The Industrial & Agricultural North

Early Textile Manufacturing 1789 Samuel Slater arrives in America Slater builds 1st textile mill in 1790 1807 Jefferson’s Embargo stimulates domestic production War of 1812 restricts imports and encourages growth of manufacturing By 1815 textile mills numbered in the hundreds

The Factory System a new way of organizing labor because of machines which were too large to house in a worker's home replaced the home-based system of the early 1800s spread rapidly in the 1820s and again between 1840 and 1860

Production and location first impact- textile industry: New England moves to shoe industry: E. Mass By 1830s - moves to other industries - moves to other areas of Northeast Northeast = over ½ of industries ,2/3 of production, and ¾ of workers

Technology By 1830s overtakes GB - Europeans travel to US to study new techniques development of machine tools interchangeable parts revolutionize machinery

Industry needs Labor Why is there a labor shortage? How can the factory owners solve the labor shortage?

#1: The Family System Hiring an entire family - men for heavy labor - women and children for lighter work Families lived in tenements or mill villages

#2: The Lowell System found in Waltham Mass. begins 1813 paternalistic textile factory system employed mainly young women [age 15-35] - from New England farms Emphasis was placed on mechanization and standardization - will be used as a model

View of Lowell, 1834, from across the Merrimack River showing the housing and the mills of the Merrimack Manufacturing Company before the construction of the Boott Mills

Why Employ Women? traditionally employed in home textile work not expected to support families and so could be paid less women were never expected to be independent, equal citizens--they could not vote, after all--and so unlike male artisans, they had no independence to lose when they became factory hands “a father’s debts…to be paid, an aged mother to be supported, a brother’s ambition to be aided”

Conditions emphasized the maintenance of a proper environment: 1. enforced curfews 2. encouraged church attendance 3. maintained a high degree of cleanliness living conditions good, wage fair

Conditions free of the filth, poverty, and social disorder supervised on the job and at home

One of Lowell's few remaining blocks of company boarding houses

Lowell System Decline high standards were difficult to sustain and keep production costs low - wages decline - hours lengthen - conditions deteriorate 1834 Factory Girls Association Union - strike 2 times for better wages and lower rent: fail - form Female Labor Reform Association demanding help from legislation

Replaced by Irish Immigrants

#3: Immigrant Labor Force major labor pop after 1840 accelerated deterioration of working conditions unskilled labor low wages $1-$6 a week horrible living conditions 12-14 hr work day

Labor Responds Mass. 1842 Commonwealth v. Hunt - Unions are lawful - strikes are legal Unions of 1840s and 1850s ineffective! - not large enough or strong enough - too many immigrants! Craft Unions (skilled) more successful

Northeast Agriculture no longer profitable - move west - move to city some stay and supply cities - vegetables - fruit - dairy farming

Old Northwest industrial growth 1840-1860 - based on agriculture - flour milling - meat packing - whiskey Agriculture is Supreme! - average person owner of prosperous farm

Sectionalism Northwest sells products to Northeast Eastern industry sells to the west STRONG ECONOMIC BOND!!! The south is becoming more isolated

Farming Technology steel plows- 1847 John Deere factory

Farming Technology McCormick Reaper allows 6 men to do the work of 15 quicker harvest

Farming Technology Threshing Machine Jerome I. Case factory Racine Wisconsin no longer flailing grain by hand saves time - 25 bushels an hour