What factors led to the Panic of 1819? What government regulations might have prevented it?
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Chapter 9 | Industrial Transformation in the North, 1800–1850
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CHAPTER 9
Industrial Transformation in the
North, 1800–1850
Figure 9.1 Five Points (1827), by George Catlin, depicts the infamous Five Points
neighborhood of New York City,
so called because it was centered at the intersection of five streets. Five Points
was home to a polyglot mix of recent
immigrants, freed slaves, and other members of the working class.
Chapter Outline
9.1 Early Industrialization in the Northeast
9.2 A Vibrant Capitalist Republic
9.3 On the Move: The Transportation Revolution
9.4 A New Social Order: Class Divisions
Introduction
By the 1830s, the United States had developed a thriving industrial and commercial
sector in the Northeast.
Farmers embraced regional and distant markets as the primary destination for their
products. Artisans
witnessed the methodical division of the labor process in factories. Wage labor
became an increasingly
common experience. These industrial and market revolutions, combined with advances
in transportation,
transformed the economic and social landscape. Americans could now quickly produce
larger amounts of
goods for a nationwide, and sometimes an international, market and rely less on
foreign imports than in
colonial times.
As American economic life shifted rapidly and modes of production changed, new
class divisions emerged
and solidified, resulting in previously unknown economic and social inequalities.
This image of the Five
Points district in New York City captures the turbulence of the time (Figure 9.1).
Five Points began as a
settlement for freed slaves, but it soon became a crowded urban world of American
day laborers and low-
wage workers who lived a precarious existence that the economic benefits of the new
economy largely
bypassed. An influx of immigrant workers swelled and diversified an already crowded
urban population.
By the 1830s, the area had become a slum, home to widespread poverty, crime, and
disease. Advances in
industrialization and the market revolution came at a human price.
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Chapter 9 | Industrial Transformation in the North, 1800–1850
9.1 Early Industrialization in the Northeast
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Explain the role of the putting-out system in the rise of
industrialization
• Understand industrialization’s impact on the nature of production and work
• Describe the effect of industrialization on consumption
• Identify the goals of workers’ organizations like the Working Men’s Party
Northern industrialization expanded rapidly following the War of 1812.
Industrialized manufacturing
began in New England, where wealthy merchants built water-powered textile mills
(and mill towns
to support them) along the rivers of the Northeast. These mills introduced new
modes of production
centralized within the confines of the mill itself. As never before, production
relied on mechanized sources
with water power, and later steam, to provide the force necessary to drive
machines. In addition to
the mechanization and centralization of work in the mills, specialized, repetitive
tasks assigned to wage
laborers replaced earlier modes of handicraft production done by artisans at home.
The operations of
these mills irrevocably changed the nature of work by deskilling tasks, breaking
down the process of
production to its most basic, elemental parts. In return for their labor, the
workers, who at first were
young women from rural New England farming families, received wages. From its
origin in New England,
manufacturing soon spread to other regions of the United States.
FROM ARTISANS TO WAGE WORKERS
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, artisans—skilled, experienced
craft workers—produced
goods by hand. The production of shoes provides a good example. In colonial times,
people bought their
shoes from master shoemakers, who achieved their status by living and working as
apprentices under the
rule of an older master artisan. An apprenticeship would be followed by work as a
journeyman (a skilled
worker without his own shop). After sufficient time as a journeyman, a shoemaker
could at last set up his
own shop as a master artisan. People came to the shop, usually attached to the back
of the master artisan’s
house, and there the shoemaker measured their feet in order to cut and stitch
together an individualized
product for each customer.
Figure 9.2 (credit “1807 photo”: Project Gutenberg Archives)
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Chapter 9 | Industrial Transformation in the North, 1800–1850
245
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, merchants in the Northeast and
elsewhere turned
their attention as never before to the benefits of using unskilled wage labor to
make a greater profit by
reducing labor costs. They used the putting-out system, which the British had
employed at the beginning
of their own Industrial Revolution, whereby they hired farming families to perform
specific tasks in the
production process for a set wage. In the case of shoes, for instance, American
merchants hired one group
of workers to cut soles into standardized sizes. A different group of families cut
pieces of leather for the
uppers, while still another was employed to stitch the standardized parts together.
This process proved attractive because it whittled production costs. The families
who participated in
the putting-out system were not skilled artisans. They had not spent years learning
and perfecting their
craft and did not have ambitious journeymen to pay. Therefore, they could not
demand—and did not
receive—high wages. Most of the year they tended fields and orchards, ate the food
that they produced,
and sold the surplus. Putting-out work proved a welcome source of extra income for
New England farm
families who saw their profits dwindle from new competition from midwestern farms
with higher-yield
lands.
Much of this part-time production was done under contract to merchants. Some
farming families engaged
in shoemaking (or shoe assemblage), as noted above. Many made brooms, plaited hats
from straw or palm
leaves (which merchants imported from Cuba and the West Indies), crafted furniture,
made pottery, or
wove baskets. Some, especially those who lived in Connecticut, made parts for
clocks. The most common
part-time occupation, however, was the manufacture of textiles. Farm women spun
woolen thread and
wove fabric. They also wove blankets, made rugs, and knit stockings. All this
manufacturing took place
on the farm, giving farmers and their wives control over the timing and pace of
their labor. Their domestic
productivity increased the quantity of goods available for sale in country towns
and nearby cities.
THE RISE OF MANUFACTURING
In the late 1790s and early 1800s, Great Britain boasted the most advanced textile
mills and machines in
the world, and the United States continued to rely on Great Britain for finished
goods. Great Britain hoped
to maintain its economic advantage over its former colonies in North America. So,
in an effort to prevent
the knowledge of advanced manufacturing from leaving the Empire, the British banned
the emigration of
mechanics, skilled workers who knew how to build and repair the latest textile
machines.
Some skilled British mechanics, including Samuel Slater, managed to travel to the
United States in the
hopes of profiting from their knowledge and experience with advanced textile
manufacturing. Slater
(Figure 9.3) understood the workings of the latest water-powered textile mills,
which British industrialist
Richard Arkwright had pioneered. In the 1790s in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Slater
convinced several
American merchants, including the wealthy Providence industrialist Moses Brown, to
finance and build
a water-powered cotton mill based on the British models. Slater’s knowledge of both
technology and mill
organization made him the founder of the first truly successful cotton mill in the
United States.
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Chapter 9 | Industrial Transformation in the North, 1800–1850
Figure 9.3 Samuel Slater (a) was a British migrant who brought plans for English
textile mills to the United States
and built the nation’s first successful water-powered mill in Pawtucket,
Massachusetts (b).
The success of Slater and his partners Smith Brown and William Almy, relatives of
Moses Brown, inspired
others to build additional mills in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. By 1807,
thirteen more mills had been
established. President Jefferson’s embargo on British manufactured goods from late
1807 to early 1809
(discussed in a previous chapter) spurred more New England merchants to invest in
industrial enterprises.
By 1812, seventy-eight new textile mills had been built in rural New England towns.
More than half turned
out woolen goods, while the rest produced cotton cloth.
Slater’s mills and those built in imitation of his were fairly small, employing
only seventy people on
average. Workers were organized the way that they had been in English factories, in
family units. Under
the “Rhode Island system,” families were hired. The father was placed in charge of
the family unit, and
he directed the labor of his wife and children. Instead of being paid in cash, the
father was given “credit”
equal to the extent of his family’s labor that could be redeemed in the form of
rent (of company-owned
housing) or goods from the company-owned store.
