Chapter 11 National and Regional Growth
Section 1: Early Industry and Inventions
A: Free Enterprise and Factories
- Samuel Slater – built the first successful water powered textile mill in America
- Industrial Revolution – factory machines replaced hand tools, and large scale manufacturing replaced farming as the main form of work
- Factory System – method of production that brought many workers and machines together into one building, or under one roof
- People left cities and crowded into cities where the factories were
- Many Americans did not want America to industrialize, but the War of 1812 led the country in that direction
- Because the blockade kept British imports from reaching the U.S. shores, Americans had to start manufacturing their own goods
B: Factories Come to New England
- New England was a good place to set up factories for several reasons:
o Factories needed water power, and there were many fast moving rivers there
o There were ships and access to the ocean
o And there was a willing labor force
- Samuel Slater built the first spinning mill in Pawtucket, RI, in 1790
- He hired children from the ages of 7-12 and paid them a low wage
- He later built larger mills and employed entire families
- This family system of employment spread through RI, CT, and southern MA
C: The Lowell Mills Hire Women
- In 1813 Cabot Lowell built a factory in Waltham, MA
- Lowell Mills – employed farm girls who lived in company owned boardinghouses
- “Lowell Girls” worked 12 ½ hour days in deafening noise
- In the early years the wages were high
- The Lowell mills and other early mills were run on water power, and factories built after the 1830’s were run with steam engines
- Because the steam engines used coal and wood, not water, the factories could move away from water and branch out away from New England
D: A New Way to Manufacture
- In 1797, the U.S. government hired Eli Whitney to make 10,000 muskets for the Army
- Before this time guns were make one by one and each was different. So when a part broke, a new part had to be built to match the broken part
- In 1801 Whitney went to Washington with a box of musket parts
- He took a part from each pile and assembled a musket in seconds
- Interchangeable Parts – parts they are exactly alike
- Machines that produced parts that were exactly alike became standard now
E: Moving People, Goods, and Messages
- Robert Fulton – invented a steamboat that could move against current or in strong wind
- In 1837, Samuel F. B. Morse first demonstrated in telegraph
- This machine sent long and shorts pulses of electricity along a wire
- These pulses then could be translated into letters
- Both the telegraph and the steamboat brought the nation closer together, and both brought more national unity.
F: Technology Improves Farming
- In 1836, the blacksmith John Deere invented a lightweight plow with a steel cutting edge
- This new plow made preparing ground much less work, and as a result many famers moved to the Midwest
- New technologies linked regions and contributed to national unity
- Each regions success led to demand for the others regions goods
Section 2: Plantations and Slavery Spread
A: The Cotton Boom
- Eli Whitney – invented a machine for cleaning cotton in 1793
- There was a huge demand for cotton but the cotton that grew in the South was hard to clean by hand
- A worker could clean just one pound of cotton in a day
- Whitney’s cotton gin (gin id short for engine) made this process more efficient
- One worker, with the machine, could now clean as much as 50 pounds of cotton a day
- This machine made short-fibered cotton a commercial product and changed the South in 4 ways:
o It triggered a vast move westward
o b/c cotton was valuable, planters grew more cotton then other goods, and cotton exports increased
o more Native American groups were driven off Sothern land
o growing cotton required a large workforce, so slavery increased in the South
B: Slavery Expands
- as cotton production grew, so did the number of slave workers
- as cotton earnings grew, so did the price of slaves
- the expansion of slavery had a major impact on the South’s economy, but the effect on people living there was even greater
C: Slavery Divides the South
- Slavery divided white Southerners into who held salves and those who did not
- Slaveholders with the large plantations were the wealthiest and most powerful, but few in number
- Only about 1/3 owned slaves in 1840
- Of these 1/3, only about 1/10 had large plantations with 20 or more slaves
- Most Southerners owned few or no slaves, but still supported slavery
- For both small and large planters, slavery had become necessary for increasing profits
D: African Americans in the South
- Slavery also divided black Southerners into those who were enslaved and those who were free
- Slaves formed about 1/3 of the South’s population in 1840
