Antebellum American Society - … · transportation - canals and railroads united the nation. The...
Transcript of Antebellum American Society - … · transportation - canals and railroads united the nation. The...
Antebellum American SocietyForging a National Economy
&
Ferment of Reform and Culture
&
The Nature and Condition of Slavery
Forging the National Economy
Theme 1: The American population expanded and changed in character as more people moved to the West, cities, and immigrant groups such as the Irish and Germans arrived in great numbers.
Theme 2: The American economy developed the beginnings of industrialization with the greatest advances coming in the area of transportation -canals and railroads united the nation.
The March Westward
“Europe stretches to the Alleghenies, America lies
beyond” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
The young America (half of all Americans were under
the age of 30) was expanding westward at a rapid pace.
The geographic center of population is the point at
which half of the population is east, half west, half north
and half south. In 1790, this point was in Maryland
(near Baltimore). By 1820, it had moved to what is
today West Virginia (along 39°N). By 1840, the center
of West Virginia, and by 1860 it was in the center of
southern Ohio.
Population Growth 1790-1860
0
5,000,000
10,000,000
15,000,000
20,000,000
25,000,000
30,000,000
1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860
White
Non-White
Growth of the Cities
In 1790, there were only 2 cities with populations over 20,000 - New York and Philadelphia. By 1860, there were forty-three and about 300 other cities had populations of at least 5,000 inhabitants.
Broadway, looking North, in New York City,
1834. These walk-up buildings held the
workshops and boarding houses for Irish and
German immigrants who provided mostly
semi-skilled labor.
Changing Cities
At first the laborers in the textile, garment, and steel mills were of American birth, many of them agricultural laborers who moved into nearby towns looking for work as soil exhaustion and
a series of
economic crises pushed them off the land. But in the two decades
after a serious blight destroyed Ireland's potato crop in 1845, two
million Irishmen left their island for jobs in England and the U.S.
Immigration by Decade
0
100,000
200,000
300,000
400,000
500,000
600,000
700,000
800,000
900,000
1,000,000
1831-
1840
1841-
1850
1851-
1860
1861-
1870
1871-
1880
Irish
German
“Native” Reaction
Many of the immigrants of the 1840s and 1850s were Catholics. Irish Catholic immigrants flooded into coastal cities, accepting lower wages than native workingmen, creating economic grievances that were added to
suspicions against "Popery." One of the early large-scale public
outbreaks of anti-Catholicism occurred in the "City of Brotherly
Love" during the presidential election campaign of 1844.
Key Differences
Irish Immigrants
Fleeing crop failure and starvation
Young (under 35) and literate in English
Catholic
Poor (could not buy land in the west)
Concentrated in east coast cities, such as NY and Boston
German Immigrants
Fleeing crop failure and seeking political asylum
Spoke German (and preserved their language)
Protestant - but not Puritan
Modest wealth (“middle class”)
Scattered across the Midwest on purchased farms; sometimes created German communities
Question for Discussion:
Why did nativists think that the Irish and
German (but most especially the Irish)
immigrants pose a threat to American
society and democracy?
Industrialization Begins
Britain had begun the march towards mechanization
in the 1750s when machines used to produce textiles
were perfected. However they didn’t share that
information with their colonies in an effort to keep them
dependent.
Samuel Slater, a British
machinist, left England for
America in the late 1780s
and brought with him
memorized plans of how
the British machines were
constructed.
He established the first American textile mill in 1790 at
Pawtucket, Massachusetts where the rivers could provide
power to the mill.
The early mills only
produced cotton yarn but
there was still a huge
problem - Cotton fiber
was tremendously
expensive. It took a full
day to pick 1 pound of
fiber from 3 pounds of seed
so cotton cloth was
relatively rare.
The Cotton Gin
Eli Whitney, a Yale
College graduate who
was tutoring in the
South, designed an
“engine” that would
speed up seed removal.
This simple machine
was 50 times faster
than hand-picking the
seeds and soon spread
throughout the south,
making cotton a very
profitable crop
By 1860, more than 400 million pounds of cotton
poured into more than 1000 northern mills annually.
But just who was working in these mills?
In 1820, half of the nation’s industrial workers (not just
in the mills) were UNDER 10 years of age.
There were few opportunities for women to be self-
supporting (mostly nursing, domestic service, and
teaching) but eventually, significant numbers of
industrial workers were women. About 10 % of white
women worked for pay outside of the home in 1850 and
about 20% of all women had been employed at some
point before they married.