The Embargo of 1807 and the War of 1812 played a pivotal role in spurring
industrial development in the
United States. Jefferson’s embargo prevented American merchants from engaging in
the Atlantic trade,
severely cutting into their profits. The War of 1812 further compounded the
financial woes of American
merchants. The acute economic problems led some New England merchants, including
Francis Cabot
Lowell, to cast their gaze on manufacturing. Lowell had toured English mills during
a stay in Great Britain.
He returned to Massachusetts having memorized the designs for the advanced textile
machines he had
seen in his travels, especially the power loom, which replaced individual hand
weavers. Lowell convinced
other wealthy merchant families to invest in the creation of new mill towns. In
1813, Lowell and these
wealthy investors, known as the Boston Associates, created the Boston Manufacturing
Company. Together
they raised $400,000 and, in 1814, established a textile mill in Waltham and a
second one in the same town
shortly thereafter (Figure 9.4).
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Chapter 9 | Industrial Transformation in the North, 1800–1850
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Figure 9.4 The Boston Manufacturing Company, shown in this engraving made in 1813–
1816, was headquartered
in Waltham, Massachusetts. The company started the northeastern textile industry by
building water-powered textile
mills along suitable rivers and developing mill towns around them.
At Waltham, cotton was carded and drawn into coarse strands of cotton fibers called
rovings. The rovings
were then spun into yarn, and the yarn woven into cotton cloth. Yarn no longer had
to be put out to farm
families for further processing. All the work was now performed at a central
location—the factory.
The work in Lowell’s mills was both mechanized and specialized. Specialization
meant the work was
broken down into specific tasks, and workers repeatedly did the one task assigned
to them in the course
of a day. As machines took over labor from humans and people increasingly found
themselves confined to
the same repetitive step, the process of deskilling began.
The Boston Associates’ mills, which each employed hundreds of workers, were located
in company towns,
where the factories and worker housing were owned by a single company. This gave
the owners and their
agents control over their workers. The most famous of these company towns was
Lowell, Massachusetts.
The new town was built on land the Boston Associates purchased in 1821 from the
village of East
Chelmsford at the falls of the Merrimack River, north of Boston. The mill buildings
themselves were
constructed of red brick with large windows to let in light. Company-owned boarding
houses to shelter
employees were constructed near the mills. The mill owners planted flowers and
trees to maintain the
appearance of a rural New England town and to forestall arguments, made by many,
that factory work
was unnatural and unwholesome.
In contrast to many smaller mills, the Boston Associates’ enterprises avoided the
Rhode Island system,
preferring individual workers to families. These employees were not difficult to
find. The competition
New England farmers faced from farmers now settling in the West, and the growing
scarcity of land in
population-dense New England, had important implications for farmers’ children.
Realizing their chances
of inheriting a large farm or receiving a substantial dowry were remote, these
teenagers sought other
employment opportunities, often at the urging of their parents. While young men
could work at a variety
of occupations, young women had more limited options. The textile mills provided
suitable employment
for the daughters of Yankee farm families.
Needing to reassure anxious parents that their daughters’ virtue would be protected
and hoping to avoid
what they viewed as the problems of industrialization—filth and vice—the Boston
Associates established
strict rules governing the lives of these young workers. The women lived in
company-owned boarding
houses to which they paid a portion of their wages. They woke early at the sound of
a bell and worked
a twelve-hour day during which talking was forbidden. They could not swear or drink
alcohol, and they
were required to attend church on Sunday. Overseers at the mills and boarding-house
keepers kept a close
eye on the young women’s behavior; workers who associated with people of
questionable reputation or
acted in ways that called their virtue into question lost their jobs and were
evicted.
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Chapter 9 | Industrial Transformation in the North, 1800–1850
DEFINING "AMERICAN"
Michel Chevalier on Mill Worker Rules and Wages
In the 1830s, the French government sent engineer and economist Michel
Chevalier to study industrial
and financial affairs in Mexico and the United States. In 1839, he
published Society, Manners, and Politics
in the United States, in which he recorded his impressions of the
Lowell textile mills. In the excerpt below,
Chevalier describes the rules and wages of the Lawrence Company in
1833.
All persons employed by the Company must devote themselves
assiduously to their duty
during working-hours. They must be capable of doing the work
which they undertake, or
use all their efforts to this effect. They must on all
occasions, both in their words and in
their actions, show that they are penetrated by a laudable love
of temperance and virtue,
and animated by a sense of their moral and social obligations.
The Agent of the Company
shall endeavour to set to all a good example in this respect.
Every individual who shall be
notoriously dissolute, idle, dishonest, or intemperate, who
shall be in the practice of absenting
himself from divine service, or shall violate the Sabbath, or
shall be addicted to gaming, shall
be dismissed from the service of the Company. . . . All ardent
spirits are banished from the
Company’s grounds, except when prescribed by a physician. All
games of hazard and cards
are prohibited within their limits and in the boarding-houses.
Weekly wages were as follows:
For picking and carding, $2.78 to $3.10
For spinning, $3.00
For weaving, $3.10 to $3.12
For warping and sizing, $3.45 to $4.00
For measuring and folding, $3.12
What kind of world were the factory owners trying to create with these
rules? How do you think those
who believed all white people were born free and equal would react to
them?
Click and Explore
Visit the Textile Industry History
(http://openstaxcollege.org/l/15textHistory) site to
explore the mills of New England through its
collection of history, images, and
ephemera.
The mechanization of formerly handcrafted goods, and the removal of production from
the home to the
factory, dramatically increased output of goods. For example, in one nine-month
period, the numerous
Rhode Island women who spun yarn into cloth on hand looms in their homes produced a
total of thirty-
four thousand yards of fabrics of different types. In 1855, the women working in
just one of Lowell’s
mechanized mills produced more than forty-three thousand yards.
The Boston Associates’ cotton mills quickly gained a competitive edge over the
smaller mills established by
Samuel Slater and those who had imitated him. Their success prompted the Boston
Associates to expand.
In Massachusetts, in addition to Lowell, they built new mill towns in Chicopee,
Lawrence, and Holyoke.
In New Hampshire, they built them in Manchester, Dover, and Nashua. And in Maine,
they built a large
mill in Saco on the Saco River. Other entrepreneurs copied them. By the time of the
Civil War, 878 textile
factories had been built in New England. All together, these factories employed
more than 100,000 people
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Chapter 9 | Industrial Transformation in the North, 1800–1850
249
and produced more than 940 million yards of cloth.
Success in New England was repeated elsewhere. Small mills, more like those in
Rhode Island than
those in northern Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine, were built in New York,
Delaware, and
Pennsylvania. By midcentury, three hundred textile mills were located in and near
Philadelphia. Many
produced specialty goods, such as silks and printed fabrics, and employed skilled
workers, including
people working in their own homes. Even in the South, the region that otherwise
relied on slave labor to
produce the very cotton that fed the northern factory movement, more than two
hundred textile mills were
built. Most textiles, however, continued to be produced in New England before the
Civil War.
Alongside the production of cotton and woolen cloth, which formed the backbone of
the Industrial
Revolution in the United States as in Britain, other crafts increasingly became
mechanized and centralized
in factories in the first half of the nineteenth century. Shoe making, leather
tanning, papermaking, hat
making, clock making, and gun making had all become mechanized to one degree or
another by the time
of the Civil War. Flour milling, because of the inventions of Oliver Evans (Figure
9.5), had become almost
completely automated and centralized by the early decades of the nineteenth
century. So efficient were
Evans-style mills that two employees were able to do work that had originally
required five, and mills
using Evans’s system spread throughout the mid-Atlantic states.
Figure 9.5 Oliver Evans was an American engineer and inventor, best known for
developing ways to automate the
flour milling process, which is illustrated here in a drawing from a 1785
instructional book called The Young Mill-
Wright & Miller’s Guide.
