Unfinished Nation - Chapter 10: America's Economic Revolution

The Changing American Population

Population Trends

Famine and political unrest sparked a new wave of immigrants to the U.S. during this period. Northeastern cities were rapidly expanding as a result of the north becoming more urbanized and industrialized, as well as with a population increase from immigration.

• antebellum: before the (Civil) war, the trends that happen rapid increase, movement westward, and the growth of towns and cities where demand for work was expanding

Immigration and Urban Growth, 1840-1860

The growth of cities accelerated dramatically between 1840-1860. New York, Philadelphia and Boston were emerging as competitive cities on a global scale. Previous trading posts and small villages also boomed further west as the agricultural industry grew, with large cities emerging such as St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Louisville.

The Rise of Nativism

1.5 million Irish immigrants and 1 million German immigrants migrated to the U.S. during this period. They wanted to escape famine, economic and political turmoil, and find better opportunities in the states. Due to this, many Americans started to worry they would be outnumbered by immigrants, and started many movements protesting against them.

• nativism: a sentiment that immigrants shouldn’t be allowed to have power over government or laws, or more commonly associated with native born citizens considering themselves superior to immigrants
• “Know-Nothings”: a political party in the 1840s who reflected a strong nativist sentiment, and demanded to ban Catholics or aliens from holding public office, enact more restrictive naturalization laws, and establish a literacy test for voting

Transportation and Communications Revolutions

The Canal Age

Up to the 1820s, turnpikes and roads had been the most relied on source of transportation within and across states. However, as the nation expanded, larger rivers and newly built canals became one of the most essential forms of transportation for people, goods, and raw materials.

• Erie Canal: the greatest construction project Americans had ever undertaken, by providing a route to the Great Lakes, the canal gave New York access to Chicago and the growing markets of the West, Traffic was so heavy that seven years after it opened, tolls had repaid the entire cost of construction

The Early Railroads

Railroads as a popular form of transportation surged by mid-century, but the groundwork laid in the 1820s-30s was essential to starting the growth of the railroads connecting early America. Railroads used a combination of technological and entrepreneurial innovations with the invention of tracks, steam-powered locomotives, and the development of trains as public carriers of passengers and freight.

• Baltimore and Ohio Railroad: the first railroad company to begin operations, opened a thirteen-mile stretch of track in 1830, running trains in the Northeast

The Triumph of the Rails

Railroads eventually superseded all other forms of transport by 1860. The track laid totaled to over 27,000 miles, the majority of it in the Northeast. Some railroads crossed the Mississippi over iron bridges at several points. Chicago notably became a rail center in the West, becoming a dominant city and center of growth and commerce in the mid-west. However, the increased connection between Northeast and Northwest states through railroads further widened the divide between the north and the south.

The Telegraph

The invention of the telegraph was one of the singular most influential advancements to communication in the early 1800s. Many experiments with improving methods of long-distance communication had been done prior to its inception, however Samuel F. B. Morse was able to create a system that drastically improved the speed and accuracy of communication over long distances. His device, the Telegraph, sent electrical pulses to a receiving site. These pulses could could be deciphered based on his creation of “Morse code.” These messages could now be received and send news out within hours, instead of weeks or months as older forms of communication required.

• Morse code: a system of dots and dashes that corresponded to letters in the alphabet in order to form words and sentences in a message
• Western Union Telegraph Company: many joined independent telegraph lines between New York and San Francisco, with over 3,595 miles of wire laid to transmit and receive messages

New Technology and Journalism

American journalism now received growing credibility and popularity with the invention of the telegraph. Prior to the telegraph, news had been delivered within weeks and months through letters or spoken word. Now, news could be spread around in a matter of hours. The cylinder rotary press was also developed in 1846, making newspapers more rapidly and cheaply produced. These factors combined to make news more accessible and credible than ever before.

Commerce and Industry

The Expansion of Business, 1820-1840

Innovations in management led to American business growing rapidly during this time period. Many individual merchants were giving way to larger corporations. Corporations had the advantages of combining the resources of a large number of shareholders, especially after many legal obstacles to their formation were removed in the 1830s. Laws passed to lower the liability of investors losing stock or investments in corporations and companies contributed to this growth as well.

