1800-1860: Social and Economic Developments

Economic, Social, Sectional Divides, Reform

Market Economy

The US transitioned from a subsistence economy to a market economy where labor and goods are traded for cash that is used to buy other labor and goods. Monocultures—specializing in a single crop—became common.

As people became interdependent, the economy became more susceptible to changes, referred to as boom-and-bust cycles. This is evident in the panics of 1819 and 1837.

Stronger National Economy and Innovations

3 Points

The War of 1812 (and the events leading to it) forced the US to be less dependent on imports and develop a stronger economy.

Southern agriculture was revolutionized by inventions like the steel plow, mechanical reaper, and Eli Whitney’s cotton gin(1793) which significantly increased demand for cotton. Cotton production in the South intensified its dependence on slave labor.

Whitney also invented the use of interchangeable parts in manufacturing, creating the machine-tool industry which used specialized machines in growing industries like textiles and transportation.

This later led to the development of assembly line production by Henry Ford in 1913.

The North and the Textile Industry

3 Points

The invention of the power loom (1813) made high-quality fabrics cheaply. Samuel Slater, considered the “Father of the American Industrial Revolution” designed the first American textile mills.

Technological innovations and the US embargo on British goods—England was America’s main source of textiles—during the War of 1812 spurred the rapid growth of the textile industry, leading to a labor shortage. The Lowell (Waltham) system attracted workers but conditions worsened as Irish immigrants in the 1840s and 1860s joined the workforce. As a result, labor unions formed.

The textile industries boosted other industries: clothing manufacturers, retailers, and brokers. Commercial banks lent money to everyone and the transportation industry grew as a result of the need to ship products across the country.

Transportation Revolution: Canals, Railroads, Highways, and Steamships

4 Points

The National Road(1811) made east-west travel easier. The Erie Canal (1825) made it lucrative for Midwesterners to sell products to the east and European countries, and the Northwest became the US’ center of commerce. As railroads grew, the Canal Era ended by 1850.

Railroads grew slowly at first without standardized tracks. The invention of the steam engine allowed for steamships which accelerated sea travel.

Travel and shipping was helped by the telegraph, which allowed long-distance communication using Morse code. Products, people and ideas traveled much faster.

These innovations favored the Northeast and the Midwest(or just the West back then).

Farming

Machines like the mechanical plow, sower, reaper and cotton gin improved agriculture. Farming in the Northeast was more difficult due to its climate, leading some New England farmers to move to cities to work in manufacturing instead.

The Midwest became the US’ main source of grains while the South focused on cotton, or tobacco in the Upper South. Most Southerners were small farmers who did not own slaves.

Westward Expansion

Texas, Oregon, California

4 Points

The Louisiana Purchase and the end of the War of 1812 allowed settlers to quickly expand West. Manifest Destiny was the idea that Americans had a God-given right to expand. Western expansion led to conflicts with natives.

Mexico became independent from Spain in 1821 and attracted Western settlers who ignored Mexican laws prohibiting slavery. Settlers in Texas rebelled, leading to the battle at the Alamo (1836). Texas became the Republic of Texas and was eventually annexed in 1845, leading to the Mexican-American war.

The Oregon Territory was claimed by Russia, Britain and the US. President Polk eventually settled the territorial dispute with a treaty.

The Gold Rush attracted many, Forty-Niners, to California. California’s access to the Pacific Ocean made cities like San Francisco trade centers.

Regional Differences: Economic

3 Points

Throughout the ½ of the 1800s, the North, South and West developed very differently.

The North industrialized and became the US’s commercial center. The South was agrarian, supported slavery, and wanted Western lands for their tobacco and cotton. The West focused on commercial farming, distrusted the North and its banks, and avoided involvement in the slavery issue.

Tariffs were typically supported by the North and Republicans and opposed by the South and Democrats.

The North and American Cities

4 Points

Cities faced sanitation problems and epidemic. On the other hand, cities offered jobs, opportunity for social advancement (schooling), and entertainment (theater, sports). Like the South, there was great wealth inequality. The elite few held most of the wealth.

Popular among the middle class, the cult of domesticity was the idea that men should work while women kept house and raised children. It was supported by novels and people like Lydia Maria Child.

Members of the middle class rose from the working class, who worked their entire lives and were just above the poverty line.

Those in poverty were recent immigrants. Waves of immigrants from Germany and Ireland arrived in the 1840s and 1850s. Immigrants faced hostility from the working class who feared competition. Tensions would frequently lead to riots in cities, which resulted in the creation of police departments.

The South and Rural Life

Most of the South lived isolated in rural areas. Family, then church, played a dominant role in life. There were few social activities.

The South did not develop much infrastructure. The rich elite were plantation owners, who owned many slaves while ¾ of the South owned none. Southern paternalism was the attitude that slavery benefited everyone, including the slaves.

Slaves were often converted to Christianity, which they blended with African culture. To cope with poverty and abuse, they resisted subtly by breaking slave codes or learning to read and write. There were also many free Blacks who faced prejudice but much better conditions than slaves.

Majority of the South were yeomen, small farmers who rarely owned slaves and simply farmed their land to survive. There were also landless whites.

The West and Frontier Living

3 Points

The government encouraged westward expansion. Fur trading was a common enterprise, as were cattle ranching and mining.

Settlers struggled against the climate and Native Americans, but were driven by opportunities for wealth and social advancement.

The West became a symbol of freedom and equality to many.

Religious Movements

The Second Great Awakening (1795-1835) was a period of religious revival. It was caused by a decline in church attendance and increased secularism as a result of increased education and the Enlightenment.

Preachers like Charles Finney spread religious beliefs and church membership soared. Women became active leaders in churches. The Second Great Awakening also inspired new religions, like Mormons and Shakers, and social reform movements. It convinced many, especially Northerners, that slavery was a great evil.

Experimental Communities

3 Points

The Shakers were a utopian group that practiced celibacy and lived in isolation. Other utopian groups included the Oneida in New York and the New Harmony in Indiana. The Mormons, created by Joseph Smith, supported polygamy and still exist today.

Brook Farm housed Transcendentalists. Transcendentalists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, were inspired by European romanticism.

The Hudson River School was the first distinct school of American art. Its painters portrayed the beauty of nature in landscapes.

Social Reform

3 Points

Supported by Protestant churches and reformers, the Temperance movement aimed to restrict alcohol and other vices, like gambling and prostitution. Reformers brought about penitentiaries, asylums, and orphanages. Dorothea Dix reformed prisons and asylums.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott held the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls (1840). Stanton and Susan B Anthony would found the National Woman Suffrage Association.

Horace Mann pushed for education reforms. He thought that education was the best equalizer.

The Abolition Movement

4 Points

The American Colonization Society (1816) aimed to repatriate slaves to Liberia in Africa.

Moderates wanted gradual emancipation. Immediatists wanted immediate emancipation. William Lloyd Garrison published a popular abolitionist paper The Liberator and helped found the American Antislavery Society (1833).

Congress adopted the gag rule which banned the discussion of the slavery issue, enraging Northerners who then joined abolitionism.

David Walker, a free Black, inspired Garrison. Frederick Douglass gained fame as a writer. Harriet Tubman escaped slavery and helped hundreds escape via the underground railroad. Sojourner Truth campaigned for emancipation and womens’ rights.