THE RISE OF CONSUMERISM
At the end of the eighteenth century, most American families lived in candlelit
homes with bare floors and
unadorned walls, cooked and warmed themselves over fireplaces, and owned few
changes of clothing. All
manufactured goods were made by hand and, as a result, were usually scarce and
fairly expensive.
The automation of the manufacturing process changed that, making consumer goods
that had once been
thought of as luxury items widely available for the first time. Now all but the
very poor could afford the
necessities and some of the small luxuries of life. Rooms were lit by oil lamps,
which gave brighter light
than candles. Homes were heated by parlor stoves, which allowed for more privacy;
people no longer
needed to huddle together around the hearth. Iron cookstoves with multiple burners
made it possible for
housewives to prepare more elaborate meals. Many people could afford carpets and
upholstered furniture,
and even farmers could decorate their homes with curtains and wallpaper. Clocks,
which had once been
quite expensive, were now within the reach of most ordinary people.
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Chapter 9 | Industrial Transformation in the North, 1800–1850
THE WORK EXPERIENCE TRANSFORMED
As production became mechanized and relocated to factories, the experience of
workers underwent
significant changes. Farmers and artisans had controlled the pace of their labor
and the order in which
things were done. If an artisan wanted to take the afternoon off, he could. If a
farmer wished to rebuild
his fence on Thursday instead of on Wednesday, he could. They conversed and often
drank during the
workday. Indeed, journeymen were often promised alcohol as part of their wages. One
member of the
group might be asked to read a book or a newspaper aloud to the others. In the warm
weather, doors and
windows might be opened to the outside, and work stopped when it was too dark to
see.
Work in factories proved to be quite different. Employees were expected to report
at a certain time, usually
early in the morning, and to work all day. They could not leave when they were
tired or take breaks other
than at designated times. Those who arrived late found their pay docked; five
minutes’ tardiness could
result in several hours’ worth of lost pay, and repeated tardiness could result in
dismissal. The monotony
of repetitive tasks made days particularly long. Hours varied according to the
factory, but most factory
employees toiled ten to twelve hours a day, six days a week. In the winter, when
the sun set early, oil lamps
were used to light the factory floor, and employees strained their eyes to see
their work and coughed as
the rooms filled with smoke from the lamps. In the spring, as the days began to
grow longer, factories held
“blowing-out” celebrations to mark the extinguishing of the oil lamps. These “blow-
outs” often featured
processions and dancing.
Freedom within factories was limited. Drinking was prohibited. Some factories did
not allow employees to
sit down. Doors and windows were kept closed, especially in textile factories where
fibers could be easily
disturbed by incoming breezes, and mills were often unbearably hot and humid in the
summer. In the
winter, workers often shivered in the cold. In such environments, workers’ health
suffered.
The workplace posed other dangers as well. The presence of cotton bales alongside
the oil used to lubricate
machines made fire a common problem in textile factories. Workplace injuries were
also common.
Workers’ hands and fingers were maimed or severed when they were caught in
machines; in some cases,
their limbs or entire bodies were crushed. Workers who didn’t die from such
injuries almost certainly lost
their jobs, and with them, their income. Corporal punishment of both children and
adults was common
in factories; where abuse was most extreme, children sometimes died as a result of
injuries suffered at the
hands of an overseer.
As the decades passed, working conditions deteriorated in many mills. Workers were
assigned more
machines to tend, and the owners increased the speed at which the machines
operated. Wages were cut in
many factories, and employees who had once labored for an hourly wage now found
themselves reduced
to piecework, paid for the amount they produced and not for the hours they toiled.
Owners also reduced
compensation for piecework. Low wages combined with regular periods of unemployment
to make the
lives of workers difficult, especially for those with families to support. In New
York City in 1850, for
example, the average male worker earned $300 a year; it cost approximately $600 a
year to support a family
of five.
WORKERS AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT
Many workers undoubtedly enjoyed some of the new wage opportunities factory work
presented. For
many of the young New England women who ran the machines in Waltham, Lowell, and
elsewhere, the
experience of being away from the family was exhilarating and provided a sense of
solidarity among them.
Though most sent a large portion of their wages home, having even a small amount of
money of their
own was a liberating experience, and many used their earnings to purchase clothes,
ribbons, and other
consumer goods for themselves.
The long hours, strict discipline, and low wages, however, soon led workers to
organize to protest their
working conditions and pay. In 1821, the young women employed by the Boston
Manufacturing Company
in Waltham went on strike for two days when their wages were cut. In 1824, workers
in Pawtucket struck
to protest reduced pay rates and longer hours, the latter of which had been
achieved by cutting back the
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Chapter 9 | Industrial Transformation in the North, 1800–1850
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amount of time allowed for meals. Similar strikes occurred at Lowell and in other
mill towns like Dover,
New Hampshire, where the women employed by the Cocheco Manufacturing Company ceased
working
in December 1828 after their wages were reduced. In the 1830s, female mill
operatives in Lowell formed
the Lowell Factory Girls Association to organize strike activities in the face of
wage cuts (Figure 9.6)
and, later, established the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association to protest the
twelve-hour workday.
Even though strikes were rarely successful and workers usually were forced to
accept reduced wages
and increased hours, work stoppages as a form of labor protest represented the
beginnings of the labor
movement in the United States.
Figure 9.6 New England mill workers were often young women, as seen in this early
tintype made ca. 1870 (a).
When management proposed rent increases for those living in company boarding
houses, female textile workers in
Lowell responded by forming the Lowell Factory Girls Association—its constitution
is shown in image (b)—in 1836
and organizing a “turn-out” or strike.
Critics of industrialization blamed it for the increased concentration of wealth in
the hands of the few: the
factory owners made vast profits while the workers received only a small fraction
of the revenue from
what they produced. Under the labor theory of value, said critics, the value of a
product should accurately
reflect the labor needed to produce it. Profits from the sale of goods produced by
workers should be
distributed so laborers recovered in the form of wages the value their effort had
added to the finished
product. While factory owners, who contributed the workspace, the machinery, and
the raw materials
needed to create a product, should receive a share of the profits, their share
should not be greater than
the value of their contribution. Workers should thus receive a much larger portion
of the profits than they
currently did, and factory owners should receive less.
In Philadelphia, New York, and Boston—all cities that experienced dizzying
industrial growth during
the nineteenth century—workers united to form political parties. Thomas Skidmore,
from Connecticut,
was the outspoken organizer of the Working Men’s Party, which lodged a radical
protest against the
exploitation of workers that accompanied industrialization. Skidmore took his cue
from Thomas Paine and
the American Revolution to challenge the growing inequity in the United States. He
argued that inequality
originated in the unequal distribution of property through inheritance laws. In his
1829 treatise, The Rights
of Man to Property, Skidmore called for the abolition of inheritance and the
redistribution of property. The
Working Men’s Party also advocated the end of imprisonment for debt, a common
practice whereby the
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Chapter 9 | Industrial Transformation in the North, 1800–1850
debtor who could not pay was put in jail and his tools and property, if any, were
confiscated. Skidmore’s
vision of radical equality extended to all; women and men, no matter their race,
should be allowed to vote
and receive property, he believed. Skidmore died in 1832 when a cholera epidemic
swept New York City,
but the state of New York did away with imprisonment for debt in the same year.
Worker activism became less common in the late 1840s and 1850s. As German and Irish
immigrants
poured into the United States in the decades preceding the Civil War, native-born
laborers found
themselves competing for jobs with new arrivals who were willing to work longer
hours for less pay.
