1. CHAPTER 9 Transforming the Economy 1800–1860
James A. Henretta
Eric Hinderaker
Rebecca Edwards
Robert O. Self
America’s History Eighth Edition America: A Concise History Sixth Edition
CHAPTER 9
Transforming the Economy
1800–1860
Copyright © 2014 by Bedford/St. Martin’s

2. 1. Who are the people pictured in this early photograph
1. Who are the people pictured in this early photograph? (Answer: These are four young women who worked as weavers in a textile mill in Maine. They are depicted wearing their work clothes and displaying the tools they used on the job.)
2. What does the image reveal about the composition of the textile industry’s workforce in the mid-nineteenth century? (Answer: Image shows that many of the laborers in the textile industry were women, even by the 1860s. As in the Lowell mills of the 1830s and 1840s, these were young farm daughters looking for a way to earn money before they married. Their similar hairstyles and clothing suggests that they were not viewed as individually important and skilled workers, but interchangeable cogs in the larger process of industrial production.)

3. I. The American Industrial Revolution
A. The Division of Labor and the Factory 1. Labor 2. The factory

5. I. The American Industrial Revolution
B. The Textile Industry and British Competition 1. American and British Advantages 2. Better Machines, Cheaper Workers 5

7. I. The American Industrial Revolution
C. American Mechanics and Technological Innovation 1. Mechanics 2. Tools

9. I. The American Industrial Revolution
D. Wageworkers and the Labor Movement 1. Free Workers Form Unions 2. Labor Ideology

10. 1. Describe the subject of this photograph. Who was he
1. Describe the subject of this photograph. Who was he? What is he holding? (Answer: Photograph depicts a young skilled woodworker in about He is holding some of the tools of his trade—a hammer and a chisel or file.)
2. Why is this manual laborer depicted in a vest, suit jacket, bow tie, and top hat? (Answer: Skilled manual laborers did not wear clothes like these while they worked. This worker donned these clothes specifically for his portrait in order to illustrate his skilled status and the dignity of his occupation. In the rapidly industrializing United States of the mid-nineteenth century, skilled workers emphasized their differences from the growing numbers of unskilled industrial workers.)
3. Compare this photograph to the one earlier in the chapter that depicts the four women weavers from Maine. What are the major similarities and differences? Why are they significant? (Answer: This photograph depicts a single, well-dressed laborer holding the tools of his trade. The previous photograph depicts four similarly dressed female mill operatives holding the tools of their trade. The photo of the woodworker emphasizes his importance as an individual, and the high status and value of his work. The photo of the mill workers emphasizes their lack of individuality, and the drudgery and repetitive nature of mechanical textile operations.)

11. II. The Market Revolution
A. The Transportation Revolution Forges Regional Ties 1. Canals and Steamboats Shrink Distance 2. Railroads Link the North and Midwest

16. II. The Market Revolution
B. The Growth of Cities and Towns 1. West and Midwest 2. Atlantic coastal cities 16

19. III. New Social Classes and Cultures
A. The Business Elite 1. Before industrialization 2. The urban wealthy

20. 1. Describe the scene depicted in this mid-nineteenth century portrait of a family in Hartford, Connecticut. (Answer: This family portrait includes a husband and father seated at the right, wearing an elegant silk robe. His eldest son leans on his chair while his daughter plays the piano. The youngest child holds the family dog. The wife and mother sits behind the daughter, perhaps supervising her piano practice. A very young black servant girl serves fruit to the mother. The elaborately decorated room is part of a larger house, part of which is visible through the doorway.)
2. What does this portrait reveal about the lives of wealthy families in the industrializing northeast in the mid-nineteenth century? (Answer: Elite families had fewer children than in the early nineteenth century; they had leisure time; they had enough wealth to afford large houses with fancy finishings such as wallpaper, paintings, and pianos; they doted on their children and provided them with luxuries like musical training and purebred dogs; they employed servants, some of whom might have been slaves.)

21. III. New Social Classes and Cultures
B. The Middle Class 1. Who they were 2. The self-made man

24. III. New Social Classes and Cultures
C. Urban Workers and the Poor 1. Laborers 2. Alcohol

25. III. New Social Classes and Cultures
D. The Benevolent Empire 1. Conservative social reform 2. Discipline

26. III. New Social Classes and Cultures
E. Charles Grandison Finney: Revivalism and Reform 1. Evangelical Beliefs 2. Temperance

28. III. New Social Classes and Cultures
F. Immigration and Cultural Conflict 1. Irish Poverty 2. Nativism