Chapter 14: Forging the National Economy, 1790–1860

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the economic, technological, social, and demographic transformations of the United States between 1790 and 1860 from Chapter 14 of The American Pageant.

Demographic Center

The geographic center of the United States population, which crossed the Alleghenies by 1840 and the Ohio River by 1860 as pioneers moved westward.

Rugged Individualism

The popular cultural ethos romanticizing fiercely independent, self-reliant pioneer figures isolated by western frontier geography.

Rendezvous System

The basis of the Rocky Mountain fur-trapping trade in the 1820s, in which traders and Native Americans met each summer to swap beaver pelts for manufactured goods from the East.

Ecological Imperialism

The aggressive exploitation of the Western frontier's natural bounty, resulting in the near-extinction of beavers and buffalo.

George Catlin

A painter and student of Native American life who was among the first to advocate the preservation of nature as deliberate national policy, proposing a national park system in the 1830s.

Ancient Order of Hibernians

A semisecret society founded in Ireland to fight rapacious landlords that served in the United States as a benevolent society aiding downtrodden Irish immigrants.

Molly Maguires

A shadowy Irish miners' union that organized violent labor protests in the Pennsylvania anthracite coal districts during the 1860s and 1870s.

Tammany Hall

New York City's powerful Democratic political machine that gained political support and delivered patronage rewards to newly arriving Irish immigrants.

Carl Schurz

A prominent German political refugee in America who became a relentless crusader against slavery and public corruption.

Know-Nothing Party

A nativist political organization formed in reaction to mass Irish and German immigration that demanded rigid restrictions on immigration and naturalization, as well as the deportation of alien paupers.

Awful Disclosures

A sensational, fictitious 1836 anti-Catholic book by Maria Monk that fueled nativist bigotry against Roman Catholics.

Samuel Slater

The British mechanic acclaimed as the 'Father of the Factory System' in America who memorized British mill blueprints and constructed the first efficient American cotton-spinning machine in 1791.

Cotton Gin

A hand-cranked machine invented by Eli Whitney in 1793 that swiftly separated cotton seeds from short-staple cotton fiber, dramatically expanding cotton production and revitalizing slavery in the South.

Interchangeable Parts

A manufacturing system popularized by Eli Whitney using identical machine-made components for firearms, laying the foundation for modern assembly-line mass production.

Sewing Machine

A textile invention created by Elias Howe in 1846 and perfected by Isaac Singer that shifted clothing production from the home to the factory.

Limited Liability

A legal concept that permitted individual corporate investors to risk no more capital than the value of their own shares, accelerating business organization and investment.

Samuel F. B. Morse

The inventor of the electric telegraph who strung a 40-mile wire between Washington and Baltimore in 1844, transmitting the historic message 'What hath God wrought?'

Commonwealth v. Hunt

An 1842 Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling that established labor unions as legal organizations, provided that their methods were honorable and peaceful.

Lowell Mills

Textile factories in Massachusetts that hired young New England farm women ('factory girls') who lived in company boarding houses under strict matronly supervision.

Cult of Domesticity

A widespread cultural ideology that glorified traditional homemaking and established the private home as women's exclusive, sacred sphere.

Domestic Feminism

The growing power and assertiveness of nineteenth-century women inside the home, marked by family planning, declining birth rates, and child-centered parenting.

Steel Plow

An agricultural implement developed by John Deere in 1837 that broke through the thick soil of western prairies and was light enough to be pulled by horses instead of oxen.

McCormick Reaper

A horse-drawn mechanical mower-reaper invented by Cyrus McCormick in the 1830s that did the work of five men, turning subsistence farming into large-scale commercial cash-crop agriculture.

Lancaster Turnpike

A 62-mile hard-surfaced toll road in Pennsylvania built during the 1790s connecting Philadelphia to Lancaster, igniting an era of private turnpike construction.

Cumberland Road

Also known as the National Road; a historic federally funded highway begun in 1811 that connected Maryland to the West.

Robert Fulton

An American inventor who installed a steam engine on the riverboat Clermont in 1807, proving the viability of two-way waterborne commerce on American rivers.

Erie Canal

A 363-mile waterway funded by New York under Governor DeWitt Clinton, running from Buffalo on Lake Erie to the Hudson River and drastically lowering western shipping costs.

Clipper Ships

Sleek, long, and narrow sailing ships of the 1840s and 1850s that sacrificed cargo capacity for unprecedented ocean speed.

Pony Express

A swift mail delivery service begun in 1860 carrying letters over 2,000 miles from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, in just ten days.

Transportation Revolution

The nineteenth-century expansion of roads, steamboats, canals, and railroads that linked separate regional economies into a single interdependent national economy.

Market Revolution

The transformation of the American economy from local, self-sufficient subsistence households into a nationwide, interconnected commercial and industrial market.