In Lowell, Massachusetts, for example, the daughters of New England farmers
encountered competition
from the daughters of Irish farmers suffering the effects of the potato famine;
these immigrant women
were willing to work for far less and endure worse conditions than native-born
women. Many of these
native-born “daughters of freemen,” as they referred to themselves, left the
factories and returned to their
families. Not all wage workers had this luxury, however. Widows with children to
support and girls from
destitute families had no choice but to stay and accept the faster pace and lower
pay. Male German and
Irish immigrants competed with native-born men. Germans, many of whom were skilled
workers, took
jobs in furniture making. The Irish provided a ready source of unskilled labor
needed to lay railroad track
and dig canals. American men with families to support grudgingly accepted low wages
in order to keep
their jobs. As work became increasingly deskilled, no worker was irreplaceable, and
no one’s job was safe.
9.2 A Vibrant Capitalist Republic
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Explain the process of selling western land
• Discuss the causes of the Panic of 1819
• Identify key American innovators and inventors
By the 1840s, the United States economy bore little resemblance to the import-and-
export economy of
colonial days. It was now a market economy, one in which the production of goods,
and their prices, were
unregulated by the government. Commercial centers, to which job seekers flocked,
mushroomed. New
York City’s population skyrocketed. In 1790, it was 33,000; by 1820, it had reached
200,000; and by 1825, it
had swelled to 270,000. New opportunities for wealth appeared to be available to
anyone.
However, the expansion of the American economy made it prone to the boom-and-bust
cycle. Market
economies involve fluctuating prices for labor, raw materials, and consumer goods
and depend on credit
and financial instruments—any one of which can be the source of an imbalance and an
economic
downturn in which businesses and farmers default, wage workers lose their
employment, and investors
lose their assets. This happened for the first time in the United States in 1819,
when waves of enthusiastic
speculation (expectations of rapidly rising prices) in land and commodities gave
way to drops in prices.
THE LAND OFFICE BUSINESS
In the early nineteenth century, people poured into the territories west of the
long-settled eastern seaboard.
Among them were speculators seeking to buy cheap parcels from the federal
government in anticipation
of a rise in prices. The Ohio Country in the Northwest Territory appeared to offer
the best prospects for
many in the East, especially New Englanders. The result was “Ohio fever,” as
thousands traveled there to
reap the benefits of settling in this newly available territory (Figure 9.7).
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Figure 9.7 Cartographer John Cary drew this map “exhibiting The Western Territory,
Kentucky, Pennsylvania,
Maryland, Virginia &c” for his 1808 atlas; it depicted the huge western territory
that fascinated settlers in the early
nineteenth century.
The federal government oversaw the orderly transfer of public land to citizens at
public auctions. The
Land Law of 1796 applied to the territory of Ohio after it had been wrested from
Indians. Under this
law, the United States would sell a minimum parcel of 640 acres for $2 an acre. The
Land Law of
1800 further encouraged land sales in the Northwest Territory by reducing the
minimum parcel size
by half and enabling sales on credit, with the goal of stimulating settlement by
ordinary farmers. The
government created land offices to handle these sales and established them in the
West within easy reach
of prospective landowners. They could thus purchase land directly from the
government, at the price the
government had set. Buyers were given low interest rates, with payments that could
be spread over four
years. Surveyors marked off the parcels in straight lines, creating a landscape of
checkerboard squares.
The future looked bright for those who turned their gaze on the land in the West.
Surveying, settling,
and farming, turning the wilderness into a profitable commodity, gave purchasers a
sense of progress. A
uniquely American story of settling the land developed: hardy individuals wielding
an axe cleared it, built
a log cabin, and turned the frontier into a farm that paved the way for mills and
towns (Figure 9.8).
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Chapter 9 | Industrial Transformation in the North, 1800–1850
Figure 9.8 Thomas Cole, who painted Home in the Woods in 1847, was an American
artist. Cole founded the
Hudson River School, a style renowned for portrayals of landscapes and wilderness
influenced by the emotional
aesthetic known as romanticism. In what ways is this image realistic, and how is it
idealized or romanticized?
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MY STORY
A New Englander Heads West
A native of Vermont, Gershom Flagg was one of thousands of New
Englanders who caught “Ohio fever.”
In this letter to his brother, Azariah Flagg, dated August 3, 1817, he
describes the hustle and bustle of
the emerging commercial town of Cincinnati.
DEAR BROTHER,
Cincinnati is an incorporated City. It contained in 1815, 1,100
buildings of different
descriptions among which are above 20 of Stone 250 of brick &
800 of Wood. The population
in 1815 was 6,500. There are about 60 Mercantile stores several
of which are wholesale.
Here are a great share of Mechanics of all kinds.
Here is one Woolen Factory four Cotton factories but not now in
operation. A most
stupendously large building of Stone is likewise erected
immediately on the bank of the River
for a steam Mill. It is nine stories high at the Waters edge &
is 87 by 62 feet. It drives four pair
of Stones besides various other Machinery as Wool carding &c &c.
There is also a valuable
Steam Saw Mill driving four saws also an inclined Wheel ox Saw
Mill with two saws, one
Glass Factory. The town is Rapidly increasing in Wealth &
population. Here is a Branch of the
United States Bank and three other banks & two Printing offices.
The country around is rich. .
..
That you may all be prospered in the world is the anxious wish
of your affectionate Brother
GERSHOM FLAGG
What caught Flagg’s attention? From your reading of this letter and
study of the engraving below (Figure
9.9), what impression can you take away of Cincinnati in 1817?
Figure 9.9 This engraving from A Topographical Description of the State
of Ohio, Indiana Territory, and
Louisiana (1812), by Jervis Cutler, presents a view of Cincinnati as it
may have looked to Gershom
Flagg.
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Chapter 9 | Industrial Transformation in the North, 1800–1850
Click and Explore
Learn more about settlement of and immigration to
the Northwest Territory by exploring
the National Park Service’s Historic Resource
Study (http://openstaxcollege.org/l/
15LincMemorial) related to the Lincoln Boyhood
National Memorial. According to the
guide’s maps, what lands were available for
purchase?
THE PANIC OF 1819
The first major economic crisis in the United States after the War of 1812 was due,
in large measure, to
factors in the larger Atlantic economy. It was made worse, however, by land
speculation and poor banking
practices at home. British textile mills voraciously consumed American cotton, and
the devastation of the
Napoleonic Wars made Europe reliant on other American agricultural commodities such
as wheat. This
drove up both the price of American agricultural products and the value of the land
on which staples such
as cotton, wheat, corn, and tobacco were grown.
Many Americans were struck with “land fever.” Farmers strove to expand their
acreage, and those who
lived in areas where unoccupied land was scarce sought holdings in the West. They
needed money to
purchase this land, however. Small merchants and factory owners, hoping to take
advantage of this boom
time, also sought to borrow money to expand their businesses. When existing banks
refused to lend money
to small farmers and others without a credit history, state legislatures chartered
new banks to meet the
demand. In one legislative session, Kentucky chartered forty-six. As loans
increased, paper money from
new state banks flooded the country, creating inflation that drove the price of
land and goods still higher.
This, in turn, encouraged even more people to borrow money with which to purchase
land or to expand
or start their own businesses. Speculators took advantage of this boom in the sale
of land by purchasing
property not to live on, but to buy cheaply and resell at exorbitant prices.
During the War of 1812, the Bank of the United States had suspended payments in
specie, “hard money”
usually in the form of gold and silver coins. When the war ended, the bank
continued to issue only paper
banknotes and to redeem notes issued by state banks with paper only. The newly
chartered banks also
adopted this practice, issuing banknotes in excess of the amount of specie in their
vaults. This shaky
economic scheme worked only so long as people were content to conduct business with
paper money
and refrain from demanding that banks instead give them the gold and silver that
was supposed to back
it. If large numbers of people, or banks that had loaned money to other banks,
began to demand specie
payments, the banking system would collapse, because there was no longer enough
specie to support the
amount of paper money the banks had put into circulation. So terrified were bankers
that customers would
demand gold and silver that an irate bank employee in Ohio stabbed a customer who
had the audacity to
ask for specie in exchange for the banknotes he held.
