History Assignment - Short Essay -Read and Analyze Chapter

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The Transformation of the American Economy, 1815-1848

CHAPTER OUTLINE

9,1 The Market Revolution p. 262

The United States experienced extraordinary economic growth and change in the first half of the nineteenth century. But the economies of the Northern and Southern regions of the nation evolved along different paths. The North developed a free labor economy marked by industrialization, urbanization, and immigration. Economic growth was spurredby new technologies that made agriculture more productive and factories more efficient, as well as by improvements in transportation and communication that spurred consumer demand for the latest goods. By contrast, while the South experienced some industrialization and urban growth, most of its expansion and

development focused onraising cash crops with slave labor. The huge profits generatedby cotton cultivationprompted the expansion of plantations into the so-called Black Belt that stretched from Alabama west to east Texas.

By mid-century Northerners and Southerners became increas¬

ingly self-conscious about the distinctiveness of the labor system in , their own region and more critical of that employed in the other half of the nation. This image, The Tree ofLiberty (1846), illustrates the rad¬ ical differences between the vision of liberty defended by Northern

proponents of free labor and that of Southern defenders of slavery. On the right side of the tree, a slaveholder recliningin a chair while fanned by a slave announces, "Surrounded by slaves & basking at ease by their labor we can have a clearer conception of the value

of liberty." On the other side of the tree, the artist has placed two industrious farmers conversing, and youngmill womenin front of

their factory. A group of gentlemen chat, and one praises the North's

expanding population, composed of industrious immigrants from "almost every nation."

Although North and South had developed different labor sys¬ tems, each was tied to the expanding market economy that Henry

Clay praised in 1824. The expansion of the market economy trans¬

formed the countryside inboth the North and South and fueled

urban growth.

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"The greatest want of civilized society is a market for the sale and exchange of the surplus of the produce of the

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The Market Revolution9.1 In 1800, most rural households produced only a small surplus that was traded locally, often through a system of barter that did not require cash

iy transactions.'Most manufactured goods were produced by artisans whose yj* workshops were usually in their homes. During the nineteenth century, the

American economy became more commercially oriented. Farmers began producing cash crops for sale in distant markets, and a wider range of consumer goods, many of them made in factories, became available. The market revolution, the term used by historians to describe this transformation, encompassed interrelated developments that revolutionized agriculture, industry, technology, transportation, and communications. This market revolution would radically change both North and South in the antebellum period. Improved technology such as ironplows and steam-powered cotton gins enabled farmers to produce more crops, while cheaper, more efficient forms of transportation including the railroad allowed them to deliver these goods to markets. New communication technology, notably the telegraph and steam-powered printing press, increased the speed and volume of news and information available to Americans.

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9.1. Agricultural Changes and Consequences

Before 1815 most farmers in the South and the

Southern agriculture. In 1839, the Farmer's Almanac proclaimed that "scarcely a tool . . . has not been altered for the better in some way or other." The

new scientific methods of agriculture helped increase the productivity of the soil.

The creation of a market economy encouraged farmers to concentrate on crops that they could sell for cash in the marketplace, a trend that caused changes in farming patterns that varied by region. The South concentrated on staples for export such as cotton, while farmers in the Midwest produced grain, particularly wheat. Eastern farmers shifted

North labored to achieve a "competence," which meant enough food to feed their family and a small

surplus to trade locally or barter for goods, such as tools, that could not be produced at home. But in the early nineteenth century, American farmers began raising crops for an expanding commercial market to earn profits and accumulate wealth. Periodicals geared to farmers promoted this new emphasis on commercial farming, touted the latest their efforts to livestock production, dairy goods, agricultural theories, and advertised the most up-to-date labor-saving devices. Publications such as The New England Farmer warned that "the cultivator who does not keep pace with his neighbors as regards agricultural improvements and information will soon find himself the poorer consequence of the prosperity that surrounds him." central to rural life. Increasingly farmers began

to see harvest parties, husking bees (communal celebrations in which corn was husked), dances,

fruits, and vegetables. Market-oriented farming, with its emphasis on efficiency and profit, also transformed social values and communal

patterns of life. The new, more commercial

approach to farming challenged traditional ideas of neighborliness and community that had been

In 1819 Jethro Wood introduced one of the earliest and most important of these

"improvements"—an ironplow that could double a farmer's efficiency. Within a decade John Deere had improved Wood's design, creating a plow that seemed to move through soil so easily that it was dubbed the "singing plow." In the wheat¬

growing Midwest, farmers adapted horse-driven machines to tasks such as threshing and raking.

Crank-powered churns transformed arduous women's tasks, such as making butter by hand.

The cotton gin (see Chapter 7) transformed

and other ritual communal occasions in which

work and leisure were combined as inefficient and wasteful. The Farmer's Almanac in 1833

advised that "if you love fun, frolic, and waste and slovenliness, more than economy and profit, then

make a husking" (9.1).In this popular engraving of artist William Sidney Mount's painting "Farmers

Nooning," we glimpse an idealized image of a

traditional agricultural scene. A group of workers rests during the noontime break.

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9.1 THE MARKET REVOLUTION 263

enter the market. For those already in the market,

the costs of business were dramatically lowered.

These changes also spread information, including almanacs, books describing the latest agricultural

Upcountry Southern farmers continued to

concentrate on producing food for personal consumption and devoted a relatively small

percentage of their land to commercial crops. While

other regions of the country sought to improve every techniques, and advertisements for the latest goods.

parcel of land for commercial agriculture, parts of the South remained committed to practices that

encouraged a more self-sufficient style of agriculture, turnpikes that by the 1820s helped knit together geared to personal use. Unlike in the North, for

example, where extensive land was enclosed behind New York State embarked on the most ambitious fences, many Southern states enacted laws against fencinginlands not used for agricultural production, of improved road and turnpikes by 1820. The

National Road, the first federally funded road inU.S. history, stretched from Cumberland,

Maryland, to Wheeling in what is now West Virginia. By the 1830s, this road would take travelers as far west as Columbus, Ohio.

The first major development in transportation was the building of a network of roads and

the major urban areas along the eastern seaboard.

program of road building, adding 4,000 miles

so that livestock could roam freely.

How did technology change agriculture in the era of the market revolution?

9,1.2 A Nation on the Move: Roads, Canals, Steamboats, and Trains

Central to the development of commercial, market-oriented farming were improvements in transportation. These changes allowed those

previously unable to deliver farm products to the

growing cities of the Northeast and Midwest to

9.1 Farmers Nooning

This popular engraving based on

a paintingby artist William Sidney

Pennsylvania built the Lancaster turnpike, which eventually was extended to connect Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, making transportation cheaper and Mount captures more reliable. By the 1820s, 30,000 tons of freight moved by wagon across this route annually.

The new road network dramatically cut travel times: A coach journey from New York to Boston

that had taken four days in 1800 took half that time break.

the work rhythm of traditional

agriculturallife, which typically included a noon

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264 CHAPTER 9 WORKERS, FARMERS, AND SLAVES: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMY, 1815-1848 MHBHnnni

in 1824. Even more dramatic was the invention of the steamboat. Navigable rivers such as the

Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri, and Hudson had long served as vital arteries for moving agricultural products from the interior to market. This water

highway system moved almost exclusively in one direction. Traveling upriver from New Orleans to Louisville in Kentucky, for example, was expensive and slow (as long as three to four months). As a result few manufactured goods reached the interior of the nation. The arrival of the steamboat would revolutionize upriver travel, reducing the same New Orleans to Louisville journey to just over a week by 1826. The steamboat proved an economic boon to river cities such as St. Louis, New Orleans,

Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Louisville. Hannah Stockton Stiles, the daughter of a prosperous merchant, stitched this elaborate needlework quilt, capturing the hustle and bustle of Philadelphia's waterfront. Stiles included a steamboat, with

smoke billowing from its smoke stack (9.2). Canals provided another means of moving

goods more cheaply and faster than by road. Since the 1780s, private companies had built small canals,

usually less than 20 miles long. In 1817, America had about 100 miles of canals, withno single canal

longer than 30 miles. In that same year, however, New York's Governor De Witt Clinton persuaded the legislature to fund a canal linking Buffalo on Lake Erie to Albany on the Hudson River. The Erie Canal, as it was called, was over 300 miles long and was an unprecedented undertaking,both in terms of engineering and state investment. The New York legislature approved the huge sum of $7 million inbonds to fund the project, roughly a quarter of all the money spent by all the states on internal improvements in the 1820s. Although opponents mocked it as "Clinton's ditch," the Erie

Canal was a stupendous success. Before the canal opened, wheat from western New York State took 20 days to reach Albany by wagon and cost almost $100 per ton to transport. After the canal was built, the same ton of wheat could be transported all the way to New York City in 10 days at a cost of $5. Much as the steamboat fueled the growth of river towns, the Erie Canal fueled the development of new cities such as Rochester, Buffalo, and Syracuse. The canal's success sparked "canal fever" across the

country, and more than 3,300 miles of canals were

completed by 1840 at a cost of about $125 million. In 1825, the same year that the Erie Canal was

completed, the first commercial railway began operating in England. In 1830 the Baltimore and Ohio railroad successfully tested a steam-powered train. Americans soon developed their own railroads, and by 1840 railroad mileage surpassed that of canals. Railroads further increased the

speed at which goods and people moved from one

part of the country to another. By 1840, the trip between Boston and New York by rail took a mere

half-day. Americans greeted with amazement each

innovation of the transportation revolution, but

the railroad evoked the most powerful responses. "What an object of wonder!" wrote one American

in response to his first sight of a railroad in 1835.

Charles Caldwell, the founder of the University of Louisville, praised the railroad as an agent of civilization that would help spread morality and educationby linking people together more

effectively. Not everyone shared this view of

railroads. Critics of the railroad raised concerns

about safety, noise, and some expressed fears about

the destruction of the landscape. Images as History: Nature, Technology, and the Railroad: George Inness's

The Lackawanna Valley (1855) explores how artists V.V struggled to represent this marvel.

