The Industrial Revolution and Market Revolution in America (1790–1860)

Flashcards covering the Industrial Revolution, Market Revolution, labor movement, class formations, religious revivalism, and nativism in the United States from 1790 to 1860.

Between which years did the Industrial Revolution arrive in the United States?

Between $1790$ and $1860$.

How did Lynn, Massachusetts merchants transform shoe production during the 1820s and 1830s?

They introduced an outwork system and division of labor by hiring journeymen to cut leather into soles and uppers in central shops, sending uppers to rural women binders to sew linings, and having other journeymen assemble the finished shoes.

Why did Cincinnati earn the nickname 'Porkopolis' by the 1840s?

Its slaughterhouses implemented a division-of-labor disassembly line using overhead rails that processed $60$ hogs an hour, butchering $334{,}000$ hogs annually by $1850$ and $400{,}000$ by $1860$.

What technological innovation did Oliver Evans introduce in 1782?

A highly automated, water-powered flour mill that used machinery to lift, clean, grind, and cool wheat, allowing just six men to mill $100{,}000\text{ bushels}$ of grain a year.

What characterized the 'mineral-based economy' that emerged in the United States by the 1830s?

Manufacturers increasingly powered machinery with coal-burning stationary steam engines instead of water power and fabricated metal goods like iron, brass, copper, and tinplate.

How did Samuel Slater contribute to the early American textile industry?

He emigrated from Britain in $1789$ and reproduced Richard Arkwright's advanced cotton-spinning machinery in Moses Brown's cotton mill in Providence, Rhode Island in $1790$.

What was Great Britain's primary competitive advantage over American textile manufacturers?

Cheap labor supported by a larger population ($12.6\text{ million}$ in $1810$ versus $7.3\text{ million}$ in the United States) and thousands of landless workers prepared to accept low factory wages.

What was the significance of the Boston Manufacturing Company factory built in Waltham, Massachusetts, in 1814?

It was the first American factory to perform all clothmaking operations under one roof, using power looms improved by Paul Moody that ran faster and required fewer workers than British looms.

What was the Waltham-Lowell System?

A labor strategy recruiting young women from farm families to work in textile mills, housing them in boardinghouses with strict curfews, bans on alcohol, and mandatory church attendance to assure parents of their moral welfare.

What educational institution was established in Philadelphia in 1824 by the Sellars family and other mechanics?

The Franklin Institute, named after Benjamin Franklin, which published a journal, hosted exhibits of new inventions, and provided high-school-level instruction in chemistry, mathematics, and mechanical design.

What are machine tools?

Machines that make parts for other machines.

What military manufacturing technique did Eli Whitney pioneer starting in 1798?

He built machine tools designed to rapidly produce standardized, interchangeable musket parts.

What percentage of the world market for sewing machines did the Singer Manufacturing Company control by 1877?

$$75\%$$

What was artisan republicanism?

An ideology of production based on liberty and equality, in which craft workers viewed themselves as small-scale producers equal to one another and free to work for themselves.

Why did male wageworkers adopt the Dutch term 'boss'?

To assert their independent status and reject the traditional, subordinate master-servant relationship.

What was the ruling in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court case Commonwealth v. Hunt (1842)?

Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw overturned common-law precedents by declaring that workers had the right to form unions and call strikes to enforce closed-shop agreements.

What core principle was asserted by the labor theory of value?

The price of goods should reflect the labor required to produce them, and the revenue from sales should go primarily to the workers rather than to factory owners, middlemen, or merchants.

How did Congress promote western migration through the Land Act of 1820?

It reduced the price of federal land from $\$2.00\text{ an acre}$ to $\$1.25\text{ an acre}$, allowing a farmer to purchase the $80\text{-acre}$ minimum for $\$100$.

What were the starting point, milestone, and terminus of the National Road?

It began in Cumberland, Maryland in $1811$, reached Wheeling, Virginia on the Ohio River in $1818$, and terminated in Vandalia, Illinois in $1839$.

What were the dimensions and route of the Erie Canal completed in 1825?

A $40\text{-foot-wide}$, $364\text{-mile}$ waterway connecting Lake Erie at Buffalo to the Hudson River at Albany.

What did the U.S. Supreme Court establish in Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)?

The Court voided a New York state monopoly on steamboat travel into New York City, establishing exclusive federal authority over interstate commerce.

What farm implement did John Deere develop in 1837?

A steel plow fashioned from old saws, which was strong enough to cut through dense midwestern prairie sod without breaking.

How did wealth distribution shift among the richest 10 percent of American families between 1800 and 1860?

Their share of the nation's wealth increased from about $40\%$ in $1800$ to nearly $70\%$ by $1860$.

What was the annual rate of per capita income growth in the United States between 1830 and 1857?

About $2.5\%$ per year.

What was the primary objective of the Benevolent Empire during the 1820s?

To restore 'the moral government of God' by targeting social vices such as drunkenness, adultery, prostitution, crime, and Sabbath-breaking through organized reform societies.

What core theological doctrine did Charles Grandison Finney preach during the Second Great Awakening?

The doctrine of free will, preaching that 'God has made man a moral free agent' who could actively choose personal salvation.

How did annual per capita consumption of spirits change between 1830 and 1845 due to the temperance movement?

It dropped from an average of $5\text{ gallons}$ per person in $1830$ to $2\text{ gallons}$ in $1845$.

What nativist thesis did Samuel F. B. Morse argue in his 1834 book Foreign Conspiracy Against the Liberties of the United States?

He argued that Catholic immigrants represented a papal conspiracy to undermine American republican institutions because of their submission to Pope Gregory XVI.