In an effort to bring stability to the nation’s banking system, Congress chartered
the Second Bank of the
United States (a revival of Alexander Hamilton’s national bank) in 1816. But this
new institution only
compounded the problem by making risky loans, opening branches in the South and
West where land
fever was highest, and issuing a steady stream of Bank of the United States notes,
a move that increased
inflation and speculation.
The inflated economic bubble burst in 1819, resulting in a prolonged economic
depression or severe
downturn in the economy called the Panic of 1819. It was the first economic
depression experienced by
the American public, who panicked as they saw the prices of agricultural products
fall and businesses
fail. Prices had already begun falling in 1815, at the end of the Napoleonic Wars,
when Britain began to
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257
“dump” its surplus manufactured goods, the result of wartime overproduction, in
American ports, where
they were sold for low prices and competed with American-manufactured goods. In
1818, to make the
economic situation worse, prices for American agricultural products began to fall
both in the United States
and in Europe; the overproduction of staples such as wheat and cotton coincided
with the recovery of
European agriculture, which reduced demand for American crops. Crop prices tumbled
by as much 75
percent.
This dramatic decrease in the value of agricultural goods left farmers unable to
pay their debts. As they
defaulted on their loans, banks seized their property. However, because the drastic
fall in agricultural
prices had greatly reduced the value of land, the banks were left with farms they
were unable to sell. Land
speculators lost the value of their investments. As the countryside suffered, hard-
hit farmers ceased to
purchase manufactured goods. Factories responded by cutting wages or firing
employees.
In 1818, the Second Bank of the United States needed specie to pay foreign
investors who had loaned
money to the United States to enable the country to purchase Louisiana. The bank
began to call in the loans
it had made and required that state banks pay their debts in gold and silver. State
banks that could not
collect loan payments from hard-pressed farmers could not, in turn, meet their
obligations to the Second
Bank of the United States. Severe consequences followed as banks closed their doors
and businesses
failed. Three-quarters of the work force in Philadelphia was unemployed, and
charities were swamped by
thousands of newly destitute people needing assistance. In states with imprisonment
for debt, the prison
population swelled. As a result, many states drafted laws to provide relief for
debtors. Even those at the
top of the social ladder were affected by the Panic of 1819. Thomas Jefferson, who
had cosigned a loan for a
friend, nearly lost Monticello when his acquaintance defaulted, leaving Jefferson
responsible for the debt.
In an effort to stimulate the economy in the midst of the economic depression,
Congress passed several acts
modifying land sales. The Land Law of 1820 lowered the price of land to $1.25 per
acre and allowed small
parcels of eighty acres to be sold. The Relief Act of 1821 allowed Ohioans to
return land to the government
if they could not afford to keep it. The money they received in return was credited
toward their debt. The
act also extended the credit period to eight years. States, too, attempted to aid
those faced with economic
hard times by passing laws to prevent mortgage foreclosures so buyers could keep
their homes. Americans
made the best of the opportunities presented in business, in farming, or on the
frontier, and by 1823 the
Panic of 1819 had ended. The recovery provided ample evidence of the vibrant and
resilient nature of the
American people.
ENTREPRENEURS AND INVENTORS
The volatility of the U.S. economy did nothing to dampen the creative energies of
its citizens in the years
before the Civil War. In the 1800s, a frenzy of entrepreneurship and invention
yielded many new products
and machines. The republic seemed to be a laboratory of innovation, and
technological advances appeared
unlimited.
One of the most influential advancements of the early nineteenth century was the
cotton engine or gin,
invented by Eli Whitney and patented in 1794. Whitney, who was born in
Massachusetts, had spent time
in the South and knew that a device to speed up the production of cotton was
desperately needed so cotton
farmers could meet the growing demand for their crop. He hoped the cotton gin would
render slavery
obsolete. Whitney’s seemingly simple invention cleaned the seeds from the raw
cotton far more quickly
and efficiently than could slaves working by hand (Figure 9.10). The raw cotton
with seeds was placed in
the cotton gin, and with the use of a hand crank, the seeds were extracted through
a carding device that
aligned the cotton fibers in strands for spinning.
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Chapter 9 | Industrial Transformation in the North, 1800–1850
Figure 9.10 The First Cotton-Gin, an 1869 drawing by William L. Sheppard, shows the
first use of a cotton gin “at
the close of the last century.” African American slaves handle the gin while white
men conduct business in the
background. What do you think the artist was trying to convey with this image?
(credit: Library of Congress)
Whitney also worked on machine tools, devices that cut and shaped metal to make
standardized,
interchangeable parts for other mechanical devices like clocks and guns. Whitney’s
machine tools to
manufacture parts for muskets enabled guns to be manufactured and repaired by
people other than skilled
gunsmiths. His creative genius served as a source of inspiration for many other
American inventors.
Another influential new technology of the early 1800s was the steamship engine,
invented by Robert
Fulton in 1807. Fulton’s first steamship, the Clermont, used paddle wheels to
travel the 150 miles from New
York City to Albany in a record time of only thirty-two hours (Figure 9.11). Soon,
a fleet of steamboats was
traversing the Hudson River and New York Harbor, later expanding to travel every
major American river
including the mighty Mississippi. By the 1830s there were over one thousand of
these vessels, radically
changing water transportation by ending its dependence on the wind. Steamboats
could travel faster and
more cheaply than sailing vessels or keelboats, which floated downriver and had to
be poled or towed
upriver on the return voyage. Steamboats also arrived with much greater
dependability. The steamboat
facilitated the rapid economic development of the massive Mississippi River Valley
and the settlement of
the West.
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Chapter 9 | Industrial Transformation in the North, 1800–1850
259
Figure 9.11 Fulton’s steamboat the Clermont transformed the speed, cost, and
dependability of water transportation
in the United States. (credit: Project Gutenberg Archives)
Virginia-born Cyrus McCormick wanted to replace the laborious process of using a
scythe to cut and
gather wheat for harvest. In 1831, he and the slaves on his family’s plantation
tested a horse-drawn
mechanical reaper, and over the next several decades, he made constant improvements
to it (Figure 9.12).
More farmers began using it in the 1840s, and greater demand for the McCormick
reaper led McCormick
and his brother to establish the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company in Chicago,
where labor was
more readily available. By the 1850s, McCormick’s mechanical reaper had enabled
farmers to vastly
increase their output. McCormick—and also John Deere, who improved on the design of
plows—opened
the prairies to agriculture. McCormick’s bigger machine could harvest grain faster,
and Deere’s plow could
cut through the thick prairie sod. Agriculture north of the Ohio River became the
pantry that would lower
food prices and feed the major cities in the East. In short order, Ohio, Indiana,
and Illinois all become major
agricultural states.
Figure 9.12 This sketch is from the 1845 patent for an improved grain reaper
invented by Cyrus Hall McCormick.
The reaper mechanized the labor-intensive use of scythes to harvest wheat.
Samuel Morse added the telegraph to the list of American innovations introduced in
the years before
the Civil War. Born in Massachusetts in 1791, Morse first gained renown as a
painter before turning his
attention to the development of a method of rapid communication in the 1830s. In
1838, he gave the first
public demonstration of his method of conveying electric pulses over a wire, using
the basis of what
became known as Morse code. In 1843, Congress agreed to help fund the new
technology by allocating
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Chapter 9 | Industrial Transformation in the North, 1800–1850
$30,000 for a telegraph line to connect Washington, DC, and Baltimore along the
route of the Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad. In 1844, Morse sent the first telegraph message on the new link.