The Lowell Mills
The textile mills,
concentrated in
New England
employed mostly
young farm girls
who were seeking to
raise money before
they were married.
The Boston
Associates’ mill at Lowell, Massachusetts was a prime
example. Girls would work for a number of years in a
rigidly controlled environment to save up money for a
dowry.
The mills were a model
of efficiency. The great
water wheels located in
the basements powered
machinery that processed
raw cotton on the first
floor, spun it into thread
on the second, wove it
into cloth on the third, and finished and printed it on the
fourth. These cotton mills were the height of American
inventive creativity: filled with machinery built for the
specific type of cloth being woven, and therefore relatively
simple to operate, the mill was itself a kind of giant machine.
Changes on the Farm
The growth of farms changed the look of America.
Initially, farms were self-sufficient for families but as
transportation improved, northern trans-Allegheny farms
began to produce large amounts of corn. As they moved
westward in search of more land to cultivate, their
wooden plows failed to cut through the prairie sod.
In 1837, John Deere (IL) produced a steel plow that
could handle the tough sod. It was doubly effective
because it could be pulled by horses instead of oxen.
In the 1830s, Cyrus McCormick (VA) created the
“cotton gin of the west” - the mechanical mower-reaper.
The mower-reaper was a horse-drawn machine that cut
wheat that was ready to be harvested. It’s major advantage
was it’s speed. It allowed one man to do the work of five
men working with sickles and scythes.
Farmers rushed to cultivate more land so that more
product could be brought to market. Essentially, wheat
became a “cash crop” of the trans-Allegheny west.
There was still one major disadvantage the farmers in
the west had to face - how to get their crops to market.
They were still dependent on the North-South river
systems to get their goods to the eastern cities.
A transportation revolution was necessary...
The Transportation Revolution
Three Stages:
◦ Canals - man made waterways where horses
could tow flat-bottomed barges
◦ Steamboats - ships that relied on the steam
engine for power and could be used on rivers,
canals or even on ocean-going ships
◦ Railroads - first using horse power then
shifting toward steam powered propulsion
Canals
DeWitt Clinton, governor
of New York, used state
money to build the first
canal in America. It
would allow western
farmers direct access to
bustling New York City
via both rivers and canals.
The Erie Canal promoted the development of routes
for commercial trade with, and rapid settlement of,
the newly-opened regions of the old Northwest, and
the territories beyond the Mississippi.
The Appalachian
mountain chain presented
a barrier to continental
transportation: rivers east
of the mountains flowed
toward the Atlantic, and
those to the west flowed toward the Mississippi. The best location for a water link
was through the Mohawk river valley gap in upstate New York,
where a relatively short canal could link the port of New York
with the vast water system of the Great Lakes. Clinton
convinced the NY legislature to issue bonds for the construction
of the Erie Canal in 1818; by 1825 the 364-mile-long canal
was finished. Here at Lockport, a deep gorge required a series of
locks to move barges to the higher water level.
This system of locks and canals that connected to navigable
rivers allowed farm produce from the west to reach
consumers in NY by traveling only a few hundred miles
rather that a few thousand miles down the Mississippi River
and around Florida.
5 of the Erie Canal’s
84 locks were here
at Lockport, NY.
But the Erie Canal
was not the only one
built. Pennsylvania
built a 395-mile
canal between
Philadelphia and
Pittsburgh; Ohiodeveloped a series of canals which linked the Ohio river
to Lake Erie; in the 1840s, Illinois funded a canal to link
Chicago and the Great Lakes with the Illinois and
Mississippi rivers. Although not as profitable as investors
wished, all of these canals played important roles in
moving manufactured goods and raw materials, and in
linking regional economies within the nation.
Introducing Steam Power
The age of steam-
powered travel began in
1807 with the successful
voyage up the Hudson
River of the Clermont,
built by Robert Fulton.
Commercially operated steamboat lines soon made
round-trip shipping on the nation’s rivers both faster
and cheaper. The ship above, the “Walk-in-the-Water,”
operated on the Great Lakes in the 1820s and was typical
of early steam ships.
the Ohio and
Mississippi
Rivers; in St.