What impact did the Erie Canal have on New York’s economy?

9.2 Trade and Commerce Quilt

In this quilt Hannah Stockton Stiles

created images of

maritime trade

on Philadelphia's thriving waterfront.

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9.1 THE MARKET REVOLUTION 265

i Images as History NATURE, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE RAILROAD:

GEORGE INNESS’S THE LACKAWANNA VALLEY (1855)

Inness's painting applies many of the conventions used to represent nature to a scene in which nature and technology coexist in a complex relationship. Thus he includes a reclining youth, a figure often used in landscape paintings. Here, the boy calmly gazes toward the oncoming train. Rather than disrupting the serenity of nature, the train appears to blend harmoniously into it.

Although Inness portrays the railroad in a positive light, he also suggests the cost of technological progress: A field of tree stumps reminds viewers that economic development has taken a toll on the landscape. Which aspects of the painting present a positive view of progress? Which aspects suggest a negative view?

The president of the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad commissioned George Inness to

paint the company's new roundhouse, a facility to house and repair trains. But Inness soon found that his artistic vision conflicted with that of the railroad. For the railroad, artistic considerations were less

important than advertising its achievements. The main disagreement between Inness and his patrons was over the representation of the roundhouse. The artist wished to render the facility accurately, which would have diminished its importance in the painting. Ultimately Inness agreed to make the roundhouse appear larger than it would have had he rendered the scene in actual perspective. He sacrificed artistic truth to the necessities of the marketplace.

The prominence of so many tree stumps suggests that the artist was aware that technological progress

, came at a cost: the defilement of nature.

Inness magnified the size of the roundhouse to please his patrons and showcase this

architectural achievement

The po on the I country, underscores the artist's ambiguous view of technology's impact on the landscape.

sition of the train, border of town and

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266 CHAPTER 9 WORKERS, FARMERS, AND SLAVES: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMY, 1815-1848 HBHHHHBi RMHH EHHHHHMBHHI

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9.3 Time Lag for News 1817-1841

9.1.3 Spreading the News predicted correctly that the nearly instantaneous communication of telegraphy would usher in a new age of communications. By the mid-1850s, companies such the Western Union Telegraph Company had offices across the nation, improving communication between cities as far apart as

Boston and New Orleans.

Improvements inprint technology sharply reduced the cost of publishing, leading to an enormous increase in the number of newspapers,

magazines, andbooks. In 1801, there were only 200

newspapers in America;by 1835, there were 1,200. The number of magazines also rose dramatically, giving Americans a far greater range of printed

materials. While most eighteenth-century magazines and newspapers were directed at the general public, many of these new publications were aimed at specific audiences. The Farmer's Almanac, for

example, dispensed advice about agriculture, while

magazines such as Godey's Lady's Book informed a large and growing group of middle-class women readers about the latest ideas in fashion, literature,

and family matters. Also on the rise by the 1830s, , Americanbook publishing, with an output of at

least 1,000 titles a year, nearly rivaled that of Britain.

Improvements in roads, canals, and railroads

facilitated the spread of communication. The near doubling of the number of post offices and miles of improved postal roads between 1810 and 1820 increased the number of letters delivered

annually from not quite four million to nearly nine million.It had taken ten days for news to travel from Richmond, Virginia, to New York City in Jefferson's day. By the 1810s, it only took five days. The advent of the railroad, as the figure (9.3) shows, accelerated this trend, dramatically cutting the time for news to travel. For example, in 1817, it took 19 days for news to travel from New York to Cincinnati; by 1841, it only took 7 days.

The telegraph, which used electricity to send coded messages over wires, revolutionized

communication. In 1844, Samuel Morse, a painter horned inventor who had patented the device in 1837, transmitted a message taken from a

Bible verse—"What hath God Wrought?"— along a telegraph line from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore. The message was in code—the Morse code—that he also developed. Observers

Improvements in

communication

technology and

transportation

dramatically reduced the time

it took for news

to travel from the

coastal cities to the

interior cities.

9.1 THE MARKET REVOLUTION 267

wealth, ingenuity, and economic achievements.

Technological progress was a favorite theme.

Consumers could choose from an assortment

of steamboats and trains. Although the firm

often celebrated technological triumph they also

exploited disaster. Currier's first great success was this dramatic print of a fire aboard the steamboat

Lexington published in 1840 (9.4). Beyond makingit easier and faster to send

messages and news, the communications revolution also contributed to economic expansion of the market revolution by fueling the desire for new consumer goods and fashions. Newspapers were filled with advertisements for the latest

goods. Lavishly illustrated magazines inspired readers to buy the latest fashions.

Why was the firm of Currier andIves so successful?

Between 1825 and 1840, the value of the American

book business doubled to $5.5 million.

Technological improvements in printing also

made better and cheaper images possible.In

1834, Nathaniel Currier began producing colored lithographic images using a new process that was

cheaper than traditional engraving techniques. Rather than aspire to provide high art, Currier set out to provide "cheap and popular pictures" of contemporary events, historical figures, and scenes of everyday life. Touted as "Printmakers to

the People," his firm, eventually renamed Currier and Ives, produced images costing as little as fifteen cents. These were sold on city street corners,

and peddlers carried them to country stores

across the nation. Currier and Ives prints often

featured patriotic themes, displaying the nation's

9.4 Nathaniel Currier’s Conflagration of the Steamboat Lexington

The sensational

image of the

burning of the steamboat Lexington helped launch the

career of Nathaniel

Currier, who later

joined with James Ives to form one of

the most successful

publishing firms of the nineteenth

century, Currier

and Ives.

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268 CHAPTER 9 WORKERS, FARMERS, AND SLAVES: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMY, 1815-1848

The Spread of Industrialization9.2 • '% ftWgg y tÿie earty nineteenth century, the United States began a transition from f <j a predominantly agricultural economy to an industrial one. This process

unfolded unevenly across different sectors of the American economy and ' followed different models depending on the industry and region. Driven

I by new manufacturing technology and techniques, industrialization led to a vast increase in the number of goods—everything from clothing and shoes to tools and toys—available to the American consumer. But for many workers, especially skilled artisans, the new industrial economy led to a devaluation of their skills and loss of social status. For less-skilled workers industrialization often meant exploitation, long hours, and low pay. For others, however, the new manufacturing economy opened up opportunities for advancement.

9.2.1 From Artisan to Worker strict schedule and perform at a steady pace day in and day out. Beyond the rigid regulations of the workers' day, the factory robbed them of the

pride of craft associated with handmade goods. In contrast to artisan production, where a skilled craftsman might create one-of-a-kind pieces, factory goods were designed to be identical.

In addition to creating a labor force of less skilled workers, the new system also led to a sharp

separation between home and workplace. Before

1800, most artisans inNew York had workshops attached to their homes,but by 1840, two-thirds of them lived in one place and worked in another. The factory system separated home and workplace. The

apprenticeship system also suffered. By 1827, less than

a quarter of apprentices lived with their employers. If the factory system diminished the control

that working people had over their time and work,

it increased the goods they could buy. Because

factory-made goods cost less to produce, families

of modest means could now afford items once

available only to the wealthy. Ordinary Americans

could now purchase furniture, clocks, dishes, silverware, and the latest fabrics.

The factory system also had a tremendous

impact on the lifestyle and status of American

women. While men's work increasingly shifted to sites outside the home, women's economic activity

remained primarily within. Nevertheless, some

women participated more directly in the new

manufacturing economy through "outwork." In

this system skilled processes were broken down

into simpler tasks that could be farmed out to

women to perform in their homes. Manufacturers

provided the materials to women with a specified „

completion date. They saved money because they

did not have to provide a workshop or factory, and they paid women a fraction of the wages a skilled

The group of workers most dramatically affected by the onset of industrialization was artisans, or workers who used specialized skills to produce consumer goods, from shoes to bread to candles.In the colonial period skilled artisans worked in small

shops attached to their homes, using hand tools to produce goods for local consumption. They also used an apprenticeship system, trainingboys in their skills (until about age 20) in exchange for their labor.

The relationship between artisan and apprentice was close. Typically an apprentice livedinhis master's house, receiving food, clothing, and education.

In the new factory system first pioneeredby Samuel Slater inRhode Island (see Chapter 7), the artisan system of small-scale production was replaced with a new set of roles: owners, managers, and wage workers. The owner provided the money for the

enterprise, the manager supervised the workers, and the laborers did the actual work, which was usually less skilled than the traditional crafts practicedby skilled artisans. Some industries, such as textiles,

shifted relatively rapidly to the use of power-driven machinery. Shoe production,by contrast, continued to employ many manual laborers into the 1860s.

Inboth cases manufacturers undermined the old

craft traditions of artisans by breaking down the

productive process into simple steps that couldbe

performedby workers with minimal training.

Factory work forced laborers to give up many

aspects of working-class culture. The work rhythm of artisans before the rise of the factory included

periods of intense activity followedby slack

periods in which artisans might socialize with one

another, perhaps meeting in a tavern to drink and

discuss politics. Under industrialization the clock

ruled. Factory workers were required to follow a

9.2 THE SPREAD OF INDUSTRIALIZATION 269

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male artisan earned. InNew England during " the 1830s, 33,000 women took part in outwork

production of palm leaf hats. They also produced paper boxes, hoopskirts, artificial flowers, and cloaks. In urban areas many women depended on the meager earnings of outwork for their survival.

In rural areas, such as parts of New England, women might rely on outwork for supplemental income while continuing to do traditional agricultural work, such as producing milk,butter, and cheese. RuralNew England women would eventually provide the labor force for one of the most ambitious industrial experiments of the day: the Lowell mills.

