Early 19th Century

• Industrial Revolution: new revolution that changed the way goods were produced and where people worked and lived. Began in England but spread throughout the world.

• Factories: brought workers and machinery together in one place to produce goods, needed resources which resulted in high-priced products 

• Lowell Mills: factory, primary working force → women, worked 11 hrs a day, didn’t get breaks, weren’t allowed to knit or sew, couldn’t drink alcohol in or out of work

• interchangeable parts: machine made parts were alike so they could fit together with other parts, items would not have to be built from scratch, saved time and money

• Steam power & efficiency of transportation: efficient → didn’t rely on winds or hand rowing, didn’t need to be close to water (like water-powered things) 

• Immigration: people started coming into the country from other countries in the 19th cent.

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• Eli Whitney: Invented the cotton gin and interchangeable parts on guns

• Cotton Gin: an invention that cleaned cotton, led to a dramatic expansion of agriculture in the south, a single worker could do the work of 50 people by hand

• Impact of cotton on slavery & economy: swift growth in cotton production, southern states → not enough farmland to meet demand, cotton planters extended → cotton kingdom

• Conditions of slavery: difficult physical work, slave owners dehumanized, no protection from abuse of white owners, prevented from practicing their religion

• Resistance to slavery: pick cotton slowly, poison slave owner’s food, “stayed alive” (singing, dancing, had children), tried to find humanity 

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• Abolitionism: people wanted to end slavery in the united states

• William Lloyd Garrison & “The Liberator”: thought slavery was evil, found the New England Anti-Slavery Society, the liberator → the most influential anti slavery newspaper 

• Harriet Tubman: abolitionist and a conductor of the underground railroad who saved over 300 slaves

• Underground Railroad: system to help enslaved people follow network of escape routes out of the South to freedom in North 

• Slave Narratives and letters from former slaves to their former masters: *write conditions of slavery, how they were described, in choices and on schoology* 

• Frederick Douglass: born into slavery, defied slave codes by learning to read/write, wrote North Star promoting end of slavery

  • “What to a Slave is the 4th of July?”: speech to convince people that slavery was wrong and to make abolition seem more acceptable 

• Examples of abolitionist documents:  David Walker’s Appeal → condemns colonization, Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman” → former slave talked about injustices, William Loyd Garrison’s “The Liberator,” → newspaper about abolition, Angelina Grimke’s speech → points out demoralizing effects of slavery and tells women to take an active role in abolition

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• Reform movements of the early 19th C.

  • Second Great Awakening: move away from predestination - free will and democracy
  • Asylum/poorhouses reform: mentally ill people were treated as “crazy”, reforms → mentally ill people had to be treated as patients, Massachusetts state legislatures had to fund a new mental hospital
  • Jails reform: debtors go to prison → less debtors in jail, bad conditions + many people per cell → better conditions (food etc) and less people per cell
  • Temperance: combating alcohol abuse - banning alcohol because people drank a lot, many different ideas to solve like ban all vs limit etc
  • Women’s Rights: Women fighting for their rights
  • Sojourner Truth → gave speeches and believed that women were equal to men
  • Lucrecia Mott → Quaker, mother of 5 children, went to the World Anti Slavery Convention, but was forced to sit behind a curtain
  • Elizabeth Cady Stanton → Father was a NY judge, excellent student and athlete, but not given any encouragement, also went to the WASC, wrote the Dec of Sentiments
  • Margaret Fuller → A literary critic, led “conversations” in Boston

• Early women’s rights movement (Ch 6 Zinn); Women were oppressed in history and were often treated horribly, with female servants receiving poor pay and harsh treatment. A man had the right to beat his wife, and he owned all of her money and property. Women began working in factories and becoming teachers, and although they couldn’t go to college, they were reading more & socializing more.

  • Anne Hutchinson; Mass. Bay Colony, stood up to church fathers, had to leave the MBC, went to Rhode Island & 35 other families went with her
  • Mary Dyer; Mass. Bay Colony, hanged for her “rebellious” beliefs & behavior 
  • Catherine Beecher; a reformer who worked to improve education for women
  • Coffee heist; women who weren’t getting a fair price on coffee banded together and went to the merchant’s warehouse, where they threw him into a cart. They then stole his coffee and left
  • Textile Mills; women would strike for better working conditions & wages
  • Emma Willard; founded the first school for girls (1821)
  • Elizabeth Blackwell; got her medical degree (1849)
  • Lucy Stone; Lecturer for the American Anti-slavery society, and in 1847 she started lecturing about women’s rights
  • Angelina Grimké; Anti-slavery activist

• Lucy Stone & Henry Blackwell’s Letter of Protest; A letter written by Stone & blackwell, who were married, which protested a man’s ownership of the woman

  • Lucy Stone: Was the first woman to earn a college degree and keep her name after marriage
  • The letter was read at their ceremony and was then published in abolitionist newspapers

• Declaration of Sentiments: Written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, it was modeled after the declaration of independence, and it contained a list of grievances of women

  • Also called for women’s right to vote
  • In Seneca Falls, NY

• Indian Removal (Ch 7 Zinn); 

  • Andrew Jackson; hated natives, killed 800 Creeks and was revered, but the Cherokees had won the battle for him, signed a treaty that took ½ of the creek’s land, became governor of Florida, 1828 was elected president and he let the states do whatever they wanted. Main instigator for the trail of tears.

• Texas Annexation; 

• Manifest Destiny; God’s will that America expand west

  • O’ Sullivan quotations: in newspaper stated “Our manifest destiny is to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions”
  • “American Progress” painting by John Gast: depicts an angel bringing industrialization across the country to the west, representing westward expansion
  • Zinn Ch 8; 
  • America’s president, President Polk, wanted and encouraged a war, even without provocation
  • Many American citizens disapproved of the expansion and the war
  • Takaki Ch 7; 

• War with Mexico, inc. Zinn and Takaki’s takes on the war;

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