The Northeast:Building Industry

Chapter 8

People to meetEli Whitney~ created concept of interchangeable parts & cotton gin

Samuel Slater~ British factory worker who brought industrial

designs to America

Francis Cabot Lowell~ created textile mill with all processes under

one roof

Robert Fulton~ developed steamboat capable of sailing up the

Hudson River

Henry Boyd~ African American owned furniture manufacturing

business in OH

Samuel Cornish & John B. Russwurm~ African Americans who co-

founded first African American newspaper

Sara G. Bagley~Founded Lowell Female Labor Reform Org in MA

Horace Mann~ Head of MA board of Ed & reform leader

T. Gallaudet~ developed teaching for hearing impaired

Dr. Samuel G. Howe~ developed book with large, raised letters to

help the sight impaired read

Dorothea Dix~ worked to improve conditions in prisons & for the

mentally ill

Margaret Fuller~ Writer who supported women’s rights

Ralph Waldo Emerson~ Writer who urged people to listen to their inner voice of conscience & stop prejudice

Henry David Thoreau~ Writer who believed in peaceful protest through civil disobedience (Went to jail for not paying taxes to support war with Mexico)

Emily Dickinson~ poet; wrote simple, emotional poetry

Lucretia Mott~ Quaker who worked for women’s rights

Elizabeth Cady Stanton~ abolitionist & suffragist

Susan B. Anthony~ suffragist who called for equal pay &

college training for women

Mary Lyon~ started Mt. Holyoke Female Seminary in MA

Elizabeth Blackwell~ Dressed as a man to attend

medical school & was top of her class

*Henry Clay (chart pg. 130) ~ Congressman who supported the “American System” & national road

Assembly Line vs. Manual Labor

Mass Production Handmade1. 1.

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The Industrial Revolution Spreads to North America

• Began in Britain ~became world’s leading industrial power.

• Despite laws preventing immigration of skilled workers & against recruiting, immigrants took inventions and ideas to America.

(Penalties if caught smuggling plans or blueprints of machines out of country)

• Example~ Sam Slater…

Sam Slater: Traitor or Hero?

• In 1768, at 15 became apprentice in a textile mill

• Hard worker, promoted to overseer of the mill

• Learned of recruiting agents for the Americas– Philadelphia newspaper reported reward of 100 pounds for anyone who

could produce replacement parts for Harbreaves’ spinning jenny.

• Once apprenticeship was complete (6 ½ years), he would immigrate to the Americas; land of promise

• Memorized drawings of machines

• Disguised as a farmer, hid apprentice papers sewn in his coat, boarded a ship, & arrived in New York in November, 1789

• Heard that mill owner Moses Brown, from Pawtucket, Rhode Island, was having trouble w/his textile machines

• Slater offered to help Brown with a money-back guarantee: “If I don’t make as good a yarn as they do in England, I will have nothing for my services.”

• Brown hired him~By 1790 had 72-spindle mill running smoothly~Rebuilt mill in 1793 when it couldn’t meet the demand for

cloth

• Brown introduced Slater to Orziel Wilkinson iron foundry owner & Slater redrew all the parts from memory

• Slater partnered with Wilkinson’s son & by 1809 they had 17 mills around Providence, Rhode Island, w/a capacity of 14,290 spindles.

• By Slater’s death April 20, 1835 textile industry was the foundation for other industries & is still major in US

Was Sam Slater a traitor or a hero?

Spinning Mill Spindle

Interchangeable Parts

• Identical parts that can be substituted in the manufacture or repair of a product

• Invented by Eli Whitney ~ muskets for U.S. govt

• Required less skilled laborers

Assembly Lines• Each worker adding one part in order to

create a finished product

• Used first in Lowell’s textile (clothes) factories

• Resulted in the construction of factories across the Northern U.S.

Francis Lowell

• In 1814, Francis Lowell opened a textile factory in Waltham, MA.