How did the factory change work?

and domestic service,

the two most common

occupations for single women. The women

operatives in the mills also made friends with

their coworkers and

enjoyed free time away from the factories to socialize andpursue cultural and educational

opportunities not

available in their

small home towns. As

Josephine L. Baker, a mill worker, noted, "there

are lectures, evening schools, and libraries,

to which all may have

access." The mill women

even produced their own literary magazine, the Lowell Offering (9.5). The

magazine, nominally independent of the mills, echoed this rosy portrait. Indeed, the cover of this 1845 issue shows a mill girl holding a book and adopting a contemplative pose. She stands in a lushnatural setting of flowers, trees, and vines.Inits early years the Lowell experiment was touted as an example of American ingenuity, a

popular destination for European visitors eager to see the wonders of the new world. Britishnovelist

Charles Dickens visited and later wrote with

wonder that the mill women were not degradedby factory life,but rather retained "the manners and

deportment of young women." Despite the upbeat image portrayed on the cover

of the Lowell Offering, life in the mills was hard. The women worked 13-hour days, six days a week. Furthermore, the noise of the machines, the dust

and lint generatedby the manufacturing processes, and the longhours demandedby the mill owners often overwhelmed women accustomed to working out of their homes. As one young Vermont mill

woman noted in a letter to her family, "It is very hard indeed and sometimesIthinkIshallnot be able to endure it.Inever worked so hard inmy life."

For a decade the Lowell mill owners enjoyed high profits and peaceful labor relations. But increased competition with other textile producers led them in 1834 to announce a wage cut. Furious,

the Lowell mill women went on strike, or "turned

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9.2.2 The Lowell Experiment -ÿ mW’

In 1814, a group of Boston merchants decided

to expand on Samuel Slater's mill village model (see Chapter 7) and create a large planned industrial town. They built a textile factory in Waltham, Massachusetts, and developed the Waltham System, a mill town model that relied on

centralized factories, each one of which united all

the distinctive steps of cloth production under one roof. The system also came to depend on a large abor force housed in company-owned dormitories.

In 1823, the same group of merchants, ledby Francis Lowell, opened an even larger factory on a site in Massachusetts adjacent to the Merrimack River. The Lowell mill consolidated all aspects of

cloth production. Cotton from the South arrived at the mills, where it was cleaned, carded, spun, and woven into a finished fabric. Within a decade

the new mill town of Lowell boasted 22 mills, and

grew to over 50 mills by 1850. Not surprisingly, many competing mill towns cropped up all over New England and upstate New York.

The mill owners recruited young, single women from rural New England to work at the

factory towns. To accommodate this workforce and

appease concerned parents, they built dormitories and libraries and provided boardinghouse matrons to supervise the morality of the workers. Each

boardinghouse, with up to tenbedrooms per building, housed between 20 and 40 women. Two

women sometimes had to share a single bed. The boardinghouses also contained a kitchen, a dining room, a parlor, and separate quarters for the

-housekeepers, who were generally older women. Compared to the remote New England villages

from whichmost of the women came, Lowell

offered many amenities. Lowell allowed women to

earn significantly more money than did farm labor

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9.5 Lowell Offering

The Lowellmill women produced this title page of the

final issue of the

magazine Lowell

Offering, presenting an image of

industrial harmony. The youngmill

woman, holding a book, stands amid

symbols of natural abundance.

270 CHAPTER 9 WORKERS, FARMERS, AND SLAVES: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMY, 1815-1848 BBS

out." Critics of the strike saw it as a radical assault on the rights of the mill owners' economic freedom and a display of unseemly behavior for women. The mill women defended their actions as an assertion of their rights as American citizens and an example of the ideals of independence and liberty that had inspired the American Revolution (see Competing Visions: The Lowell Strike of 1834). The strike failed to block the wage cut, but it was a milestone in the history of both women's rights and labor organization. In the 1840s, a new organization, the "Lowell Female Labor Reform Association," would join a national struggle for a ten-hour working day for all workers. Why didLowell workers “turn out” in 1834?

9.2.3 Urban Industrialization Metropolitan industrialization was far more diverse than industrializationinmill towns.InNew York and Philadelphia, factories turned out products by using everything from skilled handwork, similar to artisanproduction, to steam-powered machinery runby low-skilled factory operatives. The factories produced an enormous range of goods under this

system, including chemicals, paints and varnishes, musical instruments, clothing and hats, tools, machines, furniture, and books.

New York emerged as the nation's leading fashion and clothing center during this period. Initially the city led in the production of cheap "Negro cottons," coarse garments assembled for sale in the South to clothe its slaves. By the 1830s, elegant tailoring houses such as the venerable firm of Brooks Brothers were offering well-tailored clothes to the

upper classes and the more prosperous members of

the middle class, who sought to emulate them. The industrial economy that emergedin

antebellum America created jobs and opportunity for many workers and a vast array of consumer

products. But not everyone benefited equally. To

protect themselves, skilled workers built a large labor movement; twenty labor newspapers emerged in this period to champion the workers' cause. In

1835, 20,000 Philadelphia workers from a dozen trades walked off their jobs to protest working conditions and demand a ten-hour workday. The strike was the most successful labor actionin the nation's short history and made the ten-hour

workday the new standard. By 1836, labor councils

or federations, a precursor of modem labor unions,

hadbeen founded in 13 manufacturing centers

across the nation, from Boston to Cincinnati. In the

largest cities, such as New York and Philadelphia,

more than 50 separate trades joined to form the general councils. The movement collapsed during a severe economic depression that beganin 1837. Haro — times produced high unemployment and intense competition, undermining labor's ability to bargain for higher pay and better working conditions.

Worker unrest stemmed in part from the awareness that a small group of Americans was benefiting more than others from the new economic order. The distribution of wealth became less equal. Although the wealth of the average citizen grew, the proportion of wealth concentrated in the hands of the nation's wealthiest citizens also increased. One of the most revealing measures of changes in the standard of living of Americans is providedby statistics about the average height of men serving in the military (9.6). In the period between 1800 and 1860, the average height of Americans decreased by almost an inch. Given that the overall wealth of the nation increased during this period, this evidence suggests that not all Americans shared in this growing prosperity.

Average Height of American Men Serving in the Military, 1800-1860

Year Inches

1800 68.1

I1810 68.1 1820 68.1

1830 68.3

1840 67.8

1850 67.4

67.21860

9.6 Average Height of Native-Born American Men by Year of Birth

One way historians measure the changing well-being of

ordinary people is to compare data about height obtained

from military records. Height correlates strongly with diet,

so changes in the average height of the population provide strong evidence of the changes in overall levels of nutrition

in the population. Based on data from the era of the market revolution,it appears that the general population's nutrition

fell at the same time that agricultural productivity was rising, a fact that suggests that not all Americans were benefiting

from the market revolution to the same degree.

SOURCE: Adapted from Richard Steckel, “A History of the Standard

of Living in the United States,” EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert

Whaples. http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/steckel.standard.living.us

What do changes in the average height of Americans serving in the military reveal about the general health

of the nation during the era of the market revolution?

9.2 THE SPREAD OF INDUSTRIALIZATION 271

Competing Visions THE LOWELL STRIKE OF 1834

In protesting a proposal to cut their wages, the Lowell mill women looked to the language of the American Revolution.They cast the mill owners as tyrants who sought to reduce the workers to economic slavery. For those

sympathetic to the mill owners, the strikers were un-American, radical followers of the British feminist thinker Mary Wollstonecraft, the champion of women's equality (see Chapters 5 and 6). Why did the protestors at Lowell seek to wrap their cause in the banner of the American Revolution and its ideals?

The Lowell mill women cast themselves as the heirs to the

Patriots who fought the American Revolution. Their appeal for

public support focused on issues of rights and independence,

themes that echoed the language of the American Revolution.

In this contemporary report of the Lowell protest, a Boston

newspaper highlighted the radical and unladylike behavior of

the strikers.

We learn that extraordinary excitement was occasioned at Lowell,

last week, by an announcement that the wages paid in some of the

departments would be reduced 15 percent on the 1st of March. The

reduction principally affected the female operatives, and they held

several meetings, or caucuses, at which a young woman presided,

who took an active part in persuading her associates to give notice

that they should quit the mills. . . . The number soon increased to nearly 800, A procession was formed, and they marched about

the town, to the amusement of a mob of idlers and boys, and we

are sorry to add, not altogether to the credit of Yankee girls. . . .

We are told that one of the leaders mounted a stump and made a

flaming Mary Wollstonecraft speech on the rights of women and the

iniquities of the “monied aristocracy.”

Salem Gazette, February 18, 1834

Union Is Power

Our present object is to have union and exertion, and we remain

in possession of our unquestionable rights. We circulate this paper

wishing to obtain the names of all who imbibe the spirit of our

Patriotic Ancestors, who preferred privation [poverty] to bondage,

and parted with all that renders life desirable— and even life

itself— to procure independence for their children. The oppressing

hand of avarice [greed] would enslave us, and to gain their object,

they gravely tell us of the pressure of the time, this we are already

sensible of, and deplore it. If any are in want of assistance, the

Ladies will be compassionate and assist them; but we prefer to

have the disposing of our charities in our own hands; and as we are

free, we would remain in possession of what kind Providence has

bestowed upon us; and remain daughters of freemen still.

“Union Is Power,” petition of the striking Lowell women, 1834

.

