Industrialization and Reform

Kids at the Oneida Community Dancing

Economic Transformation

• Agriculture to Manufacturing– 1820: 80% are farmers– 1850: 55% are farmers. Manufacturing = 1/3rd of all

production• Rising Consumption Fuels Demand

– Cash crop production pays for new goods– This demand motivates creating cheaper transportation

• Roads• Canals• Trains

The National Road

The Transportation Revolution Begins (1825-40)

• Water transport is cheaper• Canals boom 1825-40: 3000 miles

– This begins in 1825 with the Erie Canal• Joint Public/Private venture • 325 miles long• 10 times cheaper transport!

The Erie Canal (1825)

Trains

• Invented for mines• Requires iron boom• 3000 miles by 1840• States aid rise of

rail• Facilitates regional

unity

Political Support

• Public/Private ventures fuel Transport Boom

• Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)– Overthrows a steamboat monopoly in NY– Only Federal Government can regulate

interstate transit and commerce!

Urbanization: Big Picture

• 1790– 1 in 20 in 2,500 or more– Philadelphia: 40,000

• 1850– 1 in 7 in 2,500 or more– 10 cities of 50,000+– NYC = over 800,000– Most cities in North

Urbanization: Transport

• Cities are too big to walk around now• New Urban Transport

– omnibuses (horse-drawn)– steam ferries– commuter rail

• City districts take on distinct purposes• Population outraces new housing, creating slums.

City Types• Ports – NYC, Boston, Philadelphia, New

Orleans• Interior Transport Hubs—Cleveland,

Chicago, Saint Louis• Industrial Cities

– New England– Immigrants dominate the population

Immigration

• Upheavals in Europe drive immigration of Germans and Irish

• They compete with former artisans for city jobs.

The Industrial Revolution Begins

• Slavery and war drive enhanced wealth + demand for goods

• Artisans can't keep up with demand• At first, farmers do part-time craft work• New machines begin to replace artisan labor

– Spinning Jenny (Thread)– Mechanical Looms (Cloth)

Labor Problems

• How do you get factory workers?– Rhode Island System (farms + factory

work)– Waltham System (hire young women who

need money and can't get married)– The Irish (will do anything to avoid

starving)

The Cotton Gin

• Eli Whitney invents it in 1793

• Goal is to speed raw cotton processing

• Cotton production now BOOMS.

The Steam Engine

• Invented by James Watt in 1763-75

• Enabled replacing muscle power with machine power

• Coal powered

Replaceable Parts

• Eli Whitney invents in early 1800s for guns

• Allows standard parts

• This eases repair and construction

• Machines can make other machines!

The Rise of Class: The Rise of Elites

• Colonial Elites based on land– Strongly Rural

• Industrial Elites based on owning means of industrial production

– Strongly URBAN

The Rise of Class:The Making of the Middle Class

• Professionals, Small Businessmen, Middle Managers

• Evangelical in Religion• They reject Alcohol consumption• Women are expected to stay home and raise

kids (Cult of Domesticity)– They can afford to do this.

The Working Classes

• Those who must work for wages– Day labor on farms– Factory workers– Many are ex-Artisans, replaced by

machines• They form the first unions• Often hostile to Immigrants

Evangelical Reform

• Fix society by eliminating sin!– Keep the Sabbath holy (and not fun)– Bible societies and Sunday Schools– Eliminate Alcohol!

• Run by interlocking societies (The Benevolent Empire)

Reverend Lyman Beecher

• Congregationalist Preacher

• Leader of the Sabbatarian movement

Temperance Reform

• 1826: 7.1 gallons of pure alcohol/adult/year!!!

• American Temperance Society is formed

• A Middle Class movement

Temperance

• Successes by 1851– Many dry

counties– Down to 1.9

gallons/ adult/ year

• Failures– Most

Americans still drink a lot

– Angers Working Class

Crusading Women

• MC women go out to reform the world, despite gender rules of the time.

• Auxillaries → founding their own groups• Rising Militancy

– American Female Moral Reform Society• Many states ban adultery and abandonment

Backlash Against Evanglical Reform

• Catholics dislike it due to old feuds• WC resents bosses trying to control their

homelife• Some men complain women have taken

over the churches

Joseph Smith

• NY Farmer• Claims to find a

new revelation from God, the Book of Mormon

• Founds a new Religion

Mormonism / The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

• Condemns other churches as evil• Male authority is supreme

– Polygamy practiced by older men• They live communally• Heavily persecuted• They flee to Utah.

The Enlightenment Impulse: School Reform

• School Reform– Starts in Massachusetts (1837)– Six years of State-funded education for all– Much more common in North than South– By 1860, 50% of Whites are literate

The Enlightenment Impulse:Places of Confinement

• Goal: Micro-Society changes your bad behavior

• Types– Prison (Criminals)– Insane Asylum (Insane)– Workhouse (Poor)

• Limited success in goals due to bad design

Utopians: The Shakers

• Mystic Group Dancers

• Celibate• Communal Property• 6000 at height• Economically

Successful

Utopians: The Oneida Community (1847-79)

• John Noyes--Founder

• Common Property• Group Marriage

(everyone adult!)• Effort at Gender

Equality

Utopian Experiments: Socialism

• New Harmony (1825-9)– Communal

property and production

– Lacked a central vision

• Owen's vision of the town (the plan)

Brook Farm

• 1841-7• Intellectuals try to

farm due to delusions about nature

• Ends in financial ruin due to bad management and fires

The Colonization Movement

• American Colonization Society– Voluntary

Emancipation– 1,400 slaves sent to

Liberia– Fades after 1830

Abolitionism

• African-Americans are first to organize abolitionism

• Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World (1829)

– Uses Declaration of Independence ideas, like equality of all men

William Lloyd Garrison

• A printer turned abolitionist after being put in jail

• Calls for immediate abolition!

• Inspires the Radical Abolitionists

Organized Abolitionism

• The American Anti-Slavery Society (1833)– White/Black Alliance– Uses Evangelical Persuasion Methods– Many are evangelicals– Women play a huge role, like former slave

owner Angelica Grimke– Unable to persuade public by moral

appeals alone

Political Abolitionism

• The Liberty Party (1840)– First Abolitionist PARTY.

• “The Slave Power”– Many come to fear South is out to cram

slavery down everyone's throat– They notice South has no free speech,

mail is censored, etc.

Women's Rights

• Female Abolitionists found this• 1848: Seneca Falls Convention• Presses for right to vote and right to

property• By Civil War, many states allow women

more property rights!• (Right to vote: 1919)