Louis, 3,184
steamboat
arrivals were
recorded in
1852
The number of steamboats in service continued to
grow throughout the 1830s and 1840s. Between 1811
and 1880, nearly 6,000 steamboats were built on
Steam Power on Rails
The need for more efficient systems to move goods over
land led to experiments with rails laid on a road bed. The
earliest rail cars were pulled by horses. But as others
experimented with steam power for boats, others worked to
harness steam to land transportation.
In 1830 the Tom Thumb
took part in a famous race
with a horse-drawn rail
car. Within a year the
Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad Company,
founded in 1827, had
switched from horse to
steam power.
The Dewitt
Clinton, built
for the
Mohawk &
Hudson
Railroad by
the West
Point
Foundry,
made the 17-
mile trip from Albany to Schenectady on August 9, 1831
in the then-unheard-of time of less than an hour.
Key Notes
Transportation improvements concentrated in
the North - roads, canals, and railroads
Factories concentrated in New England with
textile mills dominating Massachusetts
Western farms produced cash crops for the
commercial markets in the East
Cotton production transformed the South,
increasing the need for slaves to work the fields
to harvest the crop for overseas sale
Ferment of Reform & Culture
Theme 1: Spectacular
religious revivals of
the Second Great
Awakening reversed
a trend toward
secular nationalism in
American culture,
and helped to fuel a
spirit of social
reform.
Theme 2: The spirit of
optimism and reform
affected nearly all
areas of American life
and culture, including
education, the role of
women and the
family, and literature
and the arts.
Religious Revival
Began during the early decades of the 19th century
Partly a reaction against the rationalism (belief in human
reason) that had been the fashion during the
Enlightenment and the American Revolution
Calvinist (Puritan) teachings were rejected in favor of
more liberal and forgiving doctrines
In 1795, Rev. Timothy Dwight started a series of Calvinist
revivals on the Yale College campus.
A generation of young men were motivated to become
evangelical preachers of the Christian gospels
Evangelical
Methodists and
Baptists challenged
the religious
establishment and
domination of
older
denominations such
as the Episcopalians,
Congregationalists, and Presbyterians, by widespread
popular meetings and by services such as this camp
meeting in 1819.
Revivalism in the North & South
Baptists & Methodists in South
◦ ministers traveled to their congregations
◦ became the largest Protestant denominations
by the 1850s.
Charles Finney (Presbyterian) appealed to
the emotions of New Yorkers
◦ could be saved through faith & hard work
◦ NY became known as the “burned over
district”
Mormons
Founded by Joseph Smith in 1830s
Initially in NY, then OH, MO and IL
In 1844, Smith and his brother were
murdered in IL
Brigham Young took followers west to build
a “New Zion” in Utah
Social organization helped them to succeed
But hostile relations w/ US Gov’t because of
practice of polygamy
Second Great Awakening
Created a difference between older
Protestant Churches and newer
Evangelical sects (still Protestant though)
Played a role in social reform - but only in
the Northern states
Reforming Society
Temperance
◦ began with moral exhortation then moved to
political action
◦ Opposed by immigrants (little power)
◦ supported by factory owners
◦ 1857 Maine prohibited sale/manufacture of
intoxicating substances (13 by the civil war)
◦ Why? 1820 - 5 gals hard liquor per person
per year (includes women/children)
Public Asylums
◦ Mental Hospitals
Dorthea Dix began crusade to separate mentally ill from criminals
led to state paid care
◦ Blind and Deaf
Thomas Gallaudet founded a school for the deaf
Samuel Gridley Howe founded a school for the blind
by 1850s, similar schools had been established in most states
◦ Prisons
Aubern system (rigid discipline w/ moral instruction)
replaced penitentiary (solitary confinement)
Public Education
Before the 1830s, opportunity was limited
Expansion of suffrage led many to think that an educated populace was necessary for wise voting decisions & participation
Horace Mann (Mass.) led campaign for free elementary schools, better teacher training, new methods, improved books, and compulsory attendance.