•Went far beyond Slater’s mill~ all stages of cloth making under one roof

• As a result, the U.S. no longer had to buy finished textile products from Europe!

Water Power in New England

• Water power ~essential for the new textile mills

• New England states ~lots of streams to supply needed power & ports to ship finished goods

The states of New England are Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Together, they form the northeastern most point of the United States.

Factory Workers

•Cities developed as farmers and immigrants took

available factory jobs. (Tenement apartments)

Ex.) 12-15 hour work days

Earnings: men - $5 per week women - $2 per week

children - $ 1 per week

• Due to harsh factory conditions, workers organized labor unions & fought to gain the right to strike by the courts.

*Working hours were long, and wages were low.

Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin

• Cotton demand increased b/c textile industry

• Removed seeds from cotton fiber

• Made 1 worker as fast as 50

• Cotton production (bales per year) 1790 ~ 3,000

1820 ~ 300,000

• People moved West to plant more cotton (Slave ?)

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• Although many went to work in factories, in 1820, 65% of Northeast population still farmers

Notable Quotable…

I know of no pursuit I know of no pursuit in life in which more in life in which more real and important real and important services can be services can be rendered to any rendered to any country than by country than by improving its improving its agriculture, its breed agriculture, its breed of useful animals, and of useful animals, and other branches of a other branches of a husbandman’s care.husbandman’s care.

George Washington

Notable Quotable…

There seems to be 3 There seems to be 3 ways for a nation to ways for a nation to acquire wealth: the acquire wealth: the first is by war...this is first is by war...this is robbery: the second by robbery: the second by commerce, which is commerce, which is generally cheating: the generally cheating: the third by agriculture, third by agriculture, the only honest way...the only honest way...

Benjamin Franklin

Notable Quotable…Cultivators of the Cultivators of the earth are the earth are the most valuable most valuable citizens. They citizens. They are the most are the most vigorous, the vigorous, the most most independent, the independent, the most wedded to most wedded to its liberty and its liberty and interests, by the interests, by the most lasting most lasting bonds.bonds.

Thomas Jefferson

Transportation• In 1820, Congressman Henry Clay prepared a

program to improve transportation & economy called “the American System”

• Canals & roads to link South, Northeast & west

• To bring U.S. “to that height which God & nature had destined it.” ~ Henry Clay

Notable Quotable…

Every nation Every nation should … be able should … be able to feed and clothe to feed and clothe and defend itself. and defend itself. If it rely upon a If it rely upon a foreign supply that foreign supply that may be cut off…it may be cut off…it cannot be cannot be independent. independent. Henry Clay

Roads and Turnpikes

• Financed by both state & federal gov’t $

• National Road~ most important; started 1811

– from Cumberland, MD to Wheeling, VA in 1818– to Columbus, OH in 1833– To Vandalia, IL in 1852

• Made moving goods cheaper & opened West

(Conestoga wagons)

Canals• Lower cost of shipping & handling produce

• Erie Canal~ 1817-1825; mostly Irish immigrants

– 42 feet wide & 4 feet deep– from Hudson R. at Troy, NY to Buffalo on Lake Erie– Shipping from $100 a ton to $5 a ton

• By 1837, U.S. network of 3,000 miles of canals

Steamboats• Throughout American history, people relied

on rivers & lakes for transp. (even native Americans)

• Always depended on forces of nature until…– 1787, John Fitch steam craft on Delaware R.

– 1807, Robert Fulton’s Claremont went up the Hudson R.

– 1811, first to travel Ohio R. & on to MS R. to New Orleans

• By 1840, 80% traffic on MS R. steam-powered

Railroads

• 1828 businessmen in Baltimore began work on RR to Ohio R.

• Tom Thumb ran on wooden rails up to 10 mph

• Increase in miles of track... (Chinese Immigrants)

– 1840’s, nearly 3,000 miles of track

– 1850~ 9,000

– 1860~ 30,000