1. Chapter 3: Section 4
The Market Revolution

2. Market revolution
Due to new technology, better transportation and communication a market revolution took place. It involved people buying and selling goods rather than make them for themselves

3. Free enterprise
The fast pace of the US economy in the 1840s coincided with the growth of free enterprise – the freedom of private businesses to operate competitively for profit with little gov regulation
Entrepreneurs are businessmen who invest their own money in new industries. They risk losing everything or making a profit

4. Inventor-entrepreneurs
Some inventions fueled economic revolution
Samuel Morse patented the telegraph which revolutionized communication
Sent messages in code over a wire in seconds
Businesses use the new communication device to transmit orders, etc
By 1854 there were 23,000 miles of wire

5. Robert Fulton & the steamboat
Steamboat improved transportation
1807 the Clermont made the historic trip up the Hudson river in 32 hours
By 1830 over 200 steamboats were transporting goods on all the nation’s rivers

6. Erie canal
Water transport was extremely important in moving heavy cargo & raw materials
Where water didn’t exist, canals were created.
Canals in the Great Lakes area linked the area with the East Coast

7. Railroads
Eventually railroads will replace canals which offered great advantages in terms of speed and winter travel

8. Market revolution transforms nation
Manufacturing workers in the early 1800s produced more and better goods at lower prices
Goods became affordable to ordinary Americans & improved transportation made it possible for people to purchase goods made in distant places.

9. Interdependence
Improved transportation & communication made the country more interdependent (connected)
Canals, railroads & steamboats linked all sections of the country
Northeast became the center of US commerce
Many moved to Midwest to farm
New inventions included: John Deere steel plow, Cyrus McCormick reaper
South remained agrarian

10. Changing workplaces
Producing goods moved from the home to the factory and this:
Split families
Created new communities
Transformed relationships between workers & employers

11. Workers seek better conditions
Entrepreneurs built the Lowell mills
Employed 1000s of women who were paid less
Women went on strike in 1834 when Lowell announced 15% pay cut.
Eventually went back to work
Public opinion was against them
In the 1830s & ‘40s there were dozens of strikes but most lost because workers could be replaced with immigrants who desperately needed work

12. Immigration increases
European immigration rose dramatically between 1830 & 1860.
Irish immigrants fled Ireland due to the Great Potato Famine
They faced prejudice because they were Catholic and poor
They were resented also because of their willingness to work as cheap labor.

13. National trades’ union
Trade unions from several industries united in 1834 to form the National Trades’ Union.
Faced fierce opposition from bankers & owners.
In addition the courts declared strikes illegal
In 1842 however, the Mass Supreme Ct supported the workers’ right to strike in the case of Commonwealth v. Hunt.