1. Market Revolution and Transportation Revolution Part 2

2. The Market Revolution
By 1840, improved transportation & innovation reduced time & cost to ship goods & allowed for a national market economy:
U.S. developed a self-sustaining national economy of commercial farming & manufactured goods
But, the U.S. economy was driven by regional specialization
Northern industry
Southern cotton production
Western commercial farming

3. The Market Revolution Transportation Revolution Forges Regional Ties
Canals, roads, steamboats, railroads, improved transportation, created larger markets, and opened new lands up to settlement
Transportation promoted diversified economies in the Northeast and Midwest, but not in the South

4. Changes in the Social Structure The Business Elite
Industrialization led to distinct social classes
Urbanization and wealth set the elite apart
Federal and state tax policies favored the wealthy
Early Industrialization in Ohio

5. Changes in the Social Structure The Middle Class
Up to 30% of the Northeast was middle class by 1840s
Growth in income and availability of cheap goods grew middle class
Middle class values: education, hard work, discipline
“The Progress of the Century” by Currier & Ives

6. Changes in the Social Structure Urban Workers and the Poor
In 1840, ½ of white workers were wage laborers
The poor faced low wages, slums and alcoholism
NYC Five Points Tenement, c. 1850s

7. America in 1840 The Antebellum South
Cotton production divided society in the Deep South:
Large plantations with lots of slaves made good money
Poor yeoman (with few or no slaves) mixed commercial & subsistence farming

9. Slave Population, 1820
Slave Population, 1840
Slave Population, 1860

10. America in 1840 The Antebellum West Land was cheap
Settlers transformed the West from wilderness to cash-producing farms:
Wheat & corn
Hogs & cattle
Better transportation made it easier for farmers to get their goods to market

11. America in 1840 The Antebellum North
Shifted from yeoman to small commercial farming
Made manufactured goods for farmers in the West & South
Experienced rapid urbanization

12. The Market Revolution The Growth of Cities and Towns
Cities, especially in the West, Midwest and the “fall line” grew quickly
NYC with its harbor and Erie Canal dominated foreign and domestic trade
Painting of the Erie Canal

13. U.S. Urban Centers

14. American Population Centers in 1820

15. The Market Revolution
New innovations made work easier & improved American industry & agriculture
However, the U.S. was not an “industrial society” in the 1840s
60% of the population were still involved in farming
Most production was still done traditionally in small workshops

16. Essential Question:
What problems developed as a result of American industrialism & immigration from ?

17. Mass Immigration Begins

18. Mass Immigration Begins
From 1840 & 1860, 4 million Irish & Germans immigrated to America
Motivations for immigration:
Most came for higher wages in northern industrial jobs
The potato blight from
brought
1.5 million Irish immigrants
Low fares on trans-Atlantic
ships made access easier
Incentive to mechanize, in part, stimulated by lack of labor in North & South. In addition, the new technology created demand for more industry

19. Between , millions of immigrants-Irish, German and Britons poured into the U.S. (OLD IMMIGRANTS)
Germans settled in the midwest and Irish settled the Northeast.
Many were Catholic –met with hostility (Nativism)-America=Protestant

20. Immigration to the US 1820-1860 Where did immigrants go? Farmers
Industrial workers
Gold miners
Cotton farming & cattle

21. Mass Immigration Begins
In 1836, 4% of the Lowell Mill workers were foreign-born; By % were foreign-born
Immigrants filled low-paying jobs in northern cities or migrated into the West to become farmers
This vast pool of cheap labor provided fuel for the U.S. Industrial Revolution in 1850s
In the 1840s, factory labor began to shift from American women & children to immigrant men

22. Mass Immigration Begins
Low immigrant wages contributed to urban slums where poverty, disease, & crime were common
This influx of immigration led to urban reform movements:
Provided police forces, sanitized water, sewage disposal, & improved housing standards
But the immigrant poor were largely unaffected by the results
Affluent city dwellers moved to America’s 1st suburbs

23. Anti-Immigrant Reaction
Immigrant groups were met with prejudice (esp the Irish Catholics) & tension in 1840s & 1850s
Nativism emerged among American-born citizens:
Suspicion of the new ethnic neighborhoods & alien cultures
Led to bloody anti-Catholic riots, charges of despotism, & anti-Irish propaganda

24. Nativist propaganda targeting German & Irish immigrants
Anti-Catholic “Native American” mob battling the state militia in Philadelphia in 1844

25. Conclusions
In the 1830s & 1840s, the USA was growing more democratic & economically self-sufficient:
Innovation & transportation improvements connected regional specialization into a nation market economy
This economic growth will stimulate a sense of “manifest destiny” into the West & sectional divisions between North & South
In the 1830s & 1840s, territorial & technological growth led to important changes in America:
Improved transportation
Rapid technological innovation
A growing national economy
Mass European immigration
Desire for transcontinental expansion (“Manifest Destiny”)

26. Films and Books Little Women (1994, Columbia Pictures, 115 minutes)
Directed by Gillian Armstrong, this film re- creates Louisa May Alcott’s book chronicling the values of the white middle class during the mid- nineteenth century.
• Gangs of New York (2002, Miramax Films, 168 minutes)
Directed by Martin Scorsese, this reenact- ment of the Five Points district of New York City also illuminates the historical context of immi- gration and nativism in 1846.
Literature
• Tyler Anbinder, Five Points (New York: Penguin, 2001)
Historical fiction at its best. Anbinder illu- minates the challenges faced by Irish immigrants in New York City (as seen in Gangs of New York).