Improved communication
systems fostered the development of business, economics, and politics by allowing
for dissemination of
news at a speed previously unknown.
9.3 On the Move: The Transportation Revolution
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Describe the development of improved methods of nineteenth-century
domestic
transportation
• Identify the ways in which roads, canals, and railroads impacted
Americans’ lives in
the nineteenth century
Americans in the early 1800s were a people on the move, as thousands left the
eastern coastal states
for opportunities in the West. Unlike their predecessors, who traveled by foot or
wagon train, these
settlers had new transport options. Their trek was made possible by the
construction of roads, canals, and
railroads, projects that required the funding of the federal government and the
states.
New technologies, like the steamship and railroad lines, had brought about what
historians call the
transportation revolution. States competed for the honor of having the most
advanced transport systems.
People celebrated the transformation of the wilderness into an orderly world of
improvement
demonstrating the steady march of progress and the greatness of the republic. In
1817, John C. Calhoun of
South Carolina looked to a future of rapid internal improvements, declaring, “Let
us . . . bind the Republic
together with a perfect system of roads and canals.” Americans agreed that internal
transportation routes
would promote progress. By the eve of the Civil War, the United States had moved
beyond roads and
canals to a well-established and extensive system of railroads.
ROADS AND CANALS
One key part of the transportation revolution was the widespread building of roads
and turnpikes. In
1811, construction began on the Cumberland Road, a national highway that provided
thousands with
a route from Maryland to Illinois. The federal government funded this important
artery to the West,
beginning the creation of a transportation infrastructure for the benefit of
settlers and farmers. Other
entities built turnpikes, which (as today) charged fees for use. New York State,
for instance, chartered
turnpike companies that dramatically increased the miles of state roads from one
thousand in 1810 to four
thousand by 1820. New York led the way in building turnpikes.
Canal mania swept the United States in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Promoters knew these
artificial rivers could save travelers immense amounts of time and money. Even
short waterways, such
as the two-and-a-half-mile canal going around the rapids of the Ohio River near
Louisville, Kentucky,
proved a huge leap forward, in this case by opening a water route from Pittsburgh
to New Orleans. The
preeminent example was the Erie Canal (Figure 9.13), which linked the Hudson River,
and thus New
York City and the Atlantic seaboard, to the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River
Valley.
With its central location, large harbor, and access to the hinterland via the
Hudson River, New York
City already commanded the lion’s share of commerce. Still, the city’s merchants
worried about losing
ground to their competitors in Philadelphia and Baltimore. Their search for
commercial advantage led to
the dream of creating a water highway connecting the city’s Hudson River to Lake
Erie and markets in
the West. The result was the Erie Canal. Chartered in 1817 by the state of New
York, the canal took seven
years to complete. When it opened in 1825, it dramatically decreased the cost of
shipping while reducing
the time to travel to the West. Soon $15 million worth of goods (more than $200
million in today’s money)
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Chapter 9 | Industrial Transformation in the North, 1800–1850
261
was being transported on the 363-mile waterway every year.
Figure 9.13 Although the Erie Canal was primarily used for commerce and trade, in
Pittsford on the Erie Canal
(1837), George Harvey portrays it in a pastoral, natural setting. Why do you think
the painter chose to portray the
canal this way?
Click and Explore
Explore the Erie Canal on ErieCanal.org
(http://openstaxcollege.org/l/15ErieCanal)
via an interactive map. Click throughout the map
for images of and artifacts from this
historic waterway.
The success of the Erie Canal led to other, similar projects. The Wabash and Erie
Canal, which opened
in the early 1840s, stretched over 450 miles, making it the longest canal in North
America (Figure 9.14).
Canals added immensely to the country’s sense of progress. Indeed, they appeared to
be the logical next
step in the process of transforming wilderness into civilization.
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Chapter 9 | Industrial Transformation in the North, 1800–1850
Figure 9.14 This map (a) shows the route taken by the Wabash and Erie Canal through
the state of Indiana. The
canal began operation in 1843 and boats operated on it until the 1870s. Sections
have since been restored, as shown
in this 2007 photo (b) from Delphi, Indiana.
Click and Explore
Visit Southern Indiana Trails
(http://openstaxcollege.org/l/15WabashEire) to see
historic photographs of the Wabash and Erie
Canal:
As with highway projects such as the Cumberland Road, many canals were federally
sponsored, especially
during the presidency of John Quincy Adams in the late 1820s. Adams, along with
Secretary of State
Henry Clay, championed what was known as the American System, part of which
included plans for a
broad range of internal transportation improvements. Adams endorsed the creation of
roads and canals to
facilitate commerce and develop markets for agriculture as well as to advance
settlement in the West.
RAILROADS
Starting in the late 1820s, steam locomotives began to compete with horse-drawn
locomotives. The
railroads with steam locomotives offered a new mode of transportation that
fascinated citizens, buoying
their optimistic view of the possibilities of technological progress. The Mohawk
and Hudson Railroad
was the first to begin service with a steam locomotive. Its inaugural train ran in
1831 on a track outside
Albany and covered twelve miles in twenty-five minutes. Soon it was traveling
regularly between Albany
and Schenectady.
Toward the middle of the century, railroad construction kicked into high gear, and
eager investors
quickly formed a number of railroad companies. As a railroad grid began to take
shape, it stimulated a
greater demand for coal, iron, and steel. Soon, both railroads and canals
crisscrossed the states (Figure
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Chapter 9 | Industrial Transformation in the North, 1800–1850
263
9.15), providing a transportation infrastructure that fueled the growth of American
commerce. Indeed,
the transportation revolution led to development in the coal, iron, and steel
industries, providing many
Americans with new job opportunities.
Figure 9.15 This 1853 map of the “Empire State” shows the extent of New York’s
canal and railroad networks. The
entire country’s transportation infrastructure grew dramatically during the first
half of the nineteenth century.
AMERICANS ON THE MOVE
The expansion of roads, canals, and railroads changed people’s lives. In 1786, it
had taken a minimum of
four days to travel from Boston, Massachusetts, to Providence, Rhode Island. By
1840, the trip took half
a day on a train. In the twenty-first century, this may seem intolerably slow, but
people at the time were
amazed by the railroad’s speed. Its average of twenty miles per hour was twice as
fast as other available
modes of transportation.
By 1840, more than three thousand miles of canals had been dug in the United
States, and thirty thousand
miles of railroad track had been laid by the beginning of the Civil War. Together
with the hundreds of
steamboats that plied American rivers, these advances in transportation made it
easier and less expensive
to ship agricultural products from the West to feed people in eastern cities, and
to send manufactured
goods from the East to people in the West. Without this ability to transport goods,
the market revolution
would not have been possible. Rural families also became less isolated as a result
of the transportation
revolution. Traveling circuses, menageries, peddlers, and itinerant painters could
now more easily make
their way into rural districts, and people in search of work found cities and mill
towns within their reach.
9.4 A New Social Order: Class Divisions
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Identify the shared perceptions and ideals of each social class
• Assess different social classes’ views of slavery
The profound economic changes sweeping the United States led to equally important
social and cultural
transformations. The formation of distinct classes, especially in the rapidly
industrializing North, was
one of the most striking developments. The unequal distribution of newly created
wealth spurred new
divisions along class lines. Each class had its own specific culture and views on
the issue of slavery.
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Chapter 9 | Industrial Transformation in the North, 1800–1850
THE ECONOMIC ELITE
Economic elites gained further social and political ascendance in the United States
due to a fast-growing
economy that enhanced their wealth and allowed distinctive social and cultural
characteristics to develop
among different economic groups. In the major northern cities of Boston, New York,
and Philadelphia,
leading merchants formed an industrial capitalist elite. Many came from families
that had been deeply
engaged in colonial trade in tea, sugar, pepper, slaves, and other commodities and
that were familiar with
trade networks connecting the United States with Europe, the West Indies, and the
Far East. These colonial
merchants had passed their wealth to their children.
