The Factory System and Immigration

The Factory System

• Transportation of Products: Large cities grew in the west and became centers for the transportation of products, including Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Chicago.

• Population Shift: Populations expanded rapidly, and workers began to shift from skilled artisan production to factory production.

• Historical Context: This transformation mirrored what had occurred in Britain 100 years earlier.

• Change in Labor Conditions: Workers transitioned from being their own bosses to being supervised by employers, facing pressure to produce greater output at lower prices.

Spinning Factories

• Early Factories: The first factories were spinning factories that used water-driven spinning machines to produce yarn.

• Outwork System: The yarn was then sent to weavers and families outside the factory to be spun into fabric, known as the "outwork" system.

• Location: These factories were located along the "fall line," where rivers turned into waterfalls and rapids, centering the early industrial revolution in the U.S. in New England.

• Lowell, Massachusetts: The largest of these factories was in Lowell, Massachusetts, which became an entire factory town.

• Employment in Lowell: By 1850, Lowell's fifty-two mills employed over 100,000 people.

The Industrial Worker

• The American System: The American System involved the mass production of interchangeable parts that could be rapidly produced, leading to standardized products and becoming the dominant form of factories.

• First Product: The first product made with this system were clocks.

• Shift in Time Perception: The market revolution changed workers' perception of time, as clocks (not seasons) now controlled the times people labored.

• Transition from Price to Wages: A shift occurred from "price" to "wages" for workers.

• Loss of Freedom: Workers experienced less freedom as they became bound to clocks and wages for work.

The Mill Girls

• Initial Workforce: Manufacturers initially turned to young Yankee farm girls to work in their factories.

• Reasons for Hiring Women: Women had few alternatives to working in factories if they wished to earn money outside the family farms.

• Factory Towns: Factories, particularly in Lowell, set up towns that controlled the young women's lives, including boarding houses, lecture halls, churches, and printing presses.

• Sense of Liberation: Despite the restrictive controls, women found the jobs liberating because they were free from the rules of their homes.

• Short-Term Goals: Most women did not plan to work long, aiming to work for a short time and then marry.

The Growth of Immigration

• Increased Immigration: Economic growth created a need for more workers, which was partly met by increased immigration. From 1790 to 1830, immigrants made a small contribution to the American population. However, between 1840 and 1860, more than 4 million people came to the United States, which was more than the entire population in 1790.

• Origins of Immigrants: Most of these immigrants came from Ireland and Germany.

• Settlement Patterns: About 90% settled in the northern states, where there were more job opportunities and they didn't have to compete with slave labor. Immigrants were rare in the slave states, except in cities on the edges of the South like New Orleans, St. Louis, and Baltimore. By 1860, New York City had 814,000 residents, including over 384,000 immigrants. In Wisconsin, one-third of the population was foreign-born.

• Reasons for Migration: Changes in agriculture and the industrial revolution in Europe disrupted traditional ways of life. Many peasants lost their land, and jobs for craft workers disappeared. Advances like the steamship and railroad made long-distance travel easier. The Cunard Line started offering regular, affordable trips from Britain to Boston and New York City around 1840, facilitating increased emigration from Europe not only to the United States but also to Canada and Australia. Often, a male family member would go first, sending money back home for the rest of the family to join him later.

• Motivations for Immigration: The New York Times commented that thoughts of the "New Free World" came to everyone discontented in Europe. Many Europeans looked to America for a better life, drawn by political and religious freedoms and unhappy with the strict governments and social classes in Europe, including political refugees from the failed revolutions of 1848. One German immigrant noted, "In America, there aren't any masters; everyone is a free agent."

• Irish Immigration: The largest group of immigrants were refugees escaping disaster, particularly Irish men and women fleeing the Great Famine from 1845 to 1851. A potato blight caused a devastating famine, leading to about 1 million deaths from starvation and another million people leaving Ireland, most of whom came to the United States.

• Employment of Immigrants: Lacking skills and money, these poor agricultural workers filled the low-paying jobs that many native-born Americans avoided. Irish men worked on railroads, dug canals, and took on jobs as laborers, servants, longshoremen, and factory workers. Irish women often worked as servants in the homes of native Americans, though some preferred factory jobs. One Irish woman explained, "It's the freedom that we want when the day's work is done."

• Immigration Statistics:

  • 1841-1845: 430,000 immigrants
  • 1846-1850: 1,283,000 immigrants
  • 1851-1855: 1,748,000 immigrants
  • 1856-1860: 850,000 immigrants