Chapter 9

Workers, Farmers, and SlavesThe Transformation of the American Economy, 1815–1848

How did the dominant labor systems of the North and the South differ from one another?

CHAPTER NINE: WORKERS, FARMERS, AND SLAVES: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMY, 1815-1848

I. The Market Revolution

II. The Spread of Industrialization

III. The Changing Urban Landscape

IV. Southern Society

V. Life and Labor Under Slavery

CHAPTER NINE: WORKERS, FARMERS, AND SLAVES: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMY, 1815-1848

I. The Market RevolutionA. Agricultural Changes and

Consequences

B. A Nation on the Move: Roads, Canals, Steamboats, and Trains

C. Spreading the News

CHAPTER NINE: WORKERS, FARMERS, AND SLAVES: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMY, 1815-1848

How did technology change agriculture in the era of the market revolution?

The Market Revolution

Market Revolution - A set of interrelated developments in agriculture, technology, and industry that led to the creation of a more integrated national economy. Impersonal market forces impelled the maximization of production of agricultural products and manufactured goods and increase consumption.

The Market Revolution

What role did technological change play in the improvements in agriculture during the era of the market revolution? What kind of impact on values did such changes foster?

Why did the Farmers Almanac frown on huskings and frolics?

Agricultural Changes and Consequences

What role did the railroad play as a symbol of American progress?

What impact did the Erie Canal have on New York’s economy?

A Nation on the Move: Roads, Canals, Steamboats, and Trains

How did George Inness view technological progress in his paintings of the Lackawanna Valley?

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How did the telegraph transform communication?

What examples of the transportation revolution are evident in this Currier and Ives image of progress?

Spreading the News

Telegraph - Invention patented by Samuel Morse in 1837 that used electricity to send coded messages over wires, making communication nearly instantaneous.

Spreading the News

A. From Artisan to Worker

B. Women and Work

C. The Lowell Experiment

D. Urban Industrialization

The Spread of Industrialization

How did the factory change the nature of work?

From Artisan to Worker

Artisan Production - A system of manufacturing goods, built around apprenticeship, that defined the preindustrial economy. The apprentice learned a trade under the guidance of an artisan who often housed, clothed, and fed the apprentice.

From Artisan to Worker

How did nineteenth-century ideas about gender roles affect the organization of the Lowell system?

Women and Work

What was the Lowell system?

The Lowell Experiment

Waltham System - Also known as the mill town model, a system that relied on factories housing all the distinctive steps of cloth production under a single roof. The Waltham System depended on a large labor force housed in company-owned dormitories.

The Lowell Experiment

How did urban industrialization differ from other models of industrialization such as the Waltham (Lowell) model?

Urban Industrialization

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How did ideas about gender shape the response of critics of the Lowell strike?

A. Old Port Cities and the New Cities of the Interior

B. Immigrants and the City

C. Free Black Communities in the North

D. Riot, Unrest, and Crime 

The Changing Urban Landscape

What was the Five Points neighborhood and why did it become so well known?

What does the creation of gated parks such as Gramercy Park tell us about urban life in this period?

Old Port Cities and the New Cities of the Interior

How did immigration patterns change in the early nineteenth century?

Immigrants and the City

Free Black Communities in the North

What historical changes led to increased urban violence in the early nineteenth century?

What does the murder of Helen Jewett reveal about nineteenth-century city life?

Riot, Unrest, and Crime

A. The Planter Class

B. Yeomen and Tenant Farmers

C. Free Black Communities

D. White Southern Culture

Southern Society

What does plantation architecture tell us about Southern society?

What values defined the planter class?

How did slavery impact gender roles among the planter class?

The Planter Class

Yeomen and Tenant Farming

How did slavery shape Southern society? In what ways did slavery impact the lives of non-slaveholders in the South?

What role did honor play in Southern culture?

White Southern Culture

A. Varied Systems of Slave Labor

B. Life in the Slave Quarters

C. Slave Religion and Music

D. Resistance and Revolt

E. Slavery and the Law

Life and Labor Under Slavery

Where was the Black Belt?

What role did violence play in slave society?

Varied Systems of Slave Labor

Black Belt - A swathe of dark rich soil well suited to cotton agriculture that stretched from Alabama westward, and eventually reached the easternmost part of Texas.

Varied Systems of Slave Labor

Why did so many slaves marry slaves living on other plantations?

Life in the Slave Quarters

How did slaves modify Christianity to articulate their distinctive religious vision?

Why did Old Testament themes figure so prominently in slave spirituals?

Slave Religion and Music

Spirituals - Religious songs created by slaves. Spirituals’ symbolism drew heavily on biblical themes.

Slave Religion and Music

Who was Nat Turner?

Resistance and Revolt

Nat Turner’s Rebellion - The 1831 Virginia slave uprising led by Nat Turner shocked many in the South and led to a host of new repressive measures against slaves.

Resistance and Revolt

Why did Judge Ruffin (see Choices and Consequences: Conscience or Duty, Judge Ruffin’s Quandary) argue that the power of the master must beabsolute over the slave?

Slavery and the Law

State v. Mann - The 1829 North Carolina Supreme Court case that involved a white man’s assault on a slave. The case asserted that the domination of the master over the slave was complete.

Slavery and the Law

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Does the law of slavery the claim that the law is a tool of the powerful or a constraint on the powerful?

How did the market revolution change American society in the North and South?

Conclusion