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The Transportation and Market Revolutions. 1815-1860. Analyze the impact of the market revolution ( 1815-1860 ) on the economies of the Northeast, the Midwest, and the South. Objective. The Transportation Revolution.
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The Transportation andMarket Revolutions 1815-1860
Analyze the impact of the market revolution (1815-1860) on the economies of the Northeast, the Midwest, and the South. Objective
The Transportation Revolution • Canals, steamboats, and railroads revolutionized American economic and social life during the antebellum period between 1820 and 1860.
The Erie Canal • Farmers and merchants in the Old Northwest lacked efficient and inexpensive access to markets along the east coast. • For example, farmers in the Ohio River Valley were forced to transport their crops along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to ship their produce to New Orleans and from there to eastern cities.
The Erie Canal“Clinton’s Big Ditch” • The proposal for the construction of a canal to connect the Great Lakes with the Hudson River and New York City was realized through the brilliant leadership of New York’s governor Dewitt Clinton. • Jeffersonians refused to provide federal funding for the massive project which was mockingly derided as “Clinton’s Big Ditch.” • Resourceful New Yorkers went at it alone and began the project in 1817. When completed in 1825, the Erie Canal wrought nothing less than an “economic miracle.”
The Erie CanalImpact • One result of the successful completion of the canal was greatly reduced shipping costs as the cost of shipping a ton of grain from Buffalo to New York City fell from $100 to $5.00, and the time of transit from about twenty days to six. • The Erie Canal strengthened commercial ties between eastern markets and manufacturing centers and western farms. • New York became the nation’s busiest seaport and railroads later connected New York City to other major population centers. • By the middle of the nineteenth century, New York City was America’s greatest financial and commercial center.
The Market Revolution • During the Era of Good Feelings, most Americans bought goods from friends and neighbors in a local economy. • The new network of roads, canals, and rail lines brought about a market revolutionwhich enabled people to increasingly interact with producers and consumers in distant markets. • The development of profitable markets led to the rise of manufacturing and the utilization of machines and interchangeable parts to mass produce standardized low-cost goods.
The Growth of Industry and the Factory System • By 1850, most American manufacturing was no longer done in homes or small shops by hand, but instead in factories by workers using machines. This was called the factory system. • The first mills were in New England, with the model “Lowell” mill the most well known. • At first, New England factories employed white, teenage farm girls as their labor force. The girls lived at the mill in dormitories in a highly regulated environment. Most worked for a few years until marriage. • As working conditions in the mills deteriorated and wages were cut, workers organized some of the earliest labor protests in United States history.
The Growth of Industry and the Factory System • The use of new technologies in manufacturing- particularly steam engines and machines to spin thread and weave cloth- gave rise to the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain during the 1700s. • By the early 1800s, these new technologies reached the United States. Factory builders flocked to the North, particularly New England, because of its abundant supplies of iron, coal, and swiftly flowing rivers used for water power to operate machinery. • By 1860, northern factories had entered a worldwide competition for markets. While agriculture, especially in the western states, continued to grow and develop, the North began to take on a new identity as an urban manufacturing and commercial area and most of the nation’s manufacturing took place in Northern factories.
The Growth of Industry and the Factory System • By the 1840s and 1850s, the mills acquired a more permanent work force- Irish immigrant women who needed to work in order to support their families. • Working conditions were dictated by a strict routine. Twelve-hour days and six-day work weeks were commonplace. • Gains made by the first labor protests were often lost due during economic downturns.
