1. The Growth of Industry
In 19th Century America

3. New Inventions High Pressure Steam Engine - Oliver Evans (1800)
Mechanical Reaper - Cyrus McCormick (1831)
Vulcanized Rubber - Charles Goodyear (1844)
First public telegram transmission (1844)
Sewing Machine - Elias Howe (1846)
The growth of American industry due to technological advances that were made in the 1st half of the 1800s.
In 1800, Oliver Evans developed a high pressure steam engine that was adapted to a variety of uses in ships and factories.
In 1831, Cyrus Hall McCormick of Virginia invented the mechanical reaper for harvesting crops. In 1847, he opened a factory in Chicago for the large-scale manufacture of reapers. Furthermore, McCormick was a pioneer in marketing, offering field demonstrations, deferred payment, and guarantees. For advertising, he used customer testimonials.
The reaper was as important to the development of the Old Northwest as the cotton gin was to the South
A flurry of inventions in the 1840s foretold of future changes in America
In 1844, Charles Goodyear patented the vulcanization process for rubber, which makes rubber products stronger and resistant to extremes in temperature. Rubber was used largely for waterproofing clothing.
In the same year, the first public telegram was transmitted from Baltimore to Washington on the device Samuel Morse had invented in 1837.
The telegraph was slow to catch on at first, but within two decades, the continent was wired from coast to coast for near-instant communications.
In 1846, Elias Howe patented his design for the sewing machine, soon improved upon by Allen B. Wilson and Issac Singer.
Adapted for home use, the sewing machine slowed the progress of the factory system

4. The Spread of Factories
American factory system spread out of necessity for manufactured goods prior to 1815
U.S. shipping industry impacted by growth of domestic manufacturing
Peace with England dampened the early boom
American factories spread slowly prior to 1807, when there began a series of events that would stimulate the growth of U.S. manufacturing.
Jefferson’s Embargo Act of 1807 > 1809 Non-Intercourse Act > War of 1812
Necessity dictated the manufacture of substitutes for normal imports, while the stoppage of European commerce was temporarily ruinous to Yankee shipping.
Capital and labor shifted from the waves to the factory floor.
Generous bounties were offered by local authorities for homespun goods. “Buy American” and “Wear American” became popular slogans and patriotism prompted the wearing of baggy homespun garments.
Madison is said to have worn a homespun suit for his inauguration.
The manufacturing boomlet broke abruptly with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent
British competitors unloaded their stocked up surpluses at ruinously low prices.
U.S. newspapers were so full of ads for British goods on credit that little space was left for news.
In one Rhode Island area, all 150 textile mills were forced to close their doors, except the original Slater spinning mill.
Congress responded to cries of relief by passing a mildly protective tariff in 1816.

5. Mass Production
Firearms industry first to utilize mass-produced interchangeable parts
As early as Eli Whitney was developing interchangeable parts
The basis for modern mass-production and assembly line methods
The textile industry was the first industry of America but others soon followed.
Prominent among these was the manufacturing of firearms
Eli Whitney did not get rich off of the Cotton Gin so he continued to invent. He turned to the mass production of muskets for the U.S. Army.
Up to this time, each part of a firearm had been hand-tooled. Parts from one weapon might not fit on another as a replacement.
Around 1798, Whitney seized upon the idea of having machines make the parts so that all triggers, for example, would be alike and interchangeable.
He demonstrated the benefit of this to skeptical govt. procurement officers by disassembling several guns, mixing up the parts, and reassembling them.
The principle of interchangeable parts was widely adopted by 1850, and it was ultimately the basis of modern mass-production and assembly line methods.
It gave the North the vast industrial capacity that ensured a military edge over the South
Interesting - the Yankee Eli Whitney, by perfecting the cotton gin, gave slavery a new lease on life and perhaps made the civil war inevitable.
The same man, by popularizing the principle of interchangeable parts, caused factories to flourish in the North and contributed heavily to the winning of that war by the Union.

6. Improvements in Business Organization
The formation of corporations
Limited liability for individual investors
Boston Associates an early investment capital company
Stock exchanges created to trade corporate shares
Technical advances spurred equally important changes in the form and legal status of business organizations
Most companies had been individually or family owned. Partnerships could recruit additional capital (funds invested in the business)
The principle of limited liability aided the concentration of capital by permitting the individual investor, in case of legal claims or bankruptcy, to risk no more than his own share of the corporation’s stock.
In 1813, fifteen wealthy Boston families formed one of the earliest investment capital companies, the Boston Associates
BA formed a company known as the Boston Manufacturing Company that dominated New England cotton textile manufacturing.
BA eventually dominated the textile, railroad, insurance, and banking business of Massachusetts
The Boston and New York Stock Exchanges were formed for the purpose of trading corporate stocks

7. The Railroad Boom Canal building slowed by late 1830s
Steam locomotives pioneered in England
Railroads development proliferated rapidly in the 1850s
Improvements in rails and standardization of track aided growth
The financial Panic of 1837 and the subsequent depression cooled the canal boom quickly
Some states that had borrowed heavily to finance canals were forced to default on loans. Several canals were left unfinished.
Meanwhile, a new and more versatile form of transportation was gaining on the canal: the railroad.
In 1825, the year the Erie Canal was completed, the world’s first commercial steam railway began operation in England and soon the port cities of Baltimore, Charleston, and Boston were alive with schemes to penetrate the interior by rail.
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad opened 13 miles of track in 1830 to become the first American railroad
By 1840, American railroads, with a total of 3,328 miles of track had outdistanced canals by just two miles.
Over the next 20 years, however, railroads grew nearly tenfold to cover 30,626 miles; more than a third of this total was built in the 1850s.
It was not until the eve of the Civil War that railroads surpassed canals in total tonnage hauled.
Early railroads and locomotives presented some difficulties. Wood was initially used to stoke boilers and sparks often caused fires along tracks or damaged passengers’ clothing
The creation of spark arresters and the use of coal for fuel lessened the hazard.
Different track widths often forced passengers or freight to change trains until a standard gauge was adopted in 1882.
The use of iron rails enabled railroads to support the newer, heavier trains being developed.

8. Benefits of Railroads Greater and faster access to the West
Cheaper shipping aided farmers
Stimulated supporting industries such as iron and coal
Provided reliable, all-weather, year-round transportation for people and goods
Some negative effects as well
Water travel, where available, offered far more comfort, but railroads gained supremacy over other forms of transportation because of their economy, speed, and reliability.
Railroads provided indirect benefits by encouraging frontier settlement and boosting farming.
During the antebellum period, the reduced shipping costs provided by the railroads aided the expansion of farming more than manufacturing, since manufacturers in the Northeast, especially New England, had better access to water transportation.
The railroads’ demand for iron and equipment of various kinds, however, did provide an enormous market for the industries that made railroad related goods.
The ability of railroads to operate year-round in all kinds of weather gave them an advantage in carrying goods.
By opening up new possibilities for quick and often shady profits, the railroad boom encouraged corruption in political life.
By opening up access to the trans-Appalachian West, the railroad boom helped accelerate the decline of Indian cultures.
The addition of the railroad to American life dramatically quickened the tempo of life and the mobility of people.