1. America’s Economic Revolution
APUSH Lecture 3B
(covers Ch. 10)
Mrs. Kray

2. Impact of the Early Industrial Revolution on America
The early Industrial Revolution occurred primarily in the North states and sharpened the division between the North and South
Causes of the “market revolution”
Large supply of labor
Improvements in transportation
Development of corporations
Mechanical innovations
Development of the factory system

3. The Changing American Population

4. Population Surge Causes High birth rate**
After 1830, immigration increasingly important
45% of immigrants Irish
Came b/c of potato famine
Low skill, poor, settled in eastern cities
20% of immigrants German
Drawn by Revolution of 1848
Middle class, educated, many settled in Midwest, anti-slavery
A steadily increasing population meant a steady supply of new labor for the factories and new consumers for the products those factories made.

5. Rise in NAtivism
Nativism = movement hostile to foreigners and their culture
Recurring theme in American history
Know-Nothing Party
Did well in the election of 1854

6. Transportation, Communications, and Technology

7. Growth of Turnpikes 1790s-1820s = Turnpike Era
Cumberland Road, Lancaster Turnpike
By mid-1820s these short roads connected most of the nation’s cities
Supporters of states’ rights blocked spending of federal funds on internal improvements
Monroe’s vetoes, Jackson’s Maysville Road veto
Lancaster Turnpike
Cumberland Road
aka National Road

8. Erie Canal, 1825
It’s successful completion stimulated a canal building craze from 1820s-1830s.
Linked western farms more closely to eastern cities

9. Railroad Boom
After the 1830s, railroad became the main form of transportation for people and products
Impact of all these transportation improvements:
Lower food prices
More westward migration
Closer link between West and North

10. New Technologies stimulate industrialization
Robert Fulton’s steam engine
Samuel Morse’s telegraph
Eli Whitney’s cotton gin and interchangeable parts

11. Commerce and Industry

12. Commerce and Industry
The emerging capitalist economy produced enormous wealth which affected groups differently
Innovative entrepreneurs organized businesses more productively
Created corporations
Allowed businesses to pool resources
Limited liability – stock holders only risked losing the money they had invested
Retail stores began to specialize
Lack of government regulation led to bank failures and financial instability throughout the period

13. the Factory system Focused in the Northeast
First textile factory established 1791
Samuel Slater secretly smuggled the plans in from Britain
The Factory System grows
Embargo of 1807 and War of 1812 stimulated domestic manufacturing
Protective tariffs allowed domestic manufacturing to prosper
Growth of factories stimulated the growth of other industries like banking and insurance
Industrial capitalists replaced merchant capitalists as America’s new upper class

14. Men and Women at Work

15. Finding Workers for the Factories
Most factory workers were originally farmers
More productive Midwestern farms and improved transportation pushed people out of farming in less productive areas like the Northeast
2 patterns emerged:
Families might work in factories
introduced child labor with parental supervision
The Lowell System
The early factories relied heavily on women and children

16. A Closer Look at the Lowell System
System began in Mass.
Employed young, single farm women
worked in the factories and lived in boarding houses
Worked several years, saved wages, returned home to marry
Factory owners tried to provide a “clean moral environment”
Work was difficult and wages and working conditions steadily declined
Women eventually replaced by immigrant workers

17. Life in the Factories
Widespread worker discontent with long hours, low pay, and dangerous working conditions
After 1840, immigrants provided large pool of cheap labor for growing factory economy and internal improvement projects
Irish immigrants flooded New England -- With few skills and plagued by anti-Irish prejudice, they worked for low wages and under poor conditions which further deteriorated the already poor general working conditions

18. The Birth of Labor Unions
Trade unions had been around since the 1790s
Skilled artisans saw their economic and social positions decline as less expensive manufactured goods replaced hand-crafted ones
Organized into unions to defend their status
Major goal of was a 10-hour work day
Early unions saw little success

19. Obstacles to Union Success
State laws outlawed unions
1842: Commonwealth v. Hunt – Mass. Supreme Court declared unions were lawful & strikes legal
Immigrant replacement workers available
Unions often excluded women & immigrants
Frequent economic depressions with high unemployment weakened the movement
Panic of 1837

20. Patterns of Industrial society

21. The End of Self-SUfficiency
Specialization on the farm, the growth of cities, industrialization, & the development of modern capitalism meant a growing interdependence among people
Farmers fed the workers in the cities
Workers provided farmers with mass produced goods

22. The End of Self-Sufficiency
Specialization on the farm, the growth of cities, industrialization, and the development of modern capitalism meant a growing interdependence among people
Farmers fed the workers in the cities
Workers provided farmers with mass produced goods

23. The Rich and the POOR
Income increased dramatically for all Americans but income distribution remained unequal
1860: 5% of families owned 50% of the nation’s wealth
Immigrant groups and free blacks faced prejudice
“Last hired, first fired”; Used as strikebreakers
Absolute standard of living for most workers improved
Middle-class expanded; avoided social unrest found in Europe
Greater chance for economic & social mobility than in Europe
Western lands provided a safety value

24. Characteristics of Working-class Neighborhoods
Crowded
Unsanitary
High Crime
Diseases

25. The Changing Family Declining economic role
Urban household not a center of economic production anymore
Middle-class culture developed around a household divorced from the workplace
Patriarchal system weakened
In the past, fathers had controlled children’s future by controlling land distribution
Now, children would leave the family in search of work in the cities
Fewer children

26. Women AND The “Cult of Domesticity”
Opportunities for women continued to be restricted
Legal rights restricted, especially after marriage
Less access to education than men; mostly elementary level
Separate Spheres and the “Cult of Domesticity”
Growing distinction between public and private spheres, especially among the middle class
Women expected to remain at home and create a moral and virtuous household to balance their husbands’ secular business influence
Married women expected to not work
Female jobs: domestic service, nursing, and teaching