Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
#1 INDUSTRIALIZATION Industrialization—the shift from an agricultural economy to one based on production and manufacturing—completely changed the northern and western economy between 1820 and 1860. For a country whose economy used to be almost 90% agricultural, the Industrial Revolution of the early and mid 19th century transformed American society in every way possible, making wealth, production, competition, and labor the pillars of the Northern States. Steam ENGINE 1775-James Watt James Watts creates the most efficient Steam Engine in the mid 19th century. Steamships and Railroads, which relied on the Steam Engine, allowed for the quicker transportation of raw materials that could be used to produce finished goods. Cotton Gin 1793-Eli Whitney The cotton gin is a machine designed to remove cotton from its seeds. The process uses a small screen and pulling hooks to force the cotton through the screen. It was invented by Eli Whitney on March 14, 1794, one of the many inventions that occurred during the American Industrial Revolution. The cotton gin made the cotton industry of the south explode. Prior to its invention, separating cotton fibers from its seeds was a labor intensive and unprofitable venture. However, after Eli Whitney unveiled the cotton gin, processing cotton became much easier resulting in greater availability and cheaper cloth. However, the invention also had the by-product of increasing the number of slaves needed to pick the cotton thereby strengthening the arguments for continuing slavery. Cotton as a cash crop became so important that it was known as King Cotton and affected politics up until the Civil War. Powerloom 1813-Francis Cabot Lowell The power loom was a steampowered, mechanically operated version of a regular loom, an invention that combined threads to make cloth. The first American power loom was constructed in 1813 by a group of Boston merchants headed by Francis Cabot Lowell. The city of Lowell and other early industrial American cities grew rapidly as a result of the machine. The power loom allowed the wholesale manufacture of cloth from cotton. Power loom took the raw cotton produced by Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin and threaded it together to create cloth. While the South grew wealthier and wealthier based on the slave labor of Africans, the Northern factories increased production because of young women who worked in harsh factories. Henry Clay’s “American System”-1815 Henry Clay, a Senator from Kentucky, Proposed the “American System” a system designed to make the United States economically self-sufficient (independent). The “American System” proposed. Among other things, a National Bank and a National Road, which would connect New England with the Northwest The Erie Canal-1825 Territory. 363 Miles long connected the Hudson River (New York City) to Lake Erie (Midwest) • Reduced travel time and shipping costs by 90% Lowell Mill Girls During the first half of the nineteenth century, farm girls and young women from throughout New England were recruited to work in the textile factories in Lowell, Massachusetts. Although the women were tightly controlled and were expected to work in dangerous and harsh conditions, many managed to join organized demonstrations against their working conditions. This marked the first moment women began to stand up for their rights Working conditions in northern Factories As the factory system developed, working conditions worsened. Factory owners wanted their employees to work longer hours to produce more goods. By 1840, factory employees worked an average of 11.4 hours per day. As the workday grew longer, on-the-job accidents became more common. Factory work was often dangerous. But factory owners often showed more concern for profits than for the comfort and safety of their employees. Employers knew that they could easily replace an unhappy worker with someone else who was eager for a job. No laws existed to regulate working conditions or to protect workers. # 2: Urbanization Urbanization-American society urbanized drastically during this era. The United States had been a land made up almost entirely of farmers. But around 1820, millions of people began to move to the cities. They, along with several million Irish and German immigrants, flooded northern cities to find jobs in the new free-enterprise economy (an economy where people are free to buy, sell, and produce whatever they want). Although immigrants and skilled factory laborers could earn a decent living in the industrial factories of the North, the working conditions were often brutal and dangerous. The harsh working and living conditions of Northeast cities helped lead workers to organize and protest for political and social reforms (changes). New Waves of Immigration- 1800-1850 With Urbanization came a huge increase in immigrants to the United States, particularly the Northeast and Midwest Cities such as New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. The majority of the immigrants came from England, Ireland, Germany, China, and Scandinavian Countries. The numbers of immigrants increased so rapidly that the total went from 4 million immigrants in 1790 to 32 million in 1860. “Push” and “pull” factors of Immigration PUSH FACTORS OUT OF EUROPE • Crop Failures in Europe left people in debt and hungry. The most famous example is the Irish Potato Famine from 1845-1854 in which many farmers starved to death. Many Irish fled to Northeast cities to find work! • Overcrowding and poverty in European cities led people to seek new opportunities in America. PULL FACTORS TO THE UNITED STATES • Religious and Political Freedom • Greater Economic Opportunity • Abundant and relatively cheap land Living Conditions for Immigrants in Cities Due to the rapid increase of immigrants in Northeast cities, living conditions for new arrivals was often dangerous and harmful. Cities experienced overcrowding, sanitation Immigrants first arriving to cities like New York, lived in apartments called tenements. Meant to accommodate just one