 Reasons:  Booming agricultural economy of the west ▪ Cities became centers of trade (p. 263 shows examples)  Improvements in public health ▪ Birth rate was lower ▪ Death rate was far lower, allowing for population increase  Immigration ▪ Growth of cities was dramatic between ▪ P. 263 shows city growth examples

 A defense of native-born people and a hostility to foreign-born  Also a desire to slow immigration  Examples:  Nativists would say that new immigrants were inferior to older Americans  Saw them as about the same as Native Americans  They would say that immigrants were socially unfit  Some said immigrants stole jobs from workforce

 Native American Party: 1837  Anti-immigration group  Held their own convention in 1845  Know-Nothings:  First called “Supreme Order of the Star-Spangled Banner”  Banned Catholics from holding public office, restrictive naturalization laws, literacy tests for voting among their demands

 Know-Nothings led to American Party in 1852 in the west  They actually won control of MA state gov’t in 1854, won large number of seats in PA and NY  This was the peak of their power

Canal Age: We have discussed this already, at great length! If you do not know this information, read it! Pages

 Early Railroads:  1804: inventors had been experimenting with steam engines for land vehicles  1820: first locomotive is run around a track in NJ  1825: first RR line opened in England  First company: Baltimore and Ohio, 1830  By 1836, 1,000+ miles of track had been laid in 11 states

 Railroads:  Were short  Connected water routes  No linkage of one RR company to another  Track sizes (gauges) were not uniform  Schedules did not match  Constant wrecks!  Slow improvements in 1830’s

 Triumph of RR:  By 1860, there was almost 30,000 miles of track  Most was in northeast but reached far and wide  See map on page 273!!

 Linkage of lines to make RR lines longer  Lots of examples on page 272  Lines would divert traffic from Erie Canal and Mississippi River  RR’s helped weaken the connection between the northwest and the south

 Several sources:  Private American investors  RR companies borrowed large sums of $$$  Local governments, states, counties, cities, towns  Federal gov’t  Congressional grants to aid RR’s in 11 states by 1860

 Telegraph:  Samuel Morse, 1844  Transmitted from Baltimore to Washington, D.C.  Low cost system of communication  50,000 miles of wire connected by 1860 coast to coast

 Steam cylinder rotary press  Associated Press

 Things to consider: (p. 275)  Retail distribution of goods changed  Limited partnerships remained, but growth of corporations began here  Limited liability  Credit was a way to borrow, but bank did not have enough equity to support the borrowing  Bank failures were frequent

 By far the biggest economic development of the mid-19 th century  Started with textile industry (discussed)  Shoe industry in MA  Total value of manufactured goods rose from almost $500 million in 1840 to $2 billion in 1860

 Over half of the “factories” were in the northeast  Those “factories” produced over 2/3 of the nation’s manufactured goods  Almost ¾ of the people working in manufacturing were employed in N.E. and Mid-Atlantic states

 Turret lathe, milling machine, precision grinding machine, sewing machine  Interchangeable parts: Eli Whitney and Simeon North  Affected watches and clocks, locomotives, steam engines, farm tools, bicycles, sewing machines, typewriters, cash registers, automobile in upcoming years

 Patents:  Charles Goodyear: vulcanizing rubber  Elias Howe: sewing machine, which Singer improved

 Natural waterfalls could be channeled to provide power for the mills  Factories would close if water was frozen in winter  That is one reason factories looked for other power: to be open year-round!

 Wood, Coal, Petroleum (later), Water  Coal:  Replacing wood and water power as fuel  Mostly in PA, near Pittsburgh