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)