American History essay

Era of Good Feelings

American Nationalist Spirit

· Begins after Battle of New Orleans

· Includes American System

· Americans see themselves as new chosen people

Patriotic culture

· Fourth of July became popular

· Folk art, songs, verses

· Americanization of language

Inspirational Reading

· Biographies of early patriots exploded

· Mason Weem’s biography of George Washington

· Created a national hero although not all true

· Noah Webster 1783 American Spelling Book

· Created an American language

· Dictionary 1828

· James Fenimore Cooper one of first American writers and used American themes

Henry Clay

· Lawyer, planter, speculator, politician

· Westerner with a national perspective

· Speaker of the House (1810-1821)

· Worked to create compromise

· Most everyone liked him

· Called for internal improvements

· Wanted to create system to bind all sections of nation together

· Make him indispensable man

American System

· Starts with a Bank of the US (BUS)

· Holds government deposits from sell of western lands

· Original BUS had died in 1811

· 1816 another Bank was chartered

· Internal improvements in west help everyone

· Industrials have greater demand for goods

· Westerners have greater demand for food

· Southerners have greater demand for cotton

· Wants to pay with a high tariff

· This was least popular part of the system

Transportation Revolution

· Roads

· Most became impassable in rain

· John McAdam developed an all-weather road

· National Road

· Government funded

· Cumberland, Maryland to Wheeling, Ohio

· Made Henry Clay popular with many small farmers

Erie Canal

· Slashed transportation costs

· Paid for by New York state

· Hudson River to Lake Erie

· Expensive but paid for itself in first year

· Navigators guided flatboats

· Pulled by mules

· Erie Canal success leads to canal building boom

· Mainline canal in Pennsylvania

· Over 4,000 miles of canals

· Economic bust left states with debts from public projects

River traffic

· Old man river – Mississippi River

· Drained central U.S.

· But hard to bring cargo upriver

· Queens of the Mississippi

· Flat bottomed steamboats

· 1807 Robert Fulton’s Clermont

· Built a paddle wheeler for Mississippi

· Paddleboat operations grew

· Frequent boiler explosions

· Very shallow drafts were needed

·

Early Railroads

· 1825 first railroads

· Could be built more places, cheaper to operate and hardly ever stopped running 1827 first two U.S. railroads

· Built by mining companies

· Other railroads built by entrepreneurs

· Could be expensive to build

· Best for long hauls

· Baltimore & Ohio RR

James Monroe

· Virginia disciple of Jefferson

· Good diplomat and administrator

· Presided during political calm

· Federalists rapidly dying out

· Monroe easily wins in 1816

· Monroe faces no opposition in 1820

· “Era of good feeling”

Politics of Calm

· Little interest in national politics

· People focus on expansion, economics

· Secretary of State John Quincy Adams

· Monroe, Adams focus on foreign affairs

Foreign Affairs

· Oregon

· Rush Bagot Agreement 1817

· Demilitarized Great Lakes

· Set boundary between Canada-US at 49th parallel

· Join occupation of Oregon Territory

Florida

· Spain losing New World empire

· Jackson invades Florida

· Jackson ignores Spanish authority

· Adams buys Florida in Adams-Oñis Treaty

· Pays $5 million

· Set western boundary

Monroe Doctrine

· J. Quincy Adams main author

· U.S. would not intervene in Europe

· Ends colonization in Western Hemisphere

· U.S. not intervene in existing colonies

· European intervention deemed act of war

Why the Monroe Doctrine?

· Spain wants to regain colonies

· Britain wants them independent for trade

· Britain wants alliance with U.S.

· U.S. decides to act alone

Missouri

Missouri Crisis

· 11 slave states, 11 free states

· Missouri asks to become a state

· Proposal made to require abolition in Missouri

· South wants to keep balance of states

Missouri Compromise

· Brainchild of Henry Clay

· Missouri slave; Maine free

· No slavery in rest of Louisiana Purchase north of 36º 30’

· Congress admit states in pairs for 30 years

2nd Missouri Compromise

· State prohibited free blacks from emigrating in

· Violates U.S. Constitution

· Clay convinced Missouri to state did not override Constitution

Industrial Revolution

· Most people live on farms

· Produce goods and food themselves

· Purchase very little

· Small businesses

· Mechanization changes lifestyles

Industrialization

Textiles

· Basic necessity

· Time-consuming and difficult to make

· Expensive

· Most people had few clothes

How cloth was made

· Wool was king in Britain

· Sheep sheared

· Wool cleaned

· Wood was carded or combed

· Spin into yarn

· Yarn woven on looms into cloth

· Woolens versus cotton

· Woolen interests were powerful

· Imported cotton cloth from India competed

Individuals contract with cloth dealer

· Produce at home; work at own pace

· Does not alter social structure

England develops textile machines

· Produces cloth at fraction of cost

· Britain enjoys monopoly

· Cloth better than homespun

· Cloth cheaper than homespun

Machines

· Spinning jenny

Richard Arkwright’s water frame in 1768

· Increased volume of spun thread

· Powered by water

· Changes production as ends cottage industry

· Creates factories where workers come to work

Textile factories

· Machines need power

· Use water, later steam

· Creates need for factories

· Creates industrial working class

U.S. capital for industry

· Northeast merchants, shippers invest

· Convert wealth from ships into mills

· Encouraged by trade restraints during Napoleonic Wars

· Americans quickly industrialize

Inventors

· Oliver Evans: continuous-operation flour mill

· Eli Whitney: interchangeable parts

· Inventors become heroes

· U.S. offers technical education

First Factory Workers

First workers were children

· Cheap

· Climbed onto textile machines

Then Fall River used whole families

· But failed

· Turned to women and children

Lowell Girls

· Francis Cabot Lowell

· Hires young daughters of farmers

· Provides room, board, enrichment activities

· Girls save for dowry

· Most laborers women and children

· But over time became less paternalistic

John C. Calhoun

· “War Hawk” early in career

· First pushes for Southern industry

· Becomes defender of South

· Defends plantation system, slavery

Slavery declining in 1788

· Northern states abolishing slavery

· Southerners apologetic about slavery

· Tobacco production falling

· Congress outlaws importation of Africans

Revival of Slavery in the South

· Cotton gin revives one-crop economy

· Fertile “Old Southwest” ready to settle

· Rapid growth in southern territories

· Slaves now in big demand

Cotton Gin

· South can only grow short staple cotton

· Separating seeds too labor intensive

· Eli Whitney invents cotton gin and interchangeable parts

· Growing cotton now profitable

Western Population Explosion

· Land cheap and plentiful

· Lands equal opportunity

· Mississippi River no longer frontier

· People seem to have no roots

Population

· By 1820, Alabama at 75,000

· States north of Ohio River grew even faster

People who moved west

· Americans free to move around

· Some anti-social

· Some want to build better life

· Some are developers

· Some are town boosters

Cities in West

· Often develop around military fort

· Sometimes develop on rivers

· Cities include industry

Federal Land Policy

Rapid development leads to speculation

· Speculators hope to buy land cheap and sell it higher

· Some responsible developers

Land policy

· 1790s: must buy tracts of 640 acres

· 1800: can buy 320 acres at $2 acre and on credit

· Land Act of 1804 favors small farmers

· Land Act also favors speculators

Leads to wild speculation

· Drives up cost of land

· Paid for with paper money

· inflation

Panic of 1819

· Bank of U.S. calls in loans to wildcat banks

· Wildcat banks call in loans to speculators

· Speculators cannot pay, banks close

· Closed banks trigger Panic of 1819