family, tenements often times housed multiple families. Tenements were narrow, low-rise apartments that frequently were poorly lit, lacked indoor plumbing and proper ventilation (windows and fresh air). and crime problems. Much like it is for immigrants today, life was hard for the immigrants of the 1800s. They worked and lived under difficult circumstances just to make a living and support their families. The Great Irish Potato famine During the summer of 1845, a "blight of unusual character" devastated Ireland's potato crop, the basic staple in the Irish diet. A few days after potatoes were dug from the ground, they began to turn into a slimy, decaying, blackish "mass of rottenness." Expert panels convened to investigate the blight's cause suggested that it was the result of "static electricity" or the smoke that billowed from railroad locomotives or the "mortiferous vapours" rising from underground volcanoes. In fact, the cause was a fungus that had traveled from Mexico to Ireland. "Famine fever"--cholera, dysentery, scurvy, typhus, and infestations of lice--soon spread through the Irish countryside. Observers reported seeing children crying with pain and looking "like skeletons, their features sharpened with hunger and their limbs wasted, so that there was little left but bones." Masses of bodies were buried without coffins, a few inches below the soil. Over the next ten years, more than 750,000 Irish died and another 2 million left their homeland for Great Britain, Canada, and the United States. Within five years, the Irish population was reduced by a quarter. Interchangeable parts The Inventor Eli Whitney started the use of INTERCHANGEABLE PARTS. These were identical machine parts that could be put together quickly to make a complete product. Because all parts were alike, they could be manufactured with less-skilled labor and they made machine repair easier. Interchangeable parts opened the way for producing many different kinds of goods on a mass scale and for reducing the price of goods. Workers attempt to organize By the 1830s, workers began organizing to improve working conditions. Skilled workers formed trade unions—organizations of workers with the same trade or skill. Steadily deteriorating working conditions led unskilled workers to organize as well. In the mid-1830s, skilled workers in New York City staged a series of strikes refusing to work in order to put pressure on employers. Workers wanted higher wages and to limit their workday to 10 hours. Groups of skilled workers formed the General Trades Union of New York. # 3 States Rights T he major political struggles during the antebellum period focused on states’ rights. Southern states were dominated by “states’ righters”—those who believed that the individual states should have the final say in matters of interpreting the Constitution. Inspired by the old Democratic-Republicans, Senator John C. Calhoun argued that the states had the right to nullify (reject or cancel) laws that they believed were unconstitutional because the states themselves had created the Constitution. The struggles between the Federal Government and the State Governments has been a that has lasted . However, during the Antebellum Period this issue became even more divisive (dividing). It is one of the many issues that led to the Civil War. Nullification Crisis 1832 The Nullification Crisis arose in the early 1830s when leaders of South Carolina advanced the idea that a state did not have to follow a federal law and could, in effect, "nullify" the law. In 1828, Congress under President Andrew Jackson passed a high tariff (tax) on the import of British Imports. This meant that it cost more money for Americans to buy British textiles (cloth) than it did to buy U.S. produced textiles. This angered the southern states because they felt it only benefited the industrialized north, which produced textiles as opposed to the Southern farmers who produced the raw cotton. John C. Calhoun a States’ Rightist States’ Rightists argued that the Tariff Act should be Nullified (Canceled). They believed that States should not have to follow the laws of the Federal Government if they believed they were unconstitutional. The disagreement over the Tariff Act of 1832 led to a Crisis between the States and Federal Government. Chief Justice John Marshall and Judicial Review John Marshall served as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court during all of or part of the administrations of the first six presidents of the United States. He was a Federalist who believed the country needed a strong central government. The decisions he made while serving as Chief Justice on the Supreme Court helped to increase the power of the Federal Government. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall One of the most famous cases Chief Justice Marshall oversaw was called Marbury v. Madison (1803). In this case, Chief Justice Marshall Marbury v. Madison, which is arguably one of the most important Supreme Court case in United States History. It was the first case to apply the of judicial review. Which gives the Supreme Court (Judicial Branch) the power to rule laws of Congress unconstitutional. States rights helps lead to the Civil war The concept of states' rights had been an old idea by 1860. The original thirteen colonies in America in the 1700s, separated from the mother country in Europe by a vast ocean, were use to making many of their own decisions and ignoring quite a few of the rules imposed on them from abroad. During the American Revolution, the founding fathers were forced to compromise with the states to ensure ratification of the Constitution and the establishment of a united country. In fact, the original Constitution banned slavery, but Virginia would not accept it; and Massachusetts would not ratify the document without a Bill of Rights. The debate over which powers rightly belonged to the states and which to the Federal Government became heated again in the 1820s and 1830s fueled by the divisive issue of whether slavery would be allowed in the new territories forming as the nation expanded westward.