Topic #3: The Market Revolution

Essential Question: Was the War of 1812 a second war for independence?

New Technology

• Steel plow

• Cotton gin - created by Eli Whitney in 1793

• Mechanical reaper

• Steamboat

• Spinning Jenny

• Telegraph

• Canals - connected rivers, lakes, and the ocean. It reduced shipping cost and time.

• Railroads

The American System

• Proposal to Congress written by Henry Clay

  • Protective Tariff (tax on imports)

  • Renew National Bank

  • Federal money for infrastructure (bridges, roads, etc.)

• Congress passed all but the last. They say that it is a state responsibility to pay for infrastructure. Later, Northern states would put more money into infrastucture than Southern states.

Market Revolution

• 1820s-1840s

• Effects of the revolution:

  • Increase in immigrants/bigger population

    • Nativism

  • Growth of the American economy

  • Growth of trade hubs (New York)

  • Demand for slavery/divide between North and South

    • Cotton becomes the “king crop”.

  • Workers demand better pay/conditions (this includes women)

  • More movement to the West

  • 2nd Great Awakening/reform movements

Factory System

• All levels of production happen in one factory.

• Workers live on site.

• In the 1820s, the Boston Associates create one of the first factory towns in Lowell, Massachusetts.

  • “Mill girls” worked on every phase of producing textile.

Mill Girls

• 1820s

• Women typically from New England farm families who worked at textile mills during the industrial revolution.

• They enjoyed new freedoms and independence not seen before.

• They stayed in boarding houses in the factory towns, and were given strict rule.

• Many complained about the long hours and low wages.

• They typically only worked in the factories for a few years, and then returned home where they would marry.

Immigrants

• Between 1840-1860, 4 million people immigrated to the U.S.

• Most were Irish and Germans who were escaping the Potato Famine, eliminating jobs in Europe, and seeking political and religious freedom.

• The Irish took low-wage and unskilled jobs that Americans didn’t want. The women worked in factories, eventually replacing the mill girls.

• The Germans lived in the “German Triangle” (Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Milwaukee). They became craftsmen, shopkeepers, and farmers.

Nativism

• Prominent in the 1830s-1850s

• An anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic feeling

  • Protestants feared that Catholicism threatened American freedom.

  • Nativists blamed immigrants for crime and corruption. They expressed their hate in the streets and at the ballot box.

McCulloch v. Maryland

• 1819

• Congress established the Second Bank of the United States. Maryland imposed a tax on any bank that was not chartered by the state. The tax targeted the federal bank. James W. McCulloch refused to pay the tax.

• Constitutional Questions:

  • Can Congress create a national bank?

    • The Court ruled yes because of the Necessary and Proper Clause.

  • Can states tax the Federal government?

    • No because federal government is supreme.

Interstate Commerce

Trade that occurs between two or more states rather than within one state.

• There was a big question of who gets to control commerce, State vs. National Government?

Gibbons v. Ogden

• 1824

• Issue: Ogden got the right to use boats in New York waters to transport people by the state. Gibbons got the right to transport people from New York and New Jersey by Congress because it counted as interstate commerce.

• Constitutional Question: Can the Commerce Clause grant the Congress to pass laws about interstate movement, and stop any state laws that deal with interstate commerce?

• Decision of the Court: The court agreed with Gibbons and says that moving people from different states counts as interstate commerce.

• Impact: It increases Congress’ power by broadening the term “commerce”. It takes away power from the state and increased Federal power.