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272 CHAPTER 9 WORKERS, FARMERS, AND SLAVES: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMY, 1815-1848

The Changing Urban Landscape9.3 Industrialization accelerated the growth and changed the nature of

MM American cities. While before 1820 less than 10 percent of the nation's population resided in cities (areas of more than 2,500 people),by 1860, that number had grown to 20 percent. Older cities such as New York,

Philadelphia, Boston, and Baltimore grew, and new cities in the West such as Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Chicago emerged. The population growth in these cities was fueled by migration from the American countryside and foreign immigration, especially from Ireland and Germany. Immigration fostered cultural diversity in cities, but it also led to tensions and violence along ethnic, racial, and religious lines. Hostility between Protestants and Catholics and between whites and blacks increased urban violence. Policing became a far more complex problem in these growing cities.

f-

9.3.1 Old Ports and the New Cities of the Interior

This trend reflected the drop in the number of

artisans who owned their homes and the rise of

multiple-family dwellings, as well as the number of boardinghouses taking in lodgers.

New York's Five Points neighborhood illustrates the profound changes in the urban

landscape caused by rapid economic development. To its working-class inhabitants, Five Points was a poor but thriving

multiethnic and racially mixed

community. To outsiders, however,

its shabby housing and reputation for crime, especially

With nineteenth-century industrialization and

population growth, major changes occurred in American cities. New kinds of neighborhoods developed that reflected the class and ethnicity of their inhabitants. Distinctive working-class neighborhoods, including the first urban

slums, formed.

9.7 Five Points

This image reflects the elite's view

of the Five Points

neighborhood. The houses look iA ' ramshackle, and the

;VENT artist has depicted a MGS robbery in progi

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By 1810, New York had surpassed Philadelphia to become the nation's largest city. Central to this development was New York harbor, the largest on the East Coast and one

ideally suited to become a major port. The Erie Canal ensured New York's economic supremacy

by connecting the city to the Midwest. It increased

dramatically the flow of finished goods from

Europe and the rest of the United States into the

American heartland and the flow of foodstuffs

produced by Midwestern farmers into domestic and foreign markets.

Inland cities such as Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Chicago were among the fastest-

growing urban areas in the nation. Situated on rivers or lakes and soon connected by railroads, inland cities became manufacturing centers and

transportation hubs. Between 1800 and 1840, these new cities saw their populations quadruple. If

any city in America fit the modem stereotype of a soot-covered industrial town,it was Pittsburgh. The French traveler Michel Chevalier remarked

that "a dense black smoke which, bursting forth in volumes from the foundries, forges, glass¬ houses, and the chimneys of all the factories and houses, falls in flakes of soot upon the dwellings and persons of the inhabitants. It is, therefore, the

dirtiest town in the United States." Cincinnati, a

small settlement on the Ohio River in 1800, became a major industrial center by 1840, producing a wide range of manufactured products, including furniture, tools, candles, paper, leather, and soap. The soap industry grew out of the city's many pig¬ slaughtering houses (Cincinnati's nickname was "Porkopolis") that produced fat renderings that provided an essential ingredient for making soap. The firm of Procter & Gamble was founded in the

city in 1837.

What was the Five Points neighborhood and why didit become so well known?

prostitution, made it a symbol of urban decline. - Thus while its inhabitants saw the neighborhood

as a vibrant and diverse community, New York's

elite viewed it as a notorious slum to be avoided.

This contemporary image (9.7) captures the

multiracial character of the neighborhood, but it

also reflects the fears of many New Yorkers that

Five Points was crime-ridden and dangerous. Middle- and upper-class families eager to

escape contact with working people, immigrants, and free blacks segregated themselves in new, more exclusive neighborhoods. New York's Gramercy Park, for example, was created in 1831 as a private park surrounded by elegant houses. Ringed by a tall gated fence, the park was (and still is) accessible only to the adjacent homeowners, who received special keys.

In 1800, even America's largest urban centers were "walking cities." A person could easily walk around all of New York, Philadelphia, or Boston in a few hours. By 1820, however, these

cities had grown to contain more than half

the urban population of the new nation, and

by mid-century these once compact walking cities had become sprawling metropolises. lome of this growth came from annexation.

Philadelphia in 1854 annexed several of its suburbs, increasing its size from 2 square miles

to 129. Much of the growth was driven by advances in mass transportation that allowed

city dwellers to live farther and farther away from where they worked, shopped, and went for entertainment. The first of these modes of

transportation, which arrived in 1827, was the "omnibus," an urban stagecoach that carried

up to 12 passengers over fixed routes for a

flat fee. Expensive, slow, and uncomfortable,

it gave way by the 1850s to the horse car, a 20-passenger coach pulled on rails by horses. Faster, cheaper, and more comfortable than the omnibus, horse cars, or street-railway lines,

spread to virtually every large city by 1860.

Philadelphia alone boasted 155 miles of track.

Steam-powered locomotives had also begun to

carry commuters—or people who traveled over a significant distance from home to work—to and from outlying areas. Issues of sanitation

and the problem of providing fresh drinking for these expanding cities led cities such

New York and Philadelphia to undertake ambitious construction projects such as

Philadelphia's Fairmount Waterworks.

9.3.2 Immigrants and the City The sharp rise inurban populations in the nineteenth century stemmed from two sources: the migration of Americans from rural areas and

immigration from Europe. The latter soared from 23,000 in 1830 to 428,000 in 1854. Immigrants left their homelands for the United States for many reasons, including poverty, poor harvests, warfare, and political and religious persecution. The most dramatic exodus in this period was triggered in

274 CHAPTER 9 WORKERS, FARMERS, AND SLAVES: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMY, 1815-1848 WI— 0 mmm

Northern Europe 11%

a number of fields. Adolph Busch, a skilled brewmaster, brought German-style beer to America, and musical instrument makers helped launch such venerable firms as Steinway and Sons, piano makers.

How didimmigration patterns change in the early nineteenth century?

English Other18% 1%

German 27%

Irish 43%

9.3,3 Free Black Communities in the North

9.8 Sources of European Immigration

Immigrants from Germany and Ireland changed the populationmix in much of the nation. The influx of Catholics inparticular resulted in tensions withProtestants. Urban centers in the North and Midwest

were home to some of the largest free African American communities in the nation. Free blacks in enclaves such as Boston's "New Guinea" or Cincinnati's "Little Africa" were probably the most urbanized subgroup in America. Racial segregation was more pronounced in the urban North than in the cities of the South, where urban slaves were likely to live in their masters' homes. Thus an African American in

Boston was almost twice as likely to live in a segregated neighborhood as an African American inNew Orleans. African American communities

developed thriving institutions, such as churches schools, and self-help societies.

Still, life for free African Americans was hindered by racial prejudice and discrimination. In 1849 abolitionist and future senator Charles Sumner sued the city of Boston on behalf of Sara Roberts, who was prevented from attending the school nearest her home and was forced to attend

the "colored" primary school. Sumner argued that racially segregated schools imposed "the stigma of inferiority and degradation" on a whole race. The Massachusetts Supreme Court rejected the

argument. The Court argued that the facilities provided to free blacks were roughly equal to those of whites. Moreover, the Court argued that school

integration would likely harm blacks by increasing racial prejudice and animosity. In the North and

parts of the Midwest, exclusion from many of

the skilled trades often forced African Americans

into the most menial types of labor. This situation

worsened in the 1840s and 1850s as immigrants, especially the Irish, took over occupations traditionally dominated by African Americans, such as barbers and cart men. In the cities of the

North and West, hostility to African Americans

competing for jobs with whites intensified. The

rising animosity toward free blacks is reflected

1845 when Ireland's potato crop failed. The disaster killed more than one million people and spurred more than a million others, mostly poor peasants, to cross the Atlantic to America. Poor harvests and

political turmoil boosted German immigration to the United States. Besides the Irish and Germans, the other large groups of immigrants came from other parts of Britain, notably Scotland and Wales, and from Scandinavia (9.8).

The Irish and German immigrants changed America's ethnic composition. For the first time

many non-Protestants entered American society. Irish immigrants were almost entirely Catholic, whereas Germans included both Catholics and

Protestants. Ethnic enclaves with names like Kleindeutchland (Little Germany) and Little Ireland, with their own churches, mutual aid societies, theaters, newspapers, restaurants, and social clubs,

developed in many cities. Irish immigrants generally came from the

poorest segments of society; they arrived with little

money and few skills needed in an urban economy. They often ended up in slum neighborhoods like Five Points and came to dominate low-skilled jobs such as laborer and domestic servant. Nonetheless,

many Irish immigrants entered the skilled trades and became successful entrepreneurs.

German immigrants were more diverse. As

with the Irish, many German immigrants were

poor peasants forced off the land,but many others were skilled artisans. Liberal intellectuals also fled

Germany after the political upheavals of 1848 that swept over much of continental Europe. Germans

were more likely than the Irish to become farmers,

shopkeepers, or skilled tradesmen. They also ventured further inland, settlinginplaces such as

Cincinnati and St. Louis. More skilled on average

than their Irish counterparts, Germans transformed

9.3 THE CHANGING URBAN LANDSCAPE 275 f--f 5!

in this broadside (9.9) describing the "Dreadful '

Riot on Negro Hill." The image shows a group of Bostonians attacking an African American woman

and a disabled African American man. The text

Violence increased as growing cities became more

divided racially, economically, and ethnically. Anti- Catholic sentiment spurred much of the intensified violence. In 1834, a mob attacked and burned a

accompanying the image mocks free blacks for

their pretensions to live a genteel lifestyle and copy later inPhiladelphia, the "Bible riots" left 20 dead the tastes of their white neighbors.

Through persistence, talent, and good fortune, some African Americans

could still surmount the obstacles they faced in the labor market and achieve financial security or even

prosperity. Henry Boyd of Cincinnati is an example of one such life. Trained

as a carpenter while still a slave, Boyd managed to

obtain his freedom and

began to ply his trade in Cincinnati. Although Boyd found some work,

many employers refused to hire him. Yet in 1836,

te accumulated enough money to establish his

own furniture-making business, and by 1842, his

downtown factory was

using the latest steam-

powered equipment to make furniture. By the 1850s, Boyd was employing a mixed-race workforce of some 50

Catholic convent just outside Boston. Ten years

and two Catholic churches in ashes. Philadelphia's growing Catholic

community opposed the city's policy of using the Protestant version ofDreadfill Riot on Negro Hill!