After the War of 1812, the new generation of merchants expanded their economic
activities. They began
to specialize in specific types of industry, spearheading the development of
industrial capitalism based on
factories they owned and on specific commercial services such as banking,
insurance, and shipping. Junius
Spencer Morgan (Figure 9.16), for example, rose to prominence as a banker. His
success began in Boston,
where he worked in the import business in the 1830s. He then formed a partnership
with a London banker,
George Peabody, and created Peabody, Morgan & Co. In 1864, he renamed the
enterprise J. S. Morgan &
Co. His son, J. P. Morgan, became a noted financier in the later nineteenth and
early twentieth century.
Figure 9.16 Junius Spencer Morgan of Boston was one of the fathers of the American
private banking system.
(credit: Project Gutenberg Archives)
Click and Explore
Visit the Internet Archive
(http://openstaxcollege.org/l/15Hunts) to see scanned
pages from Hunt’s Merchant’s Magazine and Commercial
Review. This monthly
business review provided the business elite with
important information about issues
pertaining to trade and finance: commodity prices, new
laws affecting business,
statistics regarding imports and exports, and similar
content. Choose three articles and
decide how they might have been important to the northern business elite.
Members of the northern business elite forged close ties with each other to protect
and expand their
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Chapter 9 | Industrial Transformation in the North, 1800–1850
265
economic interests. Marriages between leading families formed a crucial strategy to
advance economic
advantage, and the homes of the northern elite became important venues for
solidifying social bonds.
Exclusive neighborhoods started to develop as the wealthy distanced themselves from
the poorer urban
residents, and cities soon became segregated by class.
Industrial elites created chambers of commerce to advance their interests; by 1858
there were ten in the
United States. These networking organizations allowed top bankers and merchants to
stay current on
the economic activities of their peers and further strengthen the bonds among
themselves. The elite also
established social clubs to forge and maintain ties. The first of these, the
Philadelphia Club, came into being
in 1834. Similar clubs soon formed in other cities and hosted a range of social
activities designed to further
bind together the leading economic families. Many northern elites worked hard to
ensure the transmission
of their inherited wealth from one generation to the next. Politically, they
exercised considerable power in
local and state elections. Most also had ties to the cotton trade, so they were
strong supporters of slavery.
The Industrial Revolution led some former artisans to reinvent themselves as
manufacturers. These
enterprising leaders of manufacturing differed from the established commercial
elite in the North and
South because they did not inherit wealth. Instead, many came from very humble
working-class origins
and embodied the dream of achieving upward social mobility through hard work and
discipline. As
the beneficiaries of the economic transformations sweeping the republic, these
newly established
manufacturers formed a new economic elite that thrived in the cities and cultivated
its own distinct
sensibilities. They created a culture that celebrated hard work, a position that
put them at odds with
southern planter elites who prized leisure and with other elite northerners who had
largely inherited their
wealth and status.
Peter Cooper provides one example of the new northern manufacturing class. Ever
inventive, Cooper
dabbled in many different moneymaking enterprises before gaining success in the
glue business. He
opened his Manhattan glue factory in the 1820s and was soon using his profits to
expand into a host of
other activities, including iron production. One of his innovations was the steam
locomotive, which he
invented in 1827 (Figure 9.17). Despite becoming one of the wealthiest men in New
York City, Cooper
lived simply. Rather than buying an ornate bed, for example, he built his own. He
believed respectability
came through hard work, not family pedigree.
Figure 9.17 Peter Cooper, who would go on to found the Cooper Union for the
Advancement of Science and Art in
New York City, designed and built the Tom Thumb, the first American-built steam
locomotive, a replica of which is
shown here.
Those who had inherited their wealth derided self-made men like Cooper, and he and
others like him
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Chapter 9 | Industrial Transformation in the North, 1800–1850
were excluded from the social clubs established by the merchant and financial elite
of New York City. Self-
made northern manufacturers, however, created their own organizations that aimed to
promote upward
mobility. The Providence Association of Mechanics and Manufacturers was formed in
1789 and promoted
both industrial arts and education as a pathway to economic success. In 1859, Peter
Cooper established the
Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, a school in New York City
dedicated to providing
education in technology. Merit, not wealth, mattered most according to Cooper, and
admission to the
school was based solely on ability; race, sex, and family connections had no place.
The best and brightest
could attend Cooper Union tuition-free, a policy that remained in place until 2014.
THE MIDDLE CLASS
Not all enterprising artisans were so successful that they could rise to the level
of the elite. However,
many artisans and small merchants, who owned small factories and stores, did manage
to achieve and
maintain respectability in an emerging middle class. Lacking the protection of
great wealth, members of
the middle class agonized over the fear that they might slip into the ranks of wage
laborers; thus they
strove to maintain or improve their middle-class status and that of their children.
To this end, the middle class valued cleanliness, discipline, morality, hard work,
education, and good
manners. Hard work and education enabled them to rise in life. Middle-class
children, therefore, did
not work in factories. Instead they attended school and in their free time engaged
in “self-improving”
activities, such as reading or playing the piano, or they played with toys and
games that would teach them
the skills and values they needed to succeed in life. In the early nineteenth
century, members of the middle
class began to limit the number of children they had. Children no longer
contributed economically to the
household, and raising them “correctly” required money and attention. It therefore
made sense to have
fewer of them.
Middle-class women did not work for wages. Their job was to care for the children
and to keep the house
in a state of order and cleanliness, often with the help of a servant. They also
performed the important
tasks of cultivating good manners among their children and their husbands and of
purchasing consumer
goods; both activities proclaimed to neighbors and prospective business partners
that their families were
educated, cultured, and financially successful.
Northern business elites, many of whom owned or had invested in businesses like
cotton mills that
profited from slave labor, often viewed the institution of slavery with
ambivalence. Most members of the
middle class took a dim view of it, however, since it promoted a culture of
leisure. Slavery stood as the
antithesis of the middle-class view that dignity and respectability were achieved
through work, and many
members of this class became active in efforts to end it.
This class of upwardly mobile citizens promoted temperance, or abstinence from
alcohol. They also
gave their support to Protestant ministers like George Grandison Finney, who
preached that all people
possessed free moral agency, meaning they could change their lives and bring about
their own salvation, a
message that resonated with members of the middle class, who already believed their
worldly efforts had
led to their economic success.
THE WORKING CLASS
The Industrial Revolution in the United States created a new class of wage workers,
and this working class
also developed its own culture. They formed their own neighborhoods, living away
from the oversight
of bosses and managers. While industrialization and the market revolution brought
some improvements
to the lives of the working class, these sweeping changes did not benefit laborers
as much as they did
the middle class and the elites. The working class continued to live an often
precarious existence. They
suffered greatly during economic slumps, such as the Panic of 1819.
Although most working-class men sought to emulate the middle class by keeping their
wives and children
out of the work force, their economic situation often necessitated that others
besides the male head of the
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267
family contribute to its support. Thus, working-class children might attend school
for a few years or learn
to read and write at Sunday school, but education was sacrificed when income was
needed, and many
working-class children went to work in factories. While the wives of wage laborers
usually did not work
for wages outside the home, many took in laundry or did piecework at home to
supplement the family’s
income.
Although the urban working class could not afford the consumer goods that the
middle class could, its
members did exercise a great deal of influence over popular culture. Theirs was a
festive public culture of
release and escape from the drudgery of factory work, catered to by the likes of
Phineas Taylor Barnum,
the celebrated circus promoter and showman. Taverns also served an important
function as places to
forget the long hours and uncertain wages of the factories. Alcohol consumption was
high among the
working class, although many workers did take part in the temperance movement. It
is little wonder that
middle-class manufacturers attempted to abolish alcohol.
