who was Catharine Beecher and what did she do?
She was the sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe and urged women to enter the teaching profession. She eventually succeeded, as men left teaching for other lines of work and school-teaching became a thoroughly ‘feminized” occupation. Other work “opportunites” for women beckoned in household service.
What is the cult of domesticity?
A widespread cultural creed that glorified the customary functions of the homemaker. From their pedestal, married women commanded immense moral power, and they increasingly made decisions that altered the character of the family itself. (mainly appealed to middle-class white families)./ The Cult of Domesticity was a prevailing value system in the 19th century that idealized women's roles as devoted wives and mothers, emphasizing their place in the home as moral guardians of society. This belief reinforced the idea that women should focus on domestic responsibilities and raise children with strong moral values, thereby shaping American culture and family dynamics during this period. It emerged alongside significant social changes, influencing women's roles as the nation transitioned into industrialization and urbanization.