O ,-iJdMml** •* Tak t* **** **« k ?<mr W' the Bible for instruction

in public schools. After

appeals from the city's Catholic community were

rejected, protestors took to the streets. Crowds of

Catholics and Protestants

attacked one another in

the streets of the "City of Brotherly Love." The city was plunged into three days of rioting and mayhem.

Racial animosity also

inspired urban unrest. Cincinnati's African

American community

faced the ire of white

mobs in1829, 1836, and

1841. A three-day riot in Providence, Rhode Island,

in1831 destroyed most of the African Americanpart of the city. A riot inNew York in1834 destroyed an African American church, school, and a

dozen houses. Adding to the tensions and occasionally sparking violence were politicalbattles between Democrats and Whigs, antagonisms between supporters and opponents of

slavery, and conflicts over regulating or eliminating behaviors such as gambling and drinking.

Contributing to the rise in urban violence was

the steady increase in the number of single men

living outside traditional family units, a trend that arose from industrialization and immigration.In the 1840s and 1850s, at least 30 percent of male

urban dwellers lived outside family units, usually inboardinghouses. Free from the traditional guidance and restraint of adults and relatives,

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This broadside portrays an attack on African Americans. The text not only describes the attack but also mocks African Americans.

people. Nine years later, however, fire destroyed Boyd's factory. Without insurance he could not rebuild his factory, leaving him as he had begun—a struggling artisan.

What arguments did the Massachusetts Supreme Court use to justify segregated educational facilities?

9.3.4 Riot, Unrest, and Crime Urbanization in the first half of the nineteenth

century was accompanied by a rise in crime 'mand disorder. During the 1830s, there were 115 .. , incidents of mob violence, a steep rise from

previous decades. One newspaper reported that "a spirit of riot" had taken over the nation's cities.

276 CHAPTER 9 WORKERS, FARMERS, AND SLAVES: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMY, 1815-1848 mmmmm watmmmmmm

young men developed a masculine subculture in which alcohol and fighting played a central role.

Many young women also streamed into the

city looking to improve their economic conditions. The combination of an aggressive masculine subculture and a large pool of poor young women led to a significant rise in prostitution, a situation that alarmed many officials. The Reverend Lyman Beecher decried the fact that so many young people were "thrown out upon the open bosom of our city" where they were easily "corrupted by sensuality." Beecher's fears were well founded. At mid-century prostitution ranked as the second biggest industry inNew York City! (See Envisioning Evidence: The Economics and Geography

of Vice in Mid-Nineteenth-Century New York.) Theaters encouraged prostitutes to attend their performances to boost ticket sales, a practice so common that the cheap seats they occupied were dubbed the "guilty third tier."

The expanding news media found salacious tales about the city's seamier side of life a great way to raise circulation. Tales of crime, including the sensational murder of the prostitute Helen

Jewett inNew York City in 1836, fueled the growth of the press. Rival newspapers competed to be the first to publish the latest revelation about the case,

and the story dominated headlines for months.

The crime even produced colorful images such as this showing the alleged murderer skulking away (9.10). Reflecting the low regard in which prostitutes were held, the lowly clerk accused of

killing Jewett was acquitted despite considerable evidence suggesting his guilt.

Most urban crime did not involve sensational tales of murder, but rather petty crimes against

property or person. The informal policing mechanisms that cities had relied on in the

eighteenth century, including the use of night watchmen and sheriffs who had to rely on community support to quell unrest, proved woefully inadequate to policing a major metropolitan area in the nineteenth century. In 1839, the mayor of New York pushed to create a professional police force, fearing that without

strong interventionNew York would attain "the

character of a riotous city." In 1845, New York created the first modem professional police force in America, modeled on London's Metropolitan Police Force. New York employed 800 men

organized in a military structure; they carried clubs (but not firearms) and were deployed to keep the

peace and apprehend criminals.

What does the growth of prostitution reveal about the

nature of urban life in pre-Civil War New York?

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9.3 THE CHANGING URBAN LANDSCAPE 277

tnvisioning tviaence THE ECONOMICS AND GEOGRAPHY OF VICE

IN MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY NEW YORK

The influx of young men and young women into NewYork City in the early nineteenth century fueled both the supply of and the demand for prostitutes. Indeed, by mid-century, prostitution was the second largest industry in the city, exceeded only by tailoring. If one maps the geography of vice, a fascinating pattern emerges. The greatest concentration of brothels was clustered around New York's Broadway theater district,

the notorious Five Points neighborhood (one of the city's poorest), and the docks."The police do not meddle," an observer of New York life wrote,"unless they [the prostitutes and brothels] are noisy, disturb the

peace, or become a public nuisance."

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of New York for 1855 (Albany, 1857). Map adapted from Eric Homberger, The

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278 CHAPTER 9 WORKERS, FARMERS, AND SLAVES: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMY, 1815-1848 wmmmsmmmmmmmmsm nuHHnm

Southern Society9.4 Even as Northern society changed dramatically between 1815 and 1860 due to immigration, urbanization, and industrialization, Southern society remained committed to slavery and a cash crop economy. The rise of cotton

11 cultivation and the expansion of plantations into the band of fertile land H from Georgia to Texas transformed slavery. Although most Southerners did

not own slaves, slavery suffused Southern culture and society. A few planters dominated the political and economic life of the whole South. One leader reminded a Southern audience in 1850 that slavery was bound up with all of the South's institutions and affected "the personal interests of every white man."

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"Icould easily prove that almost all the differences which may be noticed between the characters of the Americans in the Southern and in the Northern states have originated in slavery."

ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE,

Democracy in America (1838)

Dabney, who had migrated to Mississippi from Virginia in 1835 to establish a large cotton

plantation, aspired to this aristocratic lifestyle. He emulated the life of an English country gentleman, taking tea in the afternoon and treating his less affluent neighbors as social inferiors.

While industrialization in the North created a

sharp divide between work and home, physically separating the two realms, Southern plantations fused them together. A large body of advice literature geared toward plantation management that appeared in Southern magazines urged planters to act so that "the Negro should feel that his master is his lawgiver and judge; and yet his

protector and friend." The role of the planter in this idealized image of the slave Southnurtured

an ideal of patriarchalism. An 1842 book reminded

planters that because slaves were "placed under our control" masters had to care for and instruct them,

so that they could "receive moral and religious

uplift." In theory masters sought to "govern absolutely." "Plantation government," a Georgia planter wrote, "should be eminently patriarchal." The planter was not only "the head of the family" but also "should, in one sense, be the father of the

whole concern, negroes and all."

Planters' wives or widows or the eldest daughters in families without a matriarch oftenhelped manage

9.4 The Planter Class Few planters lived in the grand luxury many people today associate with the world of nineteenth-century slavery. For example, at Nottoway, in Louisiana, John Hampden Randolph built a magnificent mansion that contained 64 rooms, 200 windows, and 165 doors. But the

typical planter lived far more modestly in a

simple two-story wood-framed house. His home, generally described as "the big house" because it was always the largest domestic dwelling on a plantation, was at the center of smaller outbuildings, including a kitchen, well, dairy, ice house, smokehouse, and laundry. Plantations

might include many types of buildings depending on their size. Georgia rice planter Henry McAlpin's Hermitage plantation (9.11) resembled a small town, with multiple residences, a hospital, and other buildings. Indeed, the slave quarters constituted an even smaller village within this self-

contained community. Most slave owners owned

between one and nine slaves. Less than one percent owned 100 or more slaves. The typical slaveholder worked a small family farm of about 100 acres with

fewer than ten slaves. The wealthiest planters created something

akin to English-style landed aristocracy. Thomas

9.4 SOUTHERN SOCIETY 279

plantationlife. The plantation mistress, as she was

supervised slaves who might work in the Kitchen, nursery, laundry, stable, or garden. Whereas

husbands often relied on overseers to assist them and

frequently left the plantation to attend to business or public affairs, the planter's wife was oftenleft to

her own devices to run a home that was more like

a small village. Southernmen claimed that slavery had helped elevate the status of the white woman and liberated her from the drudgery of domestic life,makingher "no longer the slave,but the equal and idol of man." Hospitality was a centralpart of Southern plantation culture, and the plantation mistress played a key role in the rituals associated withit. Althoughlavish entertainment was one part of this reality, the evidence foundin the surviving diaries and letters of many mistresses suggest that

the typicalplantation mistress was more apt to feel isolated than the center of a vivacious social life.

Mary Kendall, for example, wrote inher diary about her loneliness: "for about three weeksIdid not

have the pleasure of seeing one white female face." Kendall's sense of isolationlent her description of

plantation life a melancholy quality.

What was patriarchalism?

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Most Southern whites were not planters but

yeoman farmers, independent landowners who worked their own small farms. In 1860, more than three-quarters of Southerners owned no slaves. As a result yeomen farmers depended on

neighborliness and communal cooperation to complete tasks such as planting, harvesting, or

building. Lacking the urban centers and cheap transportation that allowed many small farmers in the North to enter fully into the market economy,

many Southern yeomen did not produce large surpluses for market. Instead they devoted most of their resources to producing food for their

own families and generally allocated only a small portion of their lands for cash crops that could be

sold to purchase seeds, sugar, and the occasional manufactured good. Since they could not afford the cost of transporting their surpluses to market,

yeoman farmers depended on planters to market

tieir small surpluses. They also depended on planters for the use of the plantation mill to

grind com into meal. In much of the South where planters and yeomen resided side by side, a

9.11 Photos of Hermitage Plantation from the Great Depression

Despite the passage of time and neglect, the top picture of the mansion house conveys some of the structure's original

grandeur. Over two hundred slaves lived on the plantation in 1850. The slave cabins shownin the bottom photograph were made of bricks. Most slave dwellings were made of wood. Hermitage Plantation operated a profitable slave-run brickworks that produced over 60 millionbricks before the Civil War.

complex web of economic, political, and social ties bound these two classes together. But many yeomen in the upcountry regions of the South

were fiercely independent and resented the more affluent planters who dominated their state's militia, legislatures, and courts.