- About ½ worked on large plantations with white overseers
- In 1840, about 8% of African Americans in the South were free
- Their biggest threat was being captured and sold into slavery
E: Finding Strength in Religion
- Salves relied on strong religious convictions and abundance of music to help them endure the brutal conditions of plantation life
- Spirituals – religious folk songs
- These spirituals often contained coded messages about planned escapes or the return of an owner
F: Families Under Slavery
- The most brutal part of slavery was when one family member was sold away from the family
G: Slave Rebellions
- The most famous slave rebellion was led by Nat Turner in VA in 1831
- When Turner was caught, he was tried and hanged
- This rebellion spread fear in the South and many slaves were killed in revenge
- After Turner’s rebellion the grip of slavery grew even tighter in the South
- Tension over slavery grew in the North and the South
Section 3: Nationalism and Sectionalism
A: Nationalism Unites the Country
- In 1815 President Madison presented a plan to Congress to make the U.S. economically self-sufficient
- So, the country would not need foreign products or markets
- The plan – which Henry Clay promoted as the American System – included 3 main actions
o Establish a protective tariff – made European goods more expensive and encourages Americans to buy cheaper American made products
o Establish a national bank – that would promote a single currency. In 1816, Congress set up the 2nd national bank of the U.S.
o Improve the country’s transportation system – poor roads made transportation slow and costly
B: Roads and Canals Link Cities
- Erie Canal – created a water route between NYC and Buffalo, NY
- This canal opened the area to settlement and trade
- Trade stimulated by the canal helped NYC become the largest city
- Around the 1830’s the nation began to use steam-powered trains for transportation
- In 1830, only about 30 mile of track existed in the U.S.
- But by 1850, the number had risen to 9,000 miles
- Improvements of rail travel led to a decline in the use of canals
C: The Era of Good Feelings
- As nationalist feelings spread, people shifted their loyalty away from state governments. and more toward the federal government
- Democratic –Republican James Monroe won he presidency in 1816, in this election the Federalist party offered little resistance and soon disappeared
- This was then called the Era of Good Feelings by a Boston newspaper because of the political differences giving way
- McCullough v. Maryland (1819) – MD wanted to tax its branch of the national bank, but the Court upheld that a state could not tax a national bank
- Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) – the Court ruled that interstate commerce could be regulated only by the federal government, not the state governments
- The Supreme Court under John Marshall clearly stated important powers of the federal government
- A stronger national government reflected a growing national spirit
D: Settling National Boundaries
- The nationalist sprit made U.S. leaders want to define and expand the country’s borders, but to so this that was to read agreements with Britain and Spain
- 2 agreements improved relations between the U.S. and Britain
o The Rush-Bagot Agreement (1817) limited each sides naval forces on the Great Lakes
o The Convention of 1818 set the 49th parallel as the U.S.-Canadian border as far west as the Rocky Mountains
- U.S. relations with Spain were tense
- In the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819, Spain handed Florida to the U.S. and gave up claims to Oregon Country
E: Sectional Tensions Increase
- Sectionalism – loyalty to the interests of your own region or section of the country, rather than to the nation as a whole
- Economic changes had created some divisions within the U.S.
- Sectionalism because a major issue when MO applied for statehood in 1817
- People living in MO wanted to allow slavery
- At the time the U.S. had 11 slave and 11 free states
- The addition of MO would upset the balance
F: The Missouri Compromise
- The nation argued for months on whether or not to admit MO as a slave or a free state
- Maine, which had been a part of MA, also wanted statehood. This left room for compromise
- Henry Clay suggested MO be admitted as a slave state, and ME as a free state
- This was known as the Missouri Compromise and was passed in 1820
- It also called for slavery to be banned north of the 36th parallel
G: The Monroe Doctrine
- Monroe Doctrine – the Americas were closed to further colonization. He also warned that European efforts to reestablish colonies would be considered dangerous threats. He also promised that the U.S. would stay out of European affairs
- This doctrine showed that the U.S. saw itself as a world power and a protector of Latin America