1. Nat Turner Rebellion and Industrial Revolution Recap
Unit 6
Westward Expansion

2. August 1831
Nat Turner, a plantation slave in Virginia, organizes a bloody rebellion that left many (70 whites) dead.
Turner gathered 50 followers and moved from plantation to plantation.
Visited four plantations and slaughtered about 70 white inhabitants.
Turner hid out for several weeks but was eventually captured, “tried” and hanged.
In retaliation, whites killed more than 200 blacks, most of whom had never heard of Nat Turner.

3. Reaction to Nat Turner’s Rebellion
The Turner rebellion frightened and outraged slaveholders.
Many believed that the revolt was caused by education and privilege amongst slaves.
Served to strengthen Southern whites conviction that they needed to defend slavery and control their slaves.
In other parts of the United States, some argued that the only way to prevent slave revolts was through emancipation. Southern states did not share this sentiment.
Motion proposed in Congress to gradually abolish slavery— lost by a 73 – 58 vote. This ended the debate on slavery in the antebellum period.

4. Slave Codes Southern states forbade free and enslaved blacks from:
Preaching
Owning guns
Voting
Assembling in public
Purchasing alcohol
Testifying in courts
Owning property
Learning to read/ write
Working independently (carpenters/ blacksmith)

5. Industrial Revolution

6. Pre-Industrial Revolution
In the early 19th century, Americans produced in their own homes almost all of the manufactured items their families needed.
By 1820, only the first step in the manufacture of clothing—the spinning of cotton into thread—had be successfully mechanized.
Putting-out System: A system of production in which manufacturers provided the materials for goods to be produced in the home.

7. Waltham and Lowell Massachusetts
When Patrick Tracy Jackson, Nathan Appleton, and Francis Cabot Lowell opened their weaving factories in Massachusetts, their power looms replaced the putting out system.
Mechanizing the entire process and housing all of the tools in the same place greatly reduced the production time, as well as the cost of textile manufacture.
By the 1830s, the company that Francis Cabot Lowell and his partners had formed owned eight factories in Massachusetts with over 6,000 employees.

8. Early Factories
While textiles led the way, other areas of manufacture also shifted from homes to factories.
Master craftsmen (who often build furniture) traditionally crafted their products by hand until the 1820s when manufacturers began using production processes that depended on the use of interchangeable parts.
The rapid spread of factory production revolutionized industry.
The cost of making and repairing household items dramatically dropped.
In addition, new machines allowed unskilled workers to perform tasks that once had taken the effort of trained artisans.
To do this work; however, unskilled workers needed to move from their rural homes to factory towns such as Lowell.

9. Strict Rules
At boarding houses, the “mill girls” lived under strict curfews.
The supervisors closely monitored the girls’ behavior and church attendance.
By 1828, women made up 9/10 of the work force in New England mills—and four out of five women were not 30 years old.

10. Lowell Mill
Mill owners sought female employees because they could pay women lower wages.
To the girls in the mills, textile work offered better pay than their only alternatives: teaching, sewing, and domestic work.
Conditions:
Workday began at 5 am It was HOT and dark There was poor ventilation
Contributed to discomfort and illness amongst female workers.

11. Strikes at Lowell
First in 1834 when the Lowell mills announced a 15 percent wage cut, 800 mill girls organized a strike—a work stoppage in order to force their employer to respond to their demands.
In 1836, Lowell mill workers struck again over an increase in board charges that was equivalent to a 12.5 percent pay cut.
1830s and 40s saw dozens of strikes for higher wages, better work conditions, and shorter work days.
Growth of National Trade Union membership.
In 1842, the Massachusetts Supreme Court supported workers’ rights to strike in the case of Commonwealth v. Hunt.

12. Immigration Increases
European immigration rose dramatically in the United States between
In the decade of , nearly 3 million immigrants were added to the population that only numbered about 20 million.
Most immigrants avoided the South because slavery limited their economic opportunity and Southerners were generally hostile to European, particularly Catholic, immigrants.
German Immigrants: clustered in the upper Mississippi Valley and Ohio Valley
Irish Immigrants: congregated in the large cities of the East, most came after the Great Potato Famine in 1850s.