The Emergence of the Factory

Manufacturing in factories, where items could be more cheaply made and mass-produced became progressively popular in the early to mid 1800s. Between 1840 and 1860, for the first time the value of manufactured goods rivaled that of agricultural products. The majority of factories and manufacturing establishments were located in the Northeast, giving rise to its commercial growth, industrialization, and urbanization.

• factory system: New England textile manufacturers began using new water-powered machines that allowed them to bring their operations together under a single roof through a process of mass production

Advances in Technology

The use of interchangeable parts was one of the most notable advances in technology during the 1850s-1860s. This created more reliable and universal interchangeable parts for products such as guns, sewing machines, weaponry, and household items. By the 1840s, machine tools used in Northeastern factories already rivaled those in most European factories. Other inventions and the exponential increase of patents created a boom in new technology and systems for production.

• industrialization: the development of industries in a country or region on a wide scale

Rise of the Industrial Ruling Class

Merchant capitalists who operated shipping lines to southern ports or dispatched fleets of trading vessels to foreign countries were still important in the 1840s. However, merchant capitalism was declining by the mid 1800s. The majority of opportunities for profit in manufacturing consumed the growth of businesses and production, especially in the Northeast.

Men and Women at Work

Recruiting a Native Workforce

Ninety percent of Americans in the 1820s still lived and worked on farms, and the urban residents that did exist usually were skilled artisans who owned and manager their own shops. Due to this, factories had trouble hiring enough workers for efficient production. One system emerged where whole families from farms would come to work together in mills. Another common system adopted in Massachusetts and New England in general enlisted young women to live, learn, and work at factories until they were of age to marry and leave the industry. While they were treated poorly in some aspects, they still had livable working conditions where the women had off-days, shorter work days, and clean dormitories with food, clothing, and activities provided during their stay.

• Lowell or Waltham system: common in New England, this system enlisted young women, mostly farmers’ daughters in their late teens and early twenties. Many of these women worked for several years, saved their wages, and then returned home to marry and raise children
• Factory Girls Association: mill workers in Lowell organized a union and staged a strike to protest a 25% wage cut
• Sarah Bagley: leader of the Lowell women factory workers and creator of the Factory Girls Association, she helped members air their grievances and political goals, and provide better working conditions for those in the Lowell factory

The Immigrant Workforce

The increasing supply of immigrant workers post-1840 provided a huge advantage for manufacturers and other entrepreneurs, as they were often willing to except far worse working conditions than native born workers. Many performed heavy, long, and grueling tasks building turnpikes, canals, and railroads. Immigrants workers also often lived in grim conditions with that endangered the health of their families and themselves. The factory atmosphere also became increasingly unsafe as factories themselves were becoming large, noisy, unsanitary, and often dangerous places to work while employees were subjected to long and unforgiving workdays.

Consider the Source: Handbook to Lowell (1848)

This is a primary source of the code of conduct as well as rules for working at the Lowell factory in 1848. It includes sections for factory rules, boarding-house rules, and a strict behavioral conduct for the women and girls who worked there.

The Factory System and The Artisan Tradition

Factories started to displace the trades of skilled artisans. They were essential to the early republican vision of America including artisans and independent yeoman farmers. Skilled artisans valued their independence, stability, and relative equality in the economic world. While some made successful transitions into small-scale industry, others were unable to compete with factory-made goods and mass production. Trade unions and other community systems were devised to help support artisans among the increasingly impersonal production of the industrialized world.

• artisan: a worker in a skilled trade, especially one that involves making things by hand

Fighting For Control

Industrial workers made efforts to obtain better working conditions under the harsh factory system. They tried to pass laws setting a maximum workday and regulate child labor, with little success. Almost all early unions excluded women, and as a result they began establishing their own in the 1850s. However, the growth of better working standards was stunted by the flood of immigrant workers into the country who were able to easily replace native born workers who were fed up with the poor working conditions.

