Population increased by

600% between 1800 and 1860

31 million people by 1860

Over 50% of population lived

west of the Appalachian Mountains by

1860 (at least 15 million people)

Large shift in population from countryside to

cities

Urban dwellers increased by 300% between 1800 and

1860

Nine American cities had populations over

100,000 by 1860

New York: 1,000,000

Philadelphia: 500,000

IMPACT OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

• Proportion of Americans who made their livings as farmers dropped from 80% to 50% between 1800 and 1860

• Cause was the Industrial Revolution– Transformed traditional

agrarian life– Increased amount of goods

that people could make by substituting machines for human and animal power

– Rationalized and streamlined the manufacturing process

FIRST MACHINES

• First industrial machines were copies of British ones– Brought over by immigrants

from England– Mainly machines used in the

production of cotton textiles• First industry to be completely

mechanized was cotton textile industry– Primarily located in New

England• Lowell and Lawrence,

Massachusetts

ELI WHITNEY• Best known as inventor of cotton gin• Also developed new method of

manufacturing muskets– Standardized interchangeable

parts– Eliminated skilled craftsman in

the production process– Made manufacture of muskets

quicker, more efficient and less expensive

– Called the “American System”• Quickly adopted by other

industries such as clock making, sewing machines, farm machinery, and the Colt revolver

PRIMITIVE TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM

• National transportation system did not exist in 1800– Population spread over a

huge area and linked only by a few rivers and crude dirt roads

• Made shipment of products over any distance very expensive, slow, and risky

• Jeopardized industrial development because it left market for industrial products largely untapped

TURNPIKES

• 1000s of miles of turnpikes built by private companies and state governments after 1800– Charged tolls for

their use– A step in the right

direction but still far from being a real interstate system of transportation

STEAMBOATS• Introduced a little before War of 1812

– Quickly became dominant form of transportation on American lakes, rivers, and coastal waters

– Had greatest impact on the Mississippi River

• Over 1000 massive paddle-wheel steamboats in operation by 1860

– Dramatically reduced cost of shipping products between North and South

• Transport of 100 pounds from New Orleans to Louisville cost 15 cents

– As opposed to $5.00 by barge

CANALS• Solved problem of shipping

products east to west by water

• Erie Canal– 364 mile long canal linking

Atlantic Ocean with Great Lakes• Albany to Buffalo

– Authorized by New York legislature

– Opened in 1825• Magnificent engineering feat

and an immediate success– Inspired hundreds of other of

canal projects throughout the U.S.

First invented in England in 1830,

the railroad proved uniquely well-

suited to America, with its vast expanses of

unsettled territory and rapidly growing

population

3500 miles of railroad track in U.S.

by 1840—twice a much as existed in all of Europe at the

time

Replaced the canal as the key to growing American

transportation system

RAMIFICATIONS

• Transportation Revolution created a unified and vast market for manufactured and industrial products– Stimulated further industrial

development, more technological innovation, bigger and better machines, larger investment, etc.

• American Industrial Revolution really put on a firm foundation by the establishment of an organized, coherent, national transportation system

LABOR

• Most important source of labor for early industry was New England countryside– Some surplus young men who

could not afford to start farm out west

• But early labor force did not contain many men because they did not find prospect of factory life attractive

• Women made up majority of labor force in early cotton textile factories

WORKING CONDITIONS• Only alternative to poverty-stricken

life in New England countryside– Made up 80% of workforce in

cotton factories in 1832• Condition of these female workers

good compared to counterparts in England– English women worked naked

under filthy conditions in coal mines

• Forced to crawl on hands and knees pulling coal carts

– For 12-15 hours a day, six days a week

• Subject to all sorts of abuse and harassment

“MILL GIRLS”• Girls lived in pleasant boarding

houses where their behavior was carefully regulated and supervised

• Worked from sunup to sundown, six days a week– Working conditions were

relatively safe– Paid fairly well by standards of

the time• Most girls only worked a few years

before they saved enough money to get married or move west– Never became a permanent

working class on European model

LABOR CHANGE

• Supply of surplus young women for industry began to dry up at the end of the 1830s– Replaced by male