AMERICANA
P. T. Barnum and the Feejee Mermaid
The Connecticut native P. T. Barnum catered to the demand for escape
and cheap amusements among
the working class. His American Museum in New York City opened in 1841
and achieved great success.
Millions flocked to see Barnum’s exhibits, which included a number of
fantastic human and animal
oddities, almost all of which were hoaxes. One exhibit in the 1840s
featured the “Feejee Mermaid,” which
Barnum presented as proof of the existence of the mythical mermaids of
the deep (Figure 9.18). In truth,
the mermaid was a half-monkey, half-fish stitched together.
Figure 9.18 Spurious though they were, attractions such as the Feejee
mermaid (a) from P. T.
Barnum’s American Museum in New York City (b) drew throngs of working-
class wage earners in the
middle of the nineteenth century.
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Chapter 9 | Industrial Transformation in the North, 1800–1850
Click and Explore
Visit The Lost Museum
(http://openstaxcollege.org/l/15LostMuseum) to take a
virtual tour of P. T. Barnum’s incredible museum.
Wage workers in the North were largely hostile to the abolition of slavery, fearing
it would unleash more
competition for jobs from free blacks. Many were also hostile to immigration. The
pace of immigration
to the United States accelerated in the 1840s and 1850s as Europeans were drawn to
the promise of
employment and land in the United States. Many new members of the working class
came from the ranks
of these immigrants, who brought new foods, customs, and religions. The Roman
Catholic population
of the United States, fairly small before this period, began to swell with the
arrival of the Irish and the
Germans.
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Key Terms
artisan skilled, experienced worker who produces specialized goods by hand
Cumberland Road a national highway that provided thousands with a route from
Maryland to Illinois
deskilling breaking an artisanal production process into smaller steps that
unskilled workers can
perform
Erie Canal a canal that connected the Hudson River to Lake Erie and markets in the
West
free moral agency the freedom to change one’s own life and bring about one’s own
salvation
labor theory of value an economic theory holding that profits from the sale of the
goods produced by
workers should be equitably distributed to those workers
land offices sites where prospective landowners could buy public land from the
government
machine tools machines that cut and shape metal to produce standardized,
interchangeable parts for
mechanical devices such as clocks or guns
Mohawk and Hudson Railroad the first steam-powered locomotive railroad in the
United States
putting-out system a labor system whereby a merchant hired different families to
perform specific tasks
in a production process
specie “hard” money, usually in the form of gold and silver coins
Working Men’s Party a political group that radically opposed what they viewed as
the exploitation of
workers
Summary
9.1 Early Industrialization in the Northeast
Industrialization led to radical changes in American life. New industrial towns,
like Waltham, Lowell,
and countless others, dotted the landscape of the Northeast. The mills provided
many young women
an opportunity to experience a new and liberating life, and these workers relished
their new freedom.
Workers also gained a greater appreciation of the value of their work and, in some
instances, began
to question the basic fairness of the new industrial order. The world of work had
been fundamentally
reorganized.
9.2 A Vibrant Capitalist Republic
The selling of the public domain was one of the key features of the early
nineteenth century in the
United States. Thousands rushed west to take part in the bounty. In the wild frenzy
of land purchases
and speculation in land, state banks advanced risky loans and created unstable
paper money not backed
by gold or silver, ultimately leading to the Panic of 1819. The ensuing economic
depression was the
first in U.S. history. Recovery came in the 1820s, followed by a period of robust
growth. In this age
of entrepreneurship, in which those who invested their money wisely in land,
business ventures, or
technological improvements reaped vast profits, inventors produced new wonders that
transformed
American life.
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Chapter 9 | Industrial Transformation in the North, 1800–1850
9.3 On the Move: The Transportation Revolution
A transportation infrastructure rapidly took shape in the 1800s as American
investors and the government
began building roads, turnpikes, canals, and railroads. The time required to travel
shrank vastly, and
people marveled at their ability to conquer great distances, enhancing their sense
of the steady advance
of progress. The transportation revolution also made it possible to ship
agricultural and manufactured
goods throughout the country and enabled rural people to travel to towns and cities
for employment
opportunities.
9.4 A New Social Order: Class Divisions
The creation of distinctive classes in the North drove striking new cultural
developments. Even among the
wealthy elites, northern business families, who had mainly inherited their money,
distanced themselves
from the newly wealthy manufacturing leaders. Regardless of how they had earned
their money, however,
the elite lived and socialized apart from members of the growing middle class. The
middle class valued
work, consumption, and education and dedicated their energies to maintaining or
advancing their social
status. Wage workers formed their own society in industrial cities and mill
villages, though lack of money
and long working hours effectively prevented the working class from consuming the
fruits of their labor,
educating their children, or advancing up the economic ladder.
Review Questions
1. How were the New England textile mills 4.
Most people who migrated within the United
planned and built?
States in the early nineteenth century went
A. Experienced British builders traveled to the
________.
United States to advise American
A. north toward Canada
merchants.
B. west toward Ohio
B. New England merchants paid French and
C. south toward Georgia
German mechanics to design factories for
D. east across the Mississippi River
them.
C. New England merchants and British 5.
Which of the following was not a cause of the
migrants memorized plans from British
Panic of 1819?
mills.
A. The Second Bank of the United States made
D. Textile mills were a purely American
risky loans.
creation, invented by Francis Cabot Lowell
B. States chartered too many banks.
in 1813.
C. Prices for American commodities dropped.
D. Banks hoarded gold and silver.
2. Which is the best characterization of textile mill
workers in the early nineteenth century? 6.
Robert Fulton is known for inventing ________.
A. male and female indentured servants from
Great Britain who worked hard to win their
A. the cotton gin
freedom
B. the mechanical reaper
B. young men who found freedom in the
C. the steamship engine
rowdy lifestyle of mill work
D. machine tools
C. experienced artisans who shared their
knowledge in exchange for part ownership 7.
What did federal and state governments do to
in the company help
people who were hurt in the Panic of 1819?
D. young farm women whose behavior was
closely monitored
3. What effect did industrialization have on
consumers?
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8. Which of the following was not a factor in the 11. Which of the
following groups supported the
transportation revolution? abolition of
slavery?
A. the steam-powered locomotive A. northern
business elites
B. the canal system B. southern
planter elites
C. the combustion engine C. wage workers
D. the government-funded road system D. middle-class
northerners
9. What was the significance of the Cumberland 12. Which social
class was most drawn to
Road? amusements like P.
T. Barnum’s museum?
A. It gave settlers a quicker way to move west. A. wage workers
B. It reduced the time it took to move goods B. middle-class
northerners
from New York Harbor to Lake Erie. C. southern
planter elites
C. It improved trade from the Port of New D. northern
business elites
Orleans.
D. It was the first paved road. 13. What did Peter
Cooper envision for the
United States, and
how did he work to bring his
10. What were the benefits of the transportation vision to life?
revolution?
Critical Thinking Questions
14. Industrialization in the Northeast produced great benefits and also major
problems. What were they?
Who benefited and who suffered? Did the benefits outweigh the problems, or vice
versa?
15. What factors led to the Panic of 1819? What government regulations might have
prevented it?
16. Would the Industrial Revolution have been possible without the use of slave
labor? Why or why not?
17. What might have been the advantages and disadvantages of railroads for the
people who lived along
the routes or near the stations?
18. What were the values of the middle class? How did they differ from the values
of those above and
below them on the socioeconomic ladder? In what ways are these values similar to or
different from those
held by the middle class today?
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