Indeed, most Southern state legislators, judges, and militia officers were drawn from the planter class. But the yeomanry formed the core of the militia system that tried to catch runaway slaves and guard against slave insurrection. These slave

patrols were vital to the survival of slavery. In this antislavery woodcut, the slave patrol is terrorizing

280 CHAPTER 9 WORKERS, FARMERS, AND SLAVES: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMY, 1815-1848

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In this woodcut from an abolitionist almanac, a slave

patrol harasses a slave traveling from one plantation to another.

a slave (9.12) traveling without the pass needed to leave the plantation. Passes were writtenby owners, and traveling slaves had to have them. In some cases, slave patrols might harass slaves traveling with a pass by simply destroying the pass and treating the slave as if they were a runaway.

Many Southerners owned no land and worked as tenant farmers. In parts of the South, estimates

by historians vary,but between 30 to 50 percent of the white population fell into this category. Although some landless Southerners were young men waiting to inherit land from their fathers,

many others rarely entered the ranks of the solid

yeomanry. Inparts of the Deep South with many African American slaves, poor whites fraternized

with slaves: smuggling liquor into the slave

quarters, helping runaways, or forming sexual liaisons and permanent relationships with slaves.

More often, however, a white supremacist ideology overcame class solidarity across racial lines.

Free Black Communities Although most African Americans in the South were enslaved,by 1860, 6 percent of black Southerners lived as free people of color. Most free blacks resided in the upper South, with large communities inborder states such as Delaware

and Maryland. A third of the free blacks resided in Southern cities; Baltimore, Richmond, New Orleans,

Charleston, Memphis, Mobile, and Natchez had the

biggest communities. The South's Slave Codes were even more restrictive than the Black Codes enacted

in the North (see Chapter 8). Free Southern blacks had to carry identification to prove that they were

not slaves. They could not hold office and in some

areas could not testify in court against whites. Although life for free blacks in the South was

difficult, the shortage of skilled artisans inmany Southern cities enabled them to enter trades such

as cabinet making. Southern cities were also less

spatially segregated thanNorthern cities, and

Southern African Americans played a prominent roleWhat function did the slave patrols play in the South?

9.4 SOUTHERN SOCIETY 281 HBMa

horsewhip the offender. Dueling was reserved for settling matters of honor among gentlemen. In 1838, John Wilson, a former governor of South Carolina, published The Code ofHonor; or the Rules for the Government ofPrincipals and Seconds in Duelling, which explained such things as the role of seconds and the choice of weapons. The centrality of honor to Southern culture was the chief reason

dueling endured in this region long after it had been outlawed in the North. Many of the South's leading politicians,including Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay, fought duels during their careers. By the 1820s, the antebellum South was the most violent regionin the new nation. Indeed, the South's homicide rates were more than double that of the North's most

populous cities: New York and Philadelphia. This contemporary drawingby a Northern opponent of slavery (9.13) portrays the South as a culture dominated by dueling,brawling, lynching, and blood sports such as cock fighting. For some Northerners, especially those opposed to slavery, the dueling and other violence they associated with the South were a result of the brutality inherent in slavery. The connection between slavery and Southern violence figures prominently in the image, which shows a cruel master whipping a helpless slave child.

What role didhonor play in Southern culture?

as domestics and in some fields and trades such as

'Adoring andhair cutting. The free black community ,n New Orleans was one of the most affluent in the

South.It published its ownnewspapers, and its elite members held lavishballs each year.

Religious institutions were also important for the free African American community. In addition to tending to the spiritual needs of their

congregations, ministers were often community leaders. Southern black churches had much larger memberships than similar institutions in the North. Thus the largest African American congregation in the North,New York's Abyssinian Baptist Church, had a membership of 440 at mid-century, whereas the First African Church of Richmond counted

3,160 members.

How did the experience of free blacks in the South compare with the experience of those in the North?

White Southern Culture Wealthy white Southerners in the antebellum years entertained on a lavish scale, hosting parties, balls, fox hunts, and horse races. Aristocratic

affectations even led some to sponsor medieval jumaments that included jousting. Southerners

took pride in their resorts along the Gulf Coast,

gracious vacation spots characterized by a "quiet ease." New Orleans gradually replaced New York as the horse racing capital of the nation. Blood

sports such as cock fighting also remained popular, particularly among less affluent Southerners.

Reputation and honor were central values in the male-oriented Southern culture. An "unsullied

reputation," one observer noted, was all that a man required to be "on a social level withhis fellows." A Scottish traveler remarked that

Southern men "consider

themselves men of honor" and "more

frequently resent any indignity shown them even at the expense of their life, or that of

those who venture to insult them."

When a social ''“Nferior insulted

a gentleman, the yjasswaSh appropriate response was to cane or JEHSI

9.13 Southern Violence This Northern drawing links the brawling and dueling of Southerners with the brutal labor regime of slavery. Abolitionist attacks on Southern culture often mentioned the

pistol and the lash.

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282 CHAPTER 9 WORKERS, FARMERS, AND SLAVES: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMY, 1815-1848

Life and Labor under Slavery9.5 I Slavery was a complex institution that took many forms in the South. I Some slaves lived on large plantations and worked in gangs under an I overseer, whereas others toiled beside their master on small farms. Still I others lived in cities where, if they possessed skills, they were often hired a out. But the law treated all slaves as property, leaving them entirely at

the mercy of their master, who had the power to impose punishment and sell slaves away from their families. To protect themselves, slaves developed various traditions and strategies. Many turned to religion to provide spiritual comfort and cultural resources to resist the domination of their masters. Slaves also developed subtle forms of resistance such as feigned illness, work slowdowns, and destruction of tools and other property. Occasionally slaves took more overt measures like running away, either to seek a temporary respite from the harsh labor regime or to escape north to freedom. The most radical and the rarest form of resistance was insurrection, rising up against the established authorities.

9.5.1 Varied Systems of Slave Labor

it embraced agricultural diversification, including grain and livestock. Of the agricultural staples produced in this region, corn, rye, and hemp were particularly important. With each passing decade, slavery became less and less viable in this region, and many masters sold their slaves to the lower South where demand for their labor was

high. Although the Constitution had outlawed the international slave trade, a vibrant internal slave trade existed. Sales from the upper South to the

lower South were central to this trade.

Most slaves worked as field hands, toiling from sun up to sun down most of the year. On

most large plantations slaves worked in the fields in gangs, which gave their masters more control

over their labor. Men and women generally

worked together, often supervised by a hired white overseer. Masters sometimes employed slaves to act as drivers, or supervisors, a role that required them to discipline other slaves or face punishment themselves. But a clever driver might find a way to

protect other slaves from more severe punishment by an overseer. Larger plantations also employed many slave craftsmen as carpenters, blacksmiths,

weavers, coopers (people who repaired wooden casks), and other occupations. Household slaves

worked as cooks, coachmen, nannies, or maids.

Planters used a system of rewards and

punishments to enforce slave discipline. As rewards some planters allowed slaves to maintain a small

garden or even sell produce at market. Ultimately,f \ however, labor discipline was enforced by violences-ÿ

A popular management book that many planters consulted argued that "after reason and persuasion

Slave labor produced a variety of agricultural products—tobacco, hemp, sugar, and rice. But the leading product was cotton, an enterprise in which more than half of all slaves toiled. By 1840, cotton accounted for more than half the nation's exports, with most of it heading for European (especially British) textile mills. The remainder was sent north to mills in places like Lowell, Massachusetts.

Yet even in those regions of the South in which cotton was not the primary crop, the cotton

economy influenced economic life. For instance,

hemp was turned into rope to bind cotton bales for shipment. Many farmers who did not produce cotton produced foodstuffs and supplies for consumption on cotton plantations.

The antebellum South was divided economically into the lower South and the upper South. The warm

climate of the lower South was ideal for cotton

cultivation, as was the dark rich soil of the region stretching from Alabama to Texas known as the Black

Belt. After 1820, cotton cultivation spread rapidly westward, propelledby two factors. First, the great wealthproducedby cottonprovided huge economic incentives for bringingnew lands under cultivation. Second, because cotton exhausted soil of its nutrients,

growers constantly sought new lands to bring under cultivation. To grow andharvest this cotton, planters relied on a labor force that was 90 percent enslaved.

The upper South included eight slave states, but it lacked the fertile land and long growing season necessary for cotton agriculture. As a result

9.5 LIFE AND LABOR UNDER SLAVERY 283

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9.14 Image of Slave Whipping

To portray the horror of slavery,

abolitionists made

ample use of the image of slave

owners whipping their slaves. In this

image the slave

family is about to be separated by the master, who

intends to sell

them to separate

plantations.

have been exhausted without producing the desired

punishment of some sort must be resorted x>." As an English observer noted, "Absence from

work, or neglect of duty, was punished with stinted allowances, imprisonment, and flogging." Northern

abolitionist literature made the image of the whip one of their most prominent metaphors of life in the South as this broadside from an antislavery almanac reveals (9.14).

Southern masters also controlled their slaves by threatening to sell them. Slaves in the upper South feared being sold "down river" to a cotton or sugar plantation because it meant separation from family and probably a harsher existence. Sales tore slave families apart. Sales may have dissolved as many as one-third of all slave marriages and separated almost half of the children livingin the older

parts of the South from a parent. The British artist

Eyre Crowe painted a scene in a Richmond slave market, in which men, women, and children wait

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being "torn from their homes" and separated from their loved ones.