European immigrants• Especially the Irish

– Paternalistic system in factories broke down and working conditions declined

URBAN GROWTH• Most urban growth concentrated

in the northeast– Because industry and urban

growth went together

• Cities grew uncontrollably without any sort of planning– Cities grew faster that

essential services could be provided

– Law and order was at a minimum

• No professional police departments

URBAN PROBLEMS I• Entire areas of some cities became

self-contained little countries– No law and order at all– Gangs and gang wars dominated– Five Points slum in New York

• Fires were a serious problems– Often raged out of control for

days, destroying entire city blocks

– No professional fire departments• Firefighting done by volunteer

companies that only fought fires when they didn’t have something better to do

SLUMS

• Neighborhoods deteriorated rapidly as landlords converted old mansions and warehouses into tenement apartment buildings– Crammed in as many

tenants as possible – Spent nothing on

maintenance– Result was the

creation and rapid spread of slums

IMMIGRATION

• Most slums inhabited by newly-arrived immigrants– Came at a rate of 150,000-

250,000 a year in 1840s and 1850s

– Most settled in cities of northeast

• By 1860, first or second generation immigrants made up majority of people in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Providence, Rochester, Albany, and Buffalo

IMMIGRATION PROBLEMS

• Huge influx of newcomers caused tension and conflict with so-called “native Americans”– Made worse by economic

and cultural differences– And by selective process

which determined which immigrants remained in northeast

• Those with money and skills tended to head for frontier

• Poorest and least skilled stayed in the northeast

THE IRISH I

• Ireland was chronically over-populated, in the grip of the Potato Famine, hopelessly poor, and mercilessly exploited by the English– Prompted massive out-

migration to America• Irish unprepared for urban life in

the northeast– Largely illiterate peasants – Monopolized lowest-paid,

most menial jobs• Jobs were seldom regular

by irregular

IRISH PROBLEMS• Because of low wages and irregular

employment, Irish forced to live in poorest conditions in cities– Crowded into dismal cellars and

attics• no ventilation, clean water, or

toilet facilities– Easy targets for cholera,

tuberculosis, and every other disease related to unhealthy living conditions

– Also possessed highest rates of poverty, unemployment, crime, disease and alcoholism

RELIGIOUS BIGOTRY• Yankees especially bothered by the

fact that Irish were Roman Catholics• Protestant church membership had

doubled during “Second Great Awakening”– But many Protestant evangelicals

also saw Roman Catholicism as “un-Christian”

• Merely a collection of ignorant superstitions

– Many Protestants also believed the Catholic Church was hostile to democracy

• Priests, taking their orders from the pope, told the Irish how to vote

“DEMON RUM”• Temperance movement spread in

northeast in late 1830s– Encouraged by evangelical

Protestants and by many employers

– Began to agitate for legislation to ban the manufacture and sale of alcohol

– Irish viewed this movement as a direct attack on their culture and customs

• Contributed to animosity between Yankee Protestants and Irish Catholics right up to the Civil War

PUBLIC SCHOOL MOVEMENT• Horace Mann led drive to

create a compulsory, tax-supported public school system– Supported by many

teachers and religious leaders

– Argued that public schools would give all Americans an equal chance to succeed, would create educated citizens, and would stimulate economic productivity and instill social discipline

SUCCESS

• By 1850, thousands of new schools had been built with tax dollars, teacher colleges had been established, and laws passed to require children to attend school up to a certain age

IRISH RESPONSE• Irish did not support public school

movement– Many were too poor to send their

children to school– Feared with good reason that public

schools were thinly disguised Protestant schools that would try to win Irish children away from Catholicism

• Irish Catholics created private school system– Part of larger movement to create a

separate Irish-Catholic social world• Included Catholic schools,

hospitals, orphanages, etc• Isolated but also protected from

Protestant American society

VIOLENCE

• Climate of mutual mistrust and hatred between Protestant Yankees and Irish Catholics sometimes erupted into violence– Yankee mob burned

down Irish Catholic convent in Boston in 1837

– Street fight in Philadelphia in 1844 between Protestants and Catholics left 13 dead

SUMMARY• The North was industrializing, urbanizing, growing by leaps and

bounds, and becoming more wealthy and economically powerful with the passing of every year

• But this progress had a price– Collapse of agriculture in New England– Cities grew out of control with horrible slums, crime, and

violence– Division between “native Americans” and newly-arrived

immigrant groups approached very ugly and violent levels• Poisoned both social relations and politics

• Modern America was beginning to take shape in the North– With all its positive and also negative aspects