By mid 1800s, nearly all states offered some form of free elementary education
Secondary Education
Secondary education was slower to
develop
First public high school was founded in
Boston in 1821
Few high schools even by 1860 (New York
only had 41)
High schools were primarily meant for
boys, especially those going on to college
Education for Females
They could (and did) attend public elementary schools
Private high schools known as academies or female seminaries provided secondary education
A few colleges (Oberlin and Antioch) admitted men and women
Some all women’s colleges were established (Wesleyan College in Georgia; Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts)
Notables in Education
Noah Webster wrote a series of spellers, grammars and readers that would help to standardize the educational materials
Horace Mann helped establish many schools, and founded the first school for the training of teachers
Moral Education
Morals were a part of the education received at public schools (essentially basic religious beliefs)
These morals were based on the various Protestant religions, and found in textbooks such as the McGuffy Readers
This led to the development of a system of Catholic schools throughout the US
Women’s Rights Movement
Industrialization had driven down the economic importance of children so family size was dropping
Led to an increased focus on the children that were born and an idea that men and women had two separate spheres of influence◦ Women in the home and over children
◦ Men in business and politics
This is known as the “cult of domesticity”
But was this accurate? Many women did work outside of the home (at some point in their lives)
Women’s Rights (cont.)
Women began to demand equal rights to property, employment, education, and participation in government
Led by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a women’s rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, NY in 1848
◦ Adopted a declaration demanding that women “have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of the US.”
◦ Also that “all men and women are created equal”
To some extent, they were successful – more chance for higher education, western states granted the vote first
But the antislavery movement and the civil war would overshadow their efforts for the remainder of the century
Artistic Changes
American artists began imitating European styles◦ Greek Revival styles became
very popular
Portrait artists focused on the heroes of the American Revolution◦ Gilbert Stuart, Wilson Peale
– painted Washington numerous times
◦ John Trumbull painted scenes of the American Revolution
Literature
Transcendentalism was the focus of literature from the 1820s through the 1850s
◦ Truth could not be achieved by observation alone but with an inner light
◦ There was to be meaning behind writing
Ralph Waldo Emerson
◦ Romanticized the heroes of the American Revolution
Literature
Henry David Thoreau
◦ Wrote “Walden; or Life in the Woods”
◦ Condemned slavery
◦ Wrote “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience”
Walt Whitman
◦ Wrote “Leaves of Grass”
Literature not associated with
Transcendentalism Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – poetry
John Greenleaf Whittier – poetry on social influence
Oliver Wendell Holmes – “The Last Leaf”
Emily Dickinson – poetry
Louisa May Alcott (also associated with Transcendentalism) – “Little Women”
Edgar Allen Poe – “The Raven”
Nathaniel Hawthorne – “The Scarlet Letter”
Herman Melville – “Moby Dick”
Slavery
Existed in the US from 1619 to 1865
Ended with the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution
Was concentrated in the Southern states due to their reliance on a plantation economy and the labor intensive crops of tobacco, rice and cotton.
Expanded with the development of the cotton gin and northern textile manufacturing.
Slaves as % of Black Pop, 1850
State Slaves Free Black Slave %
Delaware 2290 18,073 11.2%
Maryland 90,368 74,723 54.7
Virginia 472,528 54,333 89.7
NCarolina 288,548 27,463 91.3
Missouri 87,422 2618 97.1
SCarolina 384,984 8960 97.7
Mississippi 309,878 930 99.7
Slaves transported across Africa
Slaves were
captured by white
traders as well as
enemy tribes (who
sold them to white
traders)
Early slaves were
only slaves for a
certain number of
years
Slave Ships
Slave ships were
packed with as
many slaves as
possible - the
more slaves, the
higher the profit
• This made conditions especially harsh - many
died on the crossing, sometimes as high as 25%
Slaves on
board a slaves
ship bound for
the US in
1860. Even
though is was
illegal to
import slaves
after 1808, the
practice
continued
until the North
blockaded
Southern ports
during the
Civil War.
Cotton and Tobacco
Upon arriving in the US,
slaves were put to work
- generally as field
hands on tobacco or
cotton plantations
(depending on year and
location)
This was usually
considered the hardest
labor of all
Slave Quarters
On the plantations,
slaves lived in “slave
quarters” - a close
packed collection
of slave houses
This allowed for
some sense of
“community” to
develop among a
plantation’s slaves
The Conditions of Slavery
Most slaves built and lived in simple one-room wooden cabins that housed 8-12 people.
Slaves cooked their own meals in their fireplace - this cabin had a brick fireplace which was more efficient and very unusual for its time and location.
This cabin (located in MD) housed about 10 slaves, has a dirt floor, a simple table and a few chairs, and a couple of simple beds. It was fairly large for it’s time (18’x16’) and was occupied into the 20th century
Slave cabins on the Hermitage plantation, near Savannah,
GA. Each cabin had 2 rooms - a bedroom and a kitchen.
