1. The North’s Economy Chapter 13, Lesson 1

2. Technology and Industry ► In 1800 most Americans worked on farms.  Anything that could not be manufactured from home, were made one by one, by blacksmiths, shoemakers and tailors. ► By the early 1800s, power-driven machinery began to appear completing tasks once done by hand.  Industrialization began to change the way Americans worked, traveled, and communicated.

3. Industrialization ► The North’s industrialization occurred in three phases:  Phase 1: Manufacturers made products by dividing the task involved amongst workers. ► Example: One person spun thread all day while the other person weaved.  Phase 2: Factories are built to bring specialized workers together. ► Allowed for products to be made more quickly.  Phase 3: Factory workers used machinery to perform some of their work. ► Many new machines ran water or were steam powered.  Power driven looms to over the task of weaving.  The workers new job became to maintain the machine, which produced more clothes in less time. ► Mass production of cotton in New England began in the early 1800s.

4. Industrialization ► Elias Howe (1846) – Inventor of the sewing machine.  Clothing could be produced on a larger scale from fabrics made by machines. ► Other types of industries also developed and by 1860, the Northeast’s factories produced at least two-thirds of the countries manufactured goods.

5. Improved Transportation ► Improvements in transportation also helped many of America’s new industries.  Between 1800 and 1850, construction crews built thousands of miles of canals and roads. ► Canals opened up many new shipping routes by connecting lakes and rivers. ► The growth of railroads in the 1840s and 1850s also helped speed the flow of goods. ► Robert Fulton (Inventor; 1807) – demonstrated a reliable steamboat.  Steamboats carried goods and passengers more cheaply and faster along inland waterways than could flatboats or sail-powered vessels.

6. Improved Transportation ► Canals were deepened and widened in the 1840s to accommodate steamboats.  By 1860 about 3,000 steamboats traveled along major rivers and canals of the country as well as the Great Lakes. ► Aided in the growth of cities like Cincinnati, Buffalo, and Chicago. ► Sailing ships improved in the 1840s.  Clipper Ships – Sleek hulls and tall sails. ► Considered the pride of the open seas. ► Sail 300 miles per day (as fast as some of the steam ships of the time.) ► Name cam from its ability to “clip” time from long journeys ► The voyage from Great Britain on other ships of the time did so in about 21 to 28 days, but the clipper made the trip in half the time.

7. A clipper ship, The Flying Cloud Sailed from New York to California in less than 90 days.

8. Locomotives ► Railroad use began with short stretches of track connecting mines with nearby rivers.  Early trains were pulled by horse rather than by locomotives. ► The first steam-powered passenger locomotive, the Rocket, began operating in Britain in 1829. ► Peter Cooper (1830) – Built the first American steam locomotive.  Known as Tom Thumb, it did not start off well, losing to a horse- draw train in Baltimore when its engine failed.  Engineers improved on the engine, and within 1o years steam locomotives were pulling trains in the United States.

10. A Railway Network ► In 1840, the U.S. had almost 3,000 miles of railroad track.  Just twenty years later, it had almost 31,000 miles (mostly in the North and Midwest.)  One linked New York City and Buffalo, another connected Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and another linked Baltimore with Wheeling, Virginia (now West Virginia). ► Railway builders connected these eastern lines to lines being built further west in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.  By 1860, a network of railroad track united the Midwest and the East.

12. Moving Goods and People ► Just like canals, railways affected trade in the nation’s interior.  These changes came about with the opening of the Eerie Canal in 1825 and the first railroads in the 1830s. ► Before this, agricultural goods were shipped down the Mississippi to New Orleans where it was shipped to other countries or the East coast. ► The development of the east-west canal and the rail network allowed grain, livestock, and dairy products to move directly to the Midwest to the East.  Now that goods traveled faster and more cheaply, they could be sold in the East at lower prices. ► It also helped with the settlement and industrialization of the Midwest.  Fast and affordable, train travel allowed people into Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois and as population grew so did new towns and industries.

13. Faster Communication ► Growth of industry and the new pace of travel created a need for faster methods of communication.  The telegraph – device that used electrical signals to transmit messages. ► Samuel Morse (Inventor; May 24, 1844) – Had been seeking support for a system of telegraph lines.  Morse demonstrated that he could transmit messages instantly along wires.  He sent the message “What has God Wrought?” to Baltimore in Washington D.C.  Soon he was receiving messages right back.  His message was being transmitted in Morse Code (a series of dots and dashes representing letters of the alphabet.) ► Skilled Morse code operators could quickly tap out messages in the dot-and-dash alphabet.

14. Faster Communication ► Americans adopted the system eagerly.  A British visitor was amazed at the speed which Americans created telegraph companies and erected telegraph lines, writing that Americans were driven to “annihilate distance” in their vast country. ► By 1852 the U.S. was operating about 23,000 miles of telegraph lines.

15. Agriculture ► Railroads granted farmers new access to different markets to sell their products.  Advances in technology also allowed farmers to greatly increase the size of the harvest they produced. ► In the early 1800s, few farmers had ventured into the treeless Great Plains west of Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota. ► Areas of mixed forest and prairie west of Ohio and Kentucky seemed too difficult for farming. ► Settlers worried that their wooden plows could not break the prairie’s matted sod and that the soil was not fertile.

16. Revolution in Agriculture ► Three Revolutionary inventions of the 1830s changed farming methods and encouraged settlers to cultivate larger areas of the West.  John Deere (1837) – Invented the Steel-Tipped Plow. ► Deere’s plow easily cut through the hard packed sod of the prairies.  Mechanical Reaper – sped up the harvesting of wheat.  Thresher – quickly separated grain from stalk.

17. McCormick’s Reaper ► Cyrus McCormick – designed and constructed the mechanical reaper and made a fortune.  He became interested in making machines to ease the burden of farming.  Before his invention farmers had harvested grain with handheld sickles for hundreds and his machine could harvest much faster than traditional sickles. ► Since it could be harvested so quickly, it made farming wheat much more profitable.  His invention solidified growing wheat in the Midwestern prairies as the main economic activity. ► New machines and railroads helped farmers plant more cash crops.  More farmers planted wheat and shipped it east through barges on canals or by railroad.

18. McCormick’s Reaper ► In the Northeast and Middle Atlantic began growing fruit and vegetables that grew well in Eastern soil. ► The Northeast would eventually shy-away from farming, and begin focusing on industry.  It was much more difficult to farm in the Northeast and industry was flourishing in the area. ► The number of people working in factories began to rise and so did problems related to factory labor.