Textile Revolution: Changing Lives and Economies

1. Chapter 14 Machines, Cotton, Land Economy and Society1790–1824

2. Industrialization • Industrial Revolution • Most people live on farms • Produce goods and food themselves • Purchase very little • Small businesses • Mechanization changes lifestyles • Textiles • Basic necessity • Time-consuming and difficult to make • Expensive • Most people had few clothes

3. Industrialization(cont.’d) • How cloth was made • Wool was king in Britain • Sheep sheared • Wool cleaned • Wood was carded or combed • Spin into yarn • Yarn woven on looms into cloth • Woolens versus cotton • Woolen interests were powerful • Imported cotton cloth from India competed • Individuals contract with cloth dealer • Produce at home; work at own pace • Does not alter social structure

4. Industrialization (cont’d) • England develops textile machines • Produces cloth at fraction of cost • Britain enjoys monopoly • Cloth better than homespun • Cloth cheaper than homespun • Machines • Spinning jenny • Richard Arkwright’s water frame in 1768 • Increased volume of spun thread • Powered by water • Changes production as ends cottage industry • Creates factories where workers come to work

5. Industrial Northeast • Textile factories • Machines need power • Use water, later steam • Creates need for factories • Creates industrial working class • Great Defector • Samuel Slater memorizes plans • Slater immigrates to U.S. • Slater teams with Moses Brown • Together build first U.S. factory • Other factories follow

6. Industrialization(cont.’d) • U.S. capital for industry • Northeast merchants, shippers invest • Convert wealth from ships into mills • Encouraged by trade restraints during Napoleonic Wars • Americans quickly industrialize • Inventors • Oliver Evans: continuous-operation flour mill • Eli Whitney: interchangeable parts • Inventors become heroes • U.S. offers technical education

7. American System of Manufacture • Dream of interchangeable parts • Chauncey Jerome clockmaker did create a system • Arsenal at Springfield, Massachusetts mass produced arms

8. First Factory Workers • First workers were children • Cheap • Climbed onto textile machines • Then Fall River used whole families • But failed • Turned to women and children

9. Lowell Girls • Francis Cabot Lowell • Hires young daughters of farmers • Provides room, board, enrichment activities • Girls save for dowry • Most laborers women and children • But over time became less paternalistic

10. The South at the Crossroads • John C. Calhoun • “War Hawk” early in career • First pushes for Southern industry • Becomes defender of South • Defends plantation system, slavery • Slavery declining in 1788 • Northern states abolishing slavery • Southerners apologetic about slavery • Tobacco production falling • Congress outlaws importation of Africans

11. The South at the Crossroads (cont.’d) • Cotton Gin • South can only grow short staple cotton • Separating seeds too labor intensive • Eli Whitney invents cotton gin and interchangeable parts • Growing cotton now profitable • Revival of Slavery in the South • Cotton gin revives one-crop economy • Fertile “Old Southwest” ready to settle • Rapid growth in southern territories • Slaves now in big demand

12. Trans-Appalachian Frontier • Western Population Explosion • Land cheap and plentiful • Lands equal opportunity • Mississippi River no longer frontier • People seem to have no roots • Population • By 1820, Alabama at 75,000 • States north of Ohio River grew even faster

13. Trans-Appalachian Frontier • People who moved west • Americans free to move around • Some anti-social • Some want to build better life • Some are developers • Some are town boosters • Cities in West • Often develop around military fort • Sometimes develop on rivers • Cities include industry

14. Federal Land Policy • Rapid development leads to speculation • Speculators hope to buy land cheap and sell it higher • Some responsible developers • Land policy • 1790s: must buy tracts of 640 acres • 1800: can buy 320 acres at $2 acre and on credit • Land Act of 1804 favors small farmers • Land Act also favors speculators • Leads to wild speculation • Drives up cost of land • Paid for with paper money • inflation

15. Patterns of Settlement (cont.’d) • Panic of 1819 • Bank of U.S. calls in loans to wildcat banks • Wildcat banks call in loans to speculators • Speculators cannot pay, banks close • Closed banks trigger Panic of 1819

16. Squatters and their hero • Squatters settle land without purchase • Speculators then “jump” claims • Squatters turn to vigilante action • Squatters want new legislation • Senator Thomas Hart Benton (Missouri) • Voice of squatters, other westerners • Fights for liberal land policy • Calls for preemption • Calls for graduation

17. Discussion Questions • Explain the rise of the factory system in England and the U.S. • How did manufacturing affect the American south? Why led to the slavery revival? • What factors led to the expansion of population and the development of cities in the West in the early 1800s? • What were the causes and results of the Panic of 1819? Was it symptomatic of a greater problem in the U.S. economy?