These are built of brick (rare but this owner owned a brick
works) and were once part of a “quarter” that had 70-80 such
cabins.
The street of a slave quarter in 1860 during the evening
mealtime. Older children were responsible for younger
children (while parents worked in the fields) until the older
ones were themselves sent into the fields.
Communal Life of Slaves
The close quarters led to slaves becoming
very cooperative with one another.
Also, due to the continual breakup of
families, an informal family network
developed among slaves.
In some cases, slaves were able to work
for wages after their usual work was
completed and have celebrations on
holidays.
Slave frolic on Christmas Eve. Music and dancing were very
important in preserving slave culture and community.
“A Kitchen Ball at Sulphur Springs” depicts domestic slaves at play
after hours in an antebellum resort community. Slaves sometimes
adopted the social customs of the dominant white community as well
as maintained their own.
A plantation burial (1860). Slaves were left to follow their
customs but, even in death, were still supervised by their white
owners (far right).
Auctions and Harsh Treatment
Despite the fact that slaves could develop a sense of community, the fact remained that their lives were under control of white owners.
Families could be broken up on a whim by an owner at an auction.
Slaves would often be whipped for various offenses - disrespect, failure to complete a task (or on time), or any rational or irrational reason.
Some would even be killed and although owners could be punished, they rarely were.
Slave auctions
Slave auctions were
conducted throughout
the South although
primarily near ports
The slave trade was
banned in 1808 but
slave ships continued to
smuggle slaves into the
United States
Slave Auction - Richmond, VA
As the need for slaves in the upper south declined, many owners found they could increase their profits by selling surplus slaves into the expanding lower south where cotton production demanded even more labor.
Play Video Clip of “Roots” (AP US History CD)
A “coffle” of slaves being driven out of SC for sales in the
western south. They were marched chained together toward
the sale.
Beatings were
frequently severe
This is the scarred back of a former slave.
Slaves were seldom allowed to forget that they were considered the equivalent of livestock.
Whippings could be handed out for any number of reasons.
Runaways
With the prospect of being separated from
family members, some slaves chose to run
away.
Others left due to harsh treatment or a
desire for freedom.
Owners often went to great lengths to
reacquire their runaway slaves but the most
common was to place ads near where they
may have run to.
Advertisement in NC, 11/10/1837
Runaway Advertisement 1860
Rebellions
Other slaves led rebellions for one reason
or another.
In most cases, rebellion was responded to
swiftly and harshly by the white
population
Many began to believe that the only way
to control the black population was
through slavery and harsh treatment.
Nat Turner’s Rebellion - 1831
60 whites were killed by Turner who, divinely inspired, attempted
to lead slaves to freedom. Whites responded by killing 100 slaves
and hanging Turner then enacting harsher slave codes.
Mutiny on the Amistad - 1839
Following their takeover of the Amistad slave ship, the slaves then
sailed to CT. US authorities arrested them & attempted to return
them to their Spanish owners but abolitionist lawyers successfully
argued for their freedom before the Supreme Court.
Anti Slavery Movement
In 1817, the American Colonization Society was founded to free slaves and return them to settlements in Monrovia and Liberia◦ 12,000 were eventually returned
but it proved to not be very practical (since slavery was growing in the US)
In 1831, William Lloyd Garrison began an anti-slavery newspaper called The Liberator, which denounced slavery as a sin and demanded the immediate freeing of all slaves
This led to the founding of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833
Anti-Slavery (cont)
The Liberty Party was
founded because many
felt that Garrison was too
radical
They wanted to do away
with slavery by legal
means (within the system)
Nominated James Birney
for President in 1840 and
1844
Abolitionists
Frederick Douglas
◦ Gave first hand accounts of
his experiences in slavery
◦ Born into slavery in MD and
escaped to Mass in 1838
◦ Was a newspaper editor and
speaker
◦ Demanded an end to slavery
in the South AND an end to
racial discrimination in the
North
Abolitionists
Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth
◦ Helped to organize the effort to lead escaped slaves to the safety of Canada (where slavery was illegal and they would not return escaped slaves)
Lucretia Mott
◦ An active member of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society who turned her experience there (she was
denied the chance to attend
an international conference
because she was a woman)
into a crusade for women’s
rights