Americas Coming of Age Era of Growth Invention

America’s Coming of Age: Era of Growth & Invention

Status Quo: Cottage industry & Almost everyone farms a little bit and Everything is handmade & unique

Factories develop in New England change life there.

X Industrial Revolution: Machines replace hand tools & Manufacturing replaces farming X

Factories: People and machines work under one roof at a “job” & have a boss

Water wheels: used to power machinery before electricity

Factories Need: • Flowing rivers • Access to ocean shipping • Workers who’d rather not farm … So develop in New England

Samuel Slater: • Inventor of US factory • Hired children st 1

Lowell: • Inventor of US factory town • Hired young girls off the farm • Gave them high wages (sent $ home) • Girls lived in dorms • Mandatory church, lectures, clubs, etc st 1

Interchangeable Parts: Unskilled workers can make parts & if something breaks, you can fix it easily Machines can be used to make parts Need “supervisors”

Inventions help people be more productive and communicate easier, & grows the South and West.

Steamboat travel: Make rivers more useful Clermont could go 300 miles in 62 hrs Increase in speed that news & goods spread

Canal Craze: Cut through land to connect rivers Makes steamboats more useful Erie Canal – 360 miles long in NY – connect NY to Chicago

Telegraph: First electronic message News can spread quicker

John Deere Plow: Lightweight; Midwest soil won’t clog Farm more acres

Cotton Gin: Clean 1 lb a day by hand vs 50 lbs per day with the gin Huge growth in cotton production Need for slave labor & movement West

Railroad: Can replace canals Eminent domain used to get land Little standardization; dangerous travel 30 year boom