Although most of the South's slaves toiled as agricultural laborers, many others worked in some

type of industrial enterprise, primarily in the upper South. While the South lagged far behind the North in industrial development, it still exceeded allbut the top five or six industrial nations inproduction

their turn on the auction block (9.15). Scenes such

as this were common throughout Virginia and the Carolinas.In 1859, the Georgia planter Pierce Butler sold 450 slaves in a single auction lasting days. A reporter from the New York Tribune of textiles and iron, flour and timber milling, sugar escribed the misery of the slaves whose brothers refining, and leather tanning. Most of these upper

and sisters" were to be "scattered through the South industries relied on slave labor, and by 1850, at least 5 percent of

the South's slaves

cotton fields of Alabama." The "expressions,

of heavy grief," the reporter notedÿÿjjgrtjl reflected their horror at

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An English artist who accompanied the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray on a tour of America captured the dehumanizing realities of a slave auction.

284 CHAPTER 9 WORKERS, FARMERS, AND SLAVES: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMY, 1815-1848 wmmmmmmm

(between 150,000 and 200,000 persons) worked in industry. Employers owned 80 percent of the slaves who worked in industry, with the rest hired out on yearly or short-term leases. Enslaved blacks and free whites sometimes worked side by side. Richmond's Tredegar Iron Works employed such a mixed labor force until 1847, when a strike by whites prompted the owners to rely exclusively on enslaved black labor apart from a few white supervisors.

Slaves also worked innonagricultural enterprises in cities such as Richmond,Mobile, Charleston, and New Orleans. Slaves worked as domestics, artisans, carriage drivers, gardeners, couriers, and nurses. Southern cities also employed slaves for public works projects, including sanitation, roadbuilding, andbridge maintenance. Savannah and Charleston even used slaves as firefighters.

Where was the Black Belt?

from traditional African marriage practices. Relatives or close friends of the bride and groom - held opposite ends of a broom about a foot off the - ground, and the couple would jump together over it as a symbol of their union. Planters encouraged slaves to marry because married slaves were less likely to run away. The offspring of slave marriages also provided planters with additional laborers.

On larger plantations a slave family might reside together. On smaller plantations and farms, husbands and wives might reside on neighboring plantations. Such "abroad" marriages were common. Visiting a spouse under these circumstances required permission, and husbands might see their families only once a week. The slave family included extended kin, such as uncles, aunts, and, most important, grandparents, all of whom helped rear children.

During the 1830s, Southern churches launched a major effort to convert slaves to Christianity. In proselytizing slaves white ministers stressed the conservative elements of Christian theology, often forbidding slaves from dancing during religious services and reminding them of the passages in the

Bible that demanded slaves obey their masters. A

popular Catechismfor Colored Persons, for example, instructed slaves to "count their Masters 'worthy of allhonour/ as those whom God has placed over them in the world."

But efforts to use religion to instill docility in

slaves largely failed. Rather than accept their masters' vision of Christianity, African Americans recast it to

suit their own needs as slaves and articulate their

hopes. The biblical story of the Exodus, which told

of the flight of the Israelites from slavery inEgypt, was particularly popular. "God was working for their deliverance," a Georgia slave commented,

and "would deliver them frombondage as sure as

the children of Israel were delivered fromEgyptian

bondage." African Americans created covert churches

called "brush arbors" or "hush arbors" to practice their version of the faith.

Slaves also borrowed elements from African

religions, creating a distinctive African American

religious culture. White observers were perplexed by the "ring shout," an ecstatic form of worship that mixed African religious practice with

Christianbeliefs, describing its chanting as

"weird" or "droning" and its dance as "wild" and1 "barbaric." Yet to the enslaved the ring shout's

rhythmic circle dance involving joined hands,

counterclockwise movement to a steady beat, hand

9.5.2 Life in the Slave Quarters Compared to Brazil, where living conditions for slaves were among the worst in the Americas, conditions for American slaves were less harsh.

This contributed to a significant natural increase in the slave population in the United States; the population increased nearly fivefold between 1790 and 1850. Still, American slave owners

often treated their slaves brutally and provided inadequate food, shelter, clothing, and medical care. As a result infant mortality rates for slave children were twice those of white children. Life

expectancy for whites in the South was between

40 and 43 years, which was lower than that in

other parts of the country, but the average slave lived ten years less even than that.

Fanny Kemble, the wife of planter Pierce Butler, described the slave quarters onher husband's

plantation in stark terms: "These cabins consist of one room, about twelve feet by thirteen. Two families (together numbering sometimes eight or ten) reside in one of these huts which are mere

wooden frames." Wealthier planters sometimes built sturdier framed houses with wooden floors or

even brick houses for their slaves.

The oppressive nature of slavery also shaped family life. Although Southern law did not

recognize the legality of slave marriages, many slave men and women sought to form stable

family relationships. Slaves developed their own

marriage rituals to seal their unions. The most

common was "jumping the broom," which derived

9.5 LIFE AND LABOR UNDER SLAVERY 285

9.5.3 Resistance and the Law of Slavery

clapping, and free-form upper-body movements became an important religious ritual.

Funeral practices also reflected this fusion of

African and Christian rituals. Slaves often scattered

broken ceramics over a grave, a practice carried

over from African burial practices. A Maryland observer of a funeral noted that the body was

interred with a miniature canoe and paddle. The slaves explained that this would allow the spirit to cross the ocean and return to Africa. Because

Slaves developed a complex range of behaviors to resist the harsh discipline forced on them. Many used subtle tactics to thwart their owners because

they minimized the chances for punishment. Slaves feigned illness, broke tools, and slowed their pace of work to fight back against their economic exploitation.

Another means of resistance was flight. Typically runaways left only for short periods, seeking a respite from servitude, or to visit kin and spouses on neighboring plantations. Less frequently slaves sought to gain their freedom by fleeing to free territory in the North or in Canada. In the Deep South, some slaves fled to Indian Territory or to swamps to escape detection.

slaves toiled in the fields during the day, their funerals typically took place at night. Torchlight processions to gravesites, accompanied by drumming and other African-inflected music and chants, unsettled white observers. Still some

whites, as this painting of a slave preacher leading a funeral service (9.16) shows, overcame their

cultural bias and appreciated the beauty of slave burials. Barely discernible between the two trees in In a few celebrated cases, slaves devised daring the bottom corner of the painting are the plantation methods of escape. master and mistress. They are a visual reminder that slaves were never completely free from the

The most extreme form of resistance was

insurrection. In 1831, Nat Turner led the largest slave uprisingin American history. A lay preacher, Turner had a vision of a battle between "white

spirits and blacks spirits" that would commence when the "sun was darkened." He believed that the

watchful eye of their masters.

Spirituals, a distinctive musical art form

by slaves, drew heavily on biblical themes. he figure of Moses and the plight of the ancient

Hebrews who were delivered from slavery were two common themes. Slave spirituals also featured images of crossing over the River Jordan to freedom in this life or redemptionin the next.

Music was also important in other aspects of slave culture. Slaves used song to preserve African

traditions,help relieve the monotony of work, entertain, or even communicate cryptic messages to other slaves. When slaves "went around singing 'Steal Away to Jesus/" a former slave recalled, it not only affirmed the hope of redemption but often signaled others that there would "be a religious

meeting that night." Virtually every major form of modern popular musi< jazz, gospel, blues, rock and roll, and hip-hop—derive in part from musical traditions

rooted in the experience of

American or New World

9.16 Plantation Burial

While a slave

preacher leads a funeral service, the

plantation master

and mistress are

visible in the woods

between the two

trees in the lower

right comer of the

painting.

solar eclipse in 1831 was a divine sign that the time for insurrection was ripe. Nat Turner's Rebellion lasted two days and attracted between 60 and 80 slaves before authorities subdued the rebels.

Before the carnage ended 55 whites were killed

and as many African Americans. This woodcut from a contemporary account of the rebellion writtenby a supporter of slavery depicts the rebels unsympathetically, about to attack defenseless women and children, and the efforts of whites to

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Why didbiblical themes from the story of the Exodus figure so prominently in slave spirituals?

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286 CHAPTER 9 WORKERS, FARMERS, AND SLAVES: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMY, 1815-1848 mmmam

jJ&. "Steal away to Jesus! Steal away steal away home.Iain't got long to stay here. My Lord calls me,

He calls me by the thunder; The trumpet sounds withinmy soul, Iain't got long to stay here."

Spiritual, "Steal Away to Jesus"

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d-:": re-enslavement. Preaching to slaves also carried a heavy punishment inNorth Carolina. The penalty applied equally to slaves and free blacks, who for each offense were subject to a punishment "not exceeding thirty-nine lashes on his bare back."

Each Southern state passed its own set of laws, or slave codes, governing slavery. These laws described the property rights of masters (slaves were categorized somewhere between property and people), the duties slaves owed to their masters, and the punishments for various crimes. Although laws varied from state to state, slave codes

generally accorded slaves minimal rights. These laws curtailed the movements of slaves, forbidding them to travel without written permission from their masters. Laws also proscribed teaching slaves to read or write. Slaves had no right to testify in court, and planters served as both judge and jury on their plantations, meting out punishment. On rare occasions a slave did obtain a day in court, as when a South Carolina court ruled that a slave

could not be tried for the same crime twice, an

application of the constitutional prohibition on double jeopardy that was a bedrock of American law. Despite such modest protections, however, slaves still enjoyed only the slimmest legal protection and remained at the mercy of their masters (see Choices and Consequences: Conscience or

Duty? Justice Rujfin's Quandary).

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defend their loved ones as heroic (9.17). The bottom of the image shows the militia riding to rescue these helpless victims. Many Northerners, however, viewed Nat Turner as a righteous and heroic warrior against the evil of slavery.

