Transforming the Norths Economy 1790 1850 Web US

Transforming the North’s Economy 1790 -1850 Web

US Society 1790 -1815 �By 1789 most Americans were “sustenance” farmers �Provide for your family’s needs, then focus on producing extra �Farmers produced various crops and animals �Increase in foreign demand for American food �Wars in Europe �Solidified sex segregation in farm work �Men worked fields, women managed the home

American System �By product of Alexander Hamilton’s goals as Secretary of the Treasury �National Bank �Tariffs to protect American goods �Money for roads, canals, bridges, etc. �Henry Clay – KY Representative

Transportation Revolution �National Road completed in 1818 �Linked Potomac River with Ohio River at Wheeling, Virginia �Steamboat made commercial agriculture possible in the West �Robert Fulton �By 1820, 69 steamboats operating on western rivers

�Erie Canal, 1825 �Stretched 364 miles from Buffalo to Albany �Funded by New York State �Encouraged other states to follow suit �Greatly reduces time and cost of transportation �Helps increase foreign trade �Unified Northeast factories with Midwestern farms �South largely excluded

America the Story of US �Episode 4 Division

Beginnings of the Industrial Revolution �Textiles were primary early industry �Eli Whitney invented the Cotton Gin which revolutionized cloth production �By 1830 s, ready-made clothes available to middle class �Whitney also pioneered the 1 st ideas of assembly line production using “interchangeable parts” Idea was if you took an individual product a part and made each part exactly the same then it would speed up production as one person could just do the same job over and over

Rhode Island System �Samuel Slater �`“Father of the American Industrial Revolution” �“Family” system �Families were assigned specific tasks in the textile making process Slatersville, Rhode Island Created “Sunday Schools” for workers’ children

Waltham System �Francis Cabot Lowell �Replaced Rhode Island system by bringing work from homes, to the factory �Heavy mechanization �Hired single women from farms as workers �Lowell Mill Girls �Provided sober, well-maintained boardinghouses built beside the factory �Strict discipline code

Metropolitan Industrialization �US five largest cities in 1790 were all seaports for easy access to shipping �Textile mills drew people, which led to more businesses and factories �Labor in most industries divided between skilled (men) and unskilled (women) �Early “assembly lines” led to replacement of skilled workers with “slop” workers �Interchangeable Parts �Merchants made large fortunes, while huge masses lived in poverty

Agricultural Northwest �Standards of living varied �Poor families lived simple lives �Little furniture, couldn’t afford paint, common bowl at meal times and communal bed times �Animals foraged near houses

�As the IR took hold in the Northeast US farms changed from subsistence to single cash crops �Raised more livestock �City stores carried local produce and manufactured products �Iron plows and grain cradles increased farm yields

�Some farm families took in outwork to supplement their incomes �Interdependence between farm families very common �Barter (trade) rather than cash transactions �Land left to all sons with cooperation among them expected

Industrial North �Middle and Upper Class �Declining size of families �Sharper distinction between “male work” and “female work” �Increasing attention of women to childbearing �Cult of Domesticity and Republican Motherhood �Growing attention to appearance of houses and yards �“Victorian Ideals” �Declining reliance on neighborliness

�Working Class �“Tenement Life” Overcrowded, dangerous, disease ridden, dirty, etc. �Largely immigrant �Huge increase in immigration after 1845 �Mostly Germans & Irish Catholics �Conflict arises between Protestants and Catholics over temperance, parochial schools �Whigs = Protestants �Democrats = Catholics

© 2004 Wadsworth, a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Thomson Learning™ is a trademark used herein under license. Immigration to the United States

Nativism �Know Nothing Party �AKA American Party �Short lived party that focused on an antiimmigrant/nativist agenda �Nativist – Fear of widespread immigration They won’t “Americanize”

Discussion Questions �What was the role of the farmer in America in the late 1700 s? What was a farmer’s standard of living like?