INDUSTRY AND TRANSPORTATION National Road Connect Potomac River

INDUSTRY AND TRANSPORTATION

National Road • Connect Potomac River with the Ohio Rivers • Allowed Americans access to settling in the West • Turnpikes: paid roads that connected to National Road

Robert Fulton • Steamboats allowed goods and people to be carried upstream • Fulton was first to be credited with inventing first successful steamboat engine on the Hudson River

Erie Canal • Canal: man-made river • Governor Clinton of New York asked state legislature for $7 million for Erie Canal • Connect New York City to Lake Erie

Industrial Revolution • Began when entrepreneurs developed machines for jobs that were once done by hand • Machines powered by steam or moving water

Samuel Slater • Built first water powered textile mill • Owned thirteen total textile mills • Textile: process of making cotton into flexible fabric

Francis Cabot Lowell • Built first fully operational mill that made all parts of cloth in Boston • Machines increased pace of work • Division of labor in factories formed

Lowell Mill Girls • Women usually took jobs in the mills to make decent living • Would live in boarding houses • Terrible living conditions, long hours • Led to strikes (employees walking out) • With increased immigration, system of mill girls died out

Eli Whitney • Interchangeable Parts • Identical parts used to replace broken ones • Improved factory efficiency • Cotton boom increases slavery with invention of the Cotton Gin

Samuel Morse • Invented the electric telegraph • Developed Morse Code

Immigration • Tariff of 1816: promoted buying of American products: increased production • Factories built more in the North because of available capital and cheap labor • Immigrants from Ireland Germany come in the millions • Most immigrants are poor

Nativists • Protestants in America are upset that Catholics from Germany and Ireland are creating competition for jobs • Nativists want laws to discourage immigration into the United States

Labor Unions • With increased labor force, factory owners reduced wages • Little experience and training needed in factory jobs • Workers formed labor unions • Biggest weapon was going on strike