The law of slavery had always dealt with insurrection inharsh terms. After the Nat Turner

Rebellion, Southern states enacted more repressive laws to prevent another revolt. These new laws

prevented African Americans from preaching and limited the access of free blacks to firearms. States also strengthened their militias and made assaults

by slaves against whites capital offenses. On the other hand, some states seriously considered abolishing slavery. The Virginia legislature seriously debated one such proposal,but ultimately voted 73 to 58 against it.

The fear of insurrection also shaped the way Southern law dealt with free blacks. Fearing the

potentially disruptive influence of free blacks on slaves, North Carolina required emancipated slaves to leave the state within ninety days or face

9.17 Woodcut Image of

Nat Turner’s Rebellion

This image showing Nat Turner's

rebels attacking a family captures the Southerners

reaction to the

rebellion. Turner's

uprising sent shock

waves through Virginia and the

South.

Who was Nat Turner?

"No one can read this decision [State v. Mann], so fine and clear in expression, so dignified and solemninits earnestness, and so

dreadful inits results, without feeling at once deep respect for the man and horror for the system."

Abolitionist HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853)

9.5 LIFE AND LABOR UNDER SLAVERY 287

and Consequences CONSCIENCE OR DUTY? JUSTICE RUFFIN’S QUANDARY

In1829, Chief Justice Thomas Ruffin of the North Carolina Supreme Court issued his opinionin State v. Mann, a case involving an assault on a slave named Lydia by John Mann. Lydia's owner, Elizabeth Jones, instigated the case against Mann (slaves had no legal standing to bring charges) for woundingher slave. Mann hadrentedLydia from Jones, and the law recognized that as a temporary owner, he did not have the same long-term interests inprotectinghis property. Thus, although Mann was legally entitled to discipline Lydia, his power over her was more limited than that of her legal owner.When Mann tried to discipline Lydia, she ran off. Mann then shot and wounded her. Rather than try to recover monetary damages in a civil trial, an option precluded because Mann was too poor to pay damages, Lydia's owner pursued criminal charges. A lower court convicted Mann of an assault and battery on Lydia, and Mann then appealed the case to the state Supreme Court. State v. Mann explored legal questions at the heart of slavery.In deciding how to handle the case, Justice Ruffin faced difficult choices.

Choices

Uphold Mann’s conviction and

affirm the doctrine that a temporary master's power to discipline was limited

Reverse the lower court and as- sert that Mann had the same legal authority as Lydia's,owner, including the right to.punish disobedience, and affirm that a master’s power over slaves was unlimited

Decide the case on the narrowest grounds possible.

Affirm the lower court ruling and avoid sweeping statements about the nature of the master’s powers by focusing squarely on the facts: the excessive use of force by a disreputable person with a history of violence.

; Decision [ Ruffin chose to reverse the lower court decision, Although tempted to sympa¬ thize with the plight of slaves and offer them legal protections, he argued that the law denied them such protections: “The power of the master must be abso¬ lute to render the submission of the slave perfect.” To bestow on slaves basic rights would undermine slavery itself.

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Woodcut image of master shooting slave

Consequences Within five years, in State v. Will, Ruffin's fellow justices partially repudiated his decision. The case did not dispute Ruffin's major premise that a slave must be totally submissive, but it rejected his claim that the only means to accomplish this goal was to give the master total power, The court accepted that the master’s power was limited and the use of excessive or lethal force to discipline a slave was not protected by the law of slavery.

Continuing Controversies What role did ideas of justice play in Justice Ruffin’s understanding of the rule of law?

Most modern scholars agree that the decision in State v. Mann reflects the fundamental immorality of slavery. But the con¬ troversy over the decision focuses on a more basic question about law itself, Does law simply reflect the dominant power rela¬ tions of society? Or, can the law embody ideals of justice or fairness that are not simply a mask to disguise the naked exercise of power? Ruffin’s decision reinforced the power of the planter class, and many view it as vindicating those who believe that the law is a tool that enables the powerful (the masters) to dominate the weak (the slaves). However, Ruffin's anguish and the later ruling in State v. Will might be seen as proof that the rule of law does impose constraints on the powerful.

Chapter Review ~ 7 __

TIMELINE

m-gmti% • December. IBbo.

1823-1825 Lowell Mill opens

Waltham System at Lowell, I Massachusetts, becomes j

showcase for the new model of j industrial production |

Erie Canal opens One of the great public works i

projects of the early nineteenth j century reduces dramatically the j

cost of transportation j

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«< 1829•=!* CB

V State v. Matin Decision affirms the Idea that the master’s control over the slave is absolute

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1830 • Steam-powered train

makes first trip First successful steam-powered train tested by the Baltimore and

Ohio Railroad

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aH .*4 1831

Nat Turner's Rebellion Virginia slave leads the bloodiest slave uprising In U.S. history

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’ * Mill women's strike at Lowell signals

the beginning of a now phase of ¥ conflict between labor and capital

1836 Helen Jewett murdered The sensational murder of Helen I Jewett shocks the nation and helps I spur a huge increase in newspaper I circulation

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1838 The Code of Honor

published in South Carolina

Etiquette book describes the rules of dueling

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IS :i • 1840Lexington steamboat

disaster Fra .

is

WHS® j On January 13, 1840, the ; steamboat Lexington caught fire j on route from Boston to New York. j The disaster became one of the first j great financial successes of printer s and publisher Nathaniel Currier and ! helped launch the company that

eventually became the venerable I firm of Currier and Ives

ia£:' '-. - ~ fr - , MhJ: A-:- ’ *

288

Why It Matters

This period in American history matters because . . .

•The period of the market revolution, broadly defined as the years spanning the time between the end of the War of 1812 and mid-century, witnessed several profound transformations.

•Industrialization, the move from small-scale artisan production to the start of mills and factories, changed the lives of workers and consumers.

•Slavery not only expanded during this period, but cotton became the major export of the American economy.

•Urban life was transformed as American cities expanded and experienced a variety of social and economic problems.

Learning Outcomes Choices and Consequences Explore the choices and consequences of decisions made

by Americans in response to the market revolution and the expansion of slavery.

Historical Argument Formulate historical arguments about slave culture, including resistance to the domination of their masters.

Images as History Understand how to analyze and interpret visual evidence about the market revolution.

Competing Visions Recognize the different competing visions of Americans toward

early industrialization through primary sources.

Historical Literacy Demonstrate knowledge of the key events, people, institutions, and chronology in the era of the market revolution and economic change.

Review Questions

3. Why did Judge Ruffin argue that masters must have absolute power over slaves?

4. What role did the railroad play as a symbol of American progress?

1. What role did technological change play in the market revolution? How did such changes affect values?

2. How did slaves modify Christianity to articulate their distinctive religious vision?

Key Terms Spirituals Religious songs created by slaves. Spirituals' symbolism drew heavily on biblical themes. 285

Nat Turner's Rebellion The 1831 Virginia slave uprising led by Nat Turner shocked many in the South and led to a host of new

repressive measures against slaves. 285

State v. Mann The 1829 North Carolina

Supreme Court case that involved a white man's assault on a slave. The case asserted that the domination of the master over the slave was complete. 287

Artisan production A system of manufacturing goods, built around apprenticeship, that defined the preindustrial economy. The apprentice learned a trade under the guidance of an artisan who often housed, clothed, and fed the apprentice. 268

Waltham System Also known as the mill town model, a system that relied on factories housing all the distinctive steps of cloth production under a single roof. 269

Market revolution A set of interrelated

developments in agriculture, technology, and industry that led to the creation of a more integrated national economy. Impersonal market forces impelled the maximization of production of agricultural products and manufactured goods. 262

Telegraph Invention patented by Samuel Morse in 1837 that used electricity to send coded messages pver wires, making communication nearly instantaneous. 266

289

Revivalism Reform and Artistic Renaissance

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10 LU

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)CONTENTS

10.1 Revivalism and

Reform p. 292 p*::;:- _ * idlllSfÿ *•

) 10.2 Abolitionism and the

Proslavery Response p. 297

1820-1850

The expansion of democracy and the changes resulting from the market revolution left Americans concerned about their lives and the nation's future. Rising inequality and a bitter debate over slavery intensified anxieties. In this popular lithograph, The Way of Good and Evil, the artist portrays the social ills facing America, including alcoholism, prostitution, and crime. A tavern,brothel, and prison represent the path of destruction. Different buildings—a school, home, and church—anchor the center. The path to salvation leads from these institutions through college and eventually up into heaven. In the artist's view Americans faced a clear choice: salvation or eternal damnation.

Americans sought solutions for the nation's social problems and clam¬ ored for reforms. Many turned to mainstream religion for guidance or

joined religious reform movements. Secular reformers targeted education and prisons or alcohol. Some religious movements viewed the market

economy as the root of America's problems and advocated the abandon¬ ment of private property. Secular utopian movements came to similar

conclusions.

Still other reformers adopted a radically different critique of market society. Champions of Transcendentalism, a literary and philosophical movement, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau,

urged Americans to reject the values of the marketplace and turn to nature or their individual consciences for inspiration. The expanding literary mar¬

ketplace prompted many writers to explore contemporary ills, or use them as a backdrop for stories that probed issues as different as slavery and urban¬ ization. The rise of a more aggressive abolitionist movement and the devel¬

opment of an equally fervid defense' of slavery intensified the public debate

over this issue. Abolitionism helped radicalize many women and gave them the opportunity to develop organizing skills. Inspired by a more radical theory of equality and equipped with their new skills, women's rights advocates applied their critique of slavery to women's status under American law.

Reform efforts also affected architecture. Many reformers advocated transforming

the American landscape itself, including the built environment, to promote social

reform and spiritual renewal.

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10.3 The Cult of True Womanhood, Reform, and Women's Rights p. 302

10.4 Religious and Secular Utopianism p. 305

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Ski ’• I

i 10,5 Literature and Popular

Culture p. 311 %

10.6 Nature's Nation p. 315

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