The American Pageant Chapter 14

 People constantly moving westward.  1840, the demographic center of the population was now past the Allegheny Mountains.  Life in the west was not easy for there was lack of supplies and food.  Traveling was long and hard and the women were often lonely.  Beavers and Buffalo overhunted  George Catlin – conservationist whose ideas would lead to the National Park System

 33 states  US was the 4th most populous nation  With population also came more waste.  Boston in 1823 pioneered a sewer system.  NY in 1842 abandoned wells for a piped in water system.  Immigration  Better life  Get away from European rule  Overpopulation in Europe

 NY – Irish haven after potato famine (‘45-’49)  Most hated the Irish; Irish hated African Americans  The Ancient Order of Hibernians was a semisecret society in Ireland came to the United States to serve as a benefactor of the impoverished Irish  Irish claimed the social ladder

 Came because of crop failures and democratic revolutions  Against slavery  Kentucky rifle, Conestoga wagon, and the Christmas tree.  started up the Kindergarten tradition.  They often drank a lot on Sunday, a drink they called “bier” which would later be quite popular in the U.S.

 Americans were worried that the immigrants would take over every aspect of their lives.  They were especially alarmed when the Catholics tried to start a church in the US.  The Know-Nothing Party or Order of the Star Spangled Banner was a secret society formed to cause authorization to deport aliens and for rigid immigration laws to be enacted.  Attacks on churches and schools  However, had it not been for the immigrants, America would not have had a great Industrial Revolution.

 Samuel Slater  “Father of the Factory System” in America  snuck out of Britain with his ideas  Eli Whitney  invented the cotton gin  cotton boom in the South/more slavery  Factories were flourishing in the North but the South was still poor and relied on slavery.  The north was well off for it had rivers and waterways to power the factories, there wasn’t much room for farming either.

 Textiles - first industry  “Wear American” – War of 1812  Eli Whitney – interchangeable parts  Manufactured weapons quicker  Would help north in the Civil War  Elias Howe + Isaac Singer – sewing machine  Limited liability - an investor could not lose any more than he invested in the company.  Samuel B. Morse – telegraph  “What hath God wrought?”

 Unsanitary and not well ventilated  Child labor  Strikes largely unsuccessful  Many unemployed that would take job  Work hour shortened to 10hr by Van Buren  Commonwealth v. Hunt  Mass. Supreme court decision  Made labor unions legal

 given jobs in spinning yarn and weaving or maid work  Women worked 6 days a week, 13 hours a day.  Women not given same rights as men  Left when married  No arranged marriages  Fertility declined.  The Europeans viewed American kids as brats  Corporal punishment rare

 John Deere - steel plow  Cyrus McCormick from Virginia invented the mower-reaper.  Now one guy could do the work of 5 guys count in the fields..  Subsistence farming was replaced to production farming.  West had more farming space than the South.

 Lancaster Turnpike - which was a highway for Conestoga Wagons.  National (Cumberland) Road that stretched from Baltimore to St. Louis.  completed in 1852 because of the war of 1812 and state rights advocates trying to block it.  Robert Fulton created the steamboat which made the rivers a two way highway for goods.  This opened up the west and the south.

 NY was cut off from state aid to build a canal so they did it themselves under the leadership of Governor DeWitt Clinton.  The Erie Canal stretched from the Great Leaks to the Hudson River.  It had a tremendous impact on shipment (by reducing costs).  Price of Land along the canal skyrocketed

 best advancement was the railroad for it was cheaper and took a shorter time to lay track and it didn’t freeze over and also could travel over terrain.  New York prohibited railroads for a while.  Trains were unsafe  Safety was eventually fixed with brakes that braked properly.

 Transport connected the entire nation  Market revolution – transportation from farming to industry and commerce  No longer subsistence  Dependent on the market