• Commonwealth v. Hunt: the Massachusetts state supreme court ruling in 1842 that declared that unions were lawful organizations and that strike was a lawful weapon

Patterns of Society

The Rich and The Poor

The increasing wealth elevated by commercial and industrial growth in the US was distributed highly unequally. Enslaved people, Native Americans, landless farmers, and unskilled workers often shared scarce economic growth. Comparatively, merchants and industrialists accumulated massive amounts of wealth, and in cities new wealth emerged in distinctive cultures. New York was among the notable emerging new high-societies.

Social and Geographical Mobility

Class conflict at this time was rarely direct, as life was usually better for factory workers than it had been on dying farms or in Europe. Some laborers were able to move up in the economy and class status through the use of hard work, ingenuity, and luck. Geographic mobility was also essential as urban workers who gained enough earnings were able to buy land and move west to farm it, providing better working conditions and profits than unskilled factory labor.

Middle-Class Life

The fastest-growing group in America was the middle class during this time period. Economic development, landownership, property ownership, and work opportunities all opened resources for the growth of the middle class. Middle class life established itself with houses larger than cramped houses in working-class neighborhoods, but were less luxurious than the estates of higher-class citizens. Middle class women also were commonly able to hire servants and remain in the house, carrying out a domestic life and serving their family.

The Changing Family

Big changes in family structures and dynamics occurred as a result of the new industrializing society. Many families moved from farms to urban areas, with sons and daughters in urban households increasingly likely to leave the family in search of work. The family as a private world and the workspace as a more public domain became an increasingly separate distinction. The birthrate also significantly declined, with the average white woman giving birth to 5 instead of 7 children.

The “Cult of Domesticity”

The separation between the workplace and the home also sharpened divisions of the social roles of men and women. Most women remained under the virtual absolute authority of their husbands, many staying in the home and not receiving an education above the primary level. “Domestic virtues” were commonly praised, with middle-class women learning to keep a clean, comfortable, and well-appointed home, while men earned money and provided support, authority, and protection for the household.

• cult of domesticity: the early-nineteenth-century belief that women were the guardians of family and religious virtue within the home

Leisure Activities

Leisure was especially important to Americans at this time, as it was scarce for all apart from the wealthiest people. Sundays and holidays were especially important for leisure activities and time spent with family. Conversation, card games, reading newspapers and magazines, and going out to plays or shows were all common forms of social leisure activities and enjoyment for the average American.

The Agricultural North

Northeastern Agriculture

Northeast agriculture saw rapid declines after 1840, transforming the landscape in the region permanently. Farmers couldn’t compete with the new, rich, and profitable soil and crops grown in the Northwest. Some farmers responded by moving west and establishing new farms, while others moved to mill towns and became laborers. A few remained on their land and turned to “truck farming,” where they would grow crops and supply the food to growing cities nearby.

The Old Northwest

Now known as the Midwest, this region experienced stead industrial growth and expansion in the agricultural and meatpacking industries. Cincinnati became the center of meatpacking in the Ohio Valley, while Chicago was emerging as the nation’s hub for machinery and meatpacking. Some areas of the Midwest remained as Native American territory, while others were granted to white settlers for expansion of agricultural pursuits. Many products were shipped and sold to the Northeast, strengthening the connections of the North during the antebellum period. The introduction of the reaper and the thresher were also key parts of the developing grain industry in the region.

Rural Life

Farmers in more rural areas made use of community institutions, including churches, schools, stores, and taverns. However, as white settlement moved farther west, farmers became increasingly isolated and cut off from those communities. As a result, religion and family values were commonly strong among these families. Many of these people had little contact with others outside their farms and trades.

Conclusion

Comprehension Questions

1. What were the political responses to immigration in mid-nineteenth-century America? Do you see any parallels to responses to immigration today?

2. Why did the rail system supplant the canal system as the nation’s major transportation network?

3. How did the industrial workforce change between the 1820s and the 1840s? What were the effects on American society of changes in the workforce?

4. How did America’s Industrial Revolution and the factory system change family life and women’s social and economic roles?

5. How did agriculture in the North change as a result of growing industrialization and urbanization?