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1 w/ Foner Ch 9 (& Faragher Ch 12) Industry and the North 1790s-1840s

2 5 Techno Economic Stages:
The North of the U.S. enters # 4: The Industrial Age So, in context: 1) Hunter & Gathering Age 2)Early Agricultural Age 3)Late Agricultural Stage *4) Industrial Age 5)Information Age

3 Techno Economic Stages in Human History:
Hunter & Gathering Age c. 250k BP to 10k BP Early Agricultural Age k BP to 5300 BP Late Agricultural Stage years BP to 1790 CE Industrial Age s Information Age s to present

4 Shifting Ages: When the fundamental technical & economic foundations of society change, The society changes massively: EVERYTHING CHANGES! Work, meanings of time, leisure, sports, religion, gender relations sexuality, etc, etc Social Relations: New classes emerge, old classes fade away

5 The Artisan Class will Fade. Many will fall into the working class.
Some will become middle class managers, and a few owners. Manufacturing Workshop in New York City Give Me Liberty!: An American History, 4th Brief Edition Copyright © 2014 W. W. Norton & Company

6 Will Bring New Possibilities. e. g. material plenty for all
Will Bring New Possibilities e.g. material plenty for all New Problems e.g, Climate Change; Pollution Overpopulation and Missed Opportunities: e.g: Intense hierarchies, colonial exploitation no longer “needed.” New Technical/Economic Eras:

7 Focus Questions What were the effects of the transportation revolution? What was the market revolution? How did industrialization affect workers in early factories? How did the market revolution change the lives of ordinary people? What were the values of the new middle class?

8 Industry and the Emerging Classes
Part 1: The Market Revolution Part 2: The Second Great Awakening Part 3: The New Middle Class Part 4: The Working Class: Irish example

9 Part 1: The Market Revolution:
A) Transportation Revolution: B) Commercialization: C) Industrialization:

10 A) Transportation Revolution:
Pt.1 A) Transportation Revolution: Transportation Revolution: encouraged growth; promoted the mobility of people and goods; & fostered the growing commercial spirit . Lubricated commerce. Roads Canals Steamboats Railroads

11 Roads Federal Government funds the National Road in 1808—at the time the single greatest federal transportation expense. The National Road tied the East and West together providing strong evidence of the nation’s commitment to expansion and cohesion.

12 Roads Pt.1

13 Pt.1 Canals Water transport was quicker and less expensive than travel by land. The Erie Canal stimulated east-west travel and was built with New York state funds. The canal helped farmers in the West become part of a national market. Towns along the canal grew rapidly. A canal boom followed

14 The Burned Over District
In Upstate New York

15 The Erie Canal finished 1825

16 The Erie Canal finished 1825

17 The Erie Canal The Erie Canal bustled with commerce almost from the moment of its opening in Five boats are shown waiting their turn to enter the lock that will raise each of them to the next level of the canal. SOURCE: Collection of The New-York Historical Society, Negative #

18 The Erie Canal on 20th century Transportation Revolution
4/15/2017 The Market Revolution The Erie Canal on 20th century Transportation Revolution Erie Canal 2008

19 Map 9.1 The Market Revolution: Roads and Canals, 1840
Give Me Liberty!: An American History, 4th Brief Edition Copyright © 2014 W. W. Norton & Company

20 1835 Painting of Cincinnati, the self-styled Queen City of the West

21 Steamboats Pt.1 Made upstream travel viable
Helped stimulate trade along western rivers Turned frontier outposts like Cincinnati into commercial centers

22 Railroads Pt.1 The first American railroads were built in the 1830s.
Railroad construction increased demand for iron and forced manufacturers to modernize

23 Railroads 1849 Pt.1 This Currier and Ives print of 1849, The Express Train, captures the popular awe at the speed and wonder of the new technology. This “express” probably traveled no m

24 Commercialization: The Commercial Revolution
Pt.1 Commercialization: The Commercial Revolution The economy moves from barter and home made to a commercial, money economy.

25 The Commercial Revolution
Pt.1 The Commercial Revolution Transportation revolution helped farmers sell in previously unreachable markets. Government policy encouraged commercial agriculture by keeping land cheap. Regional specialization enabled farmers to concentrate on growing a single crop, but made them dependent on distant markets and credit. By the 1850s the Old Northwest was the nation’s agricultural heartland Beginning of things similar to today’s Uniform Commercial Codes

26 The Accumulation of Capital
Northern bankers and markets dominated the economy. The huge boom in cotton since the Cotton Gin made the planters rich, BUT also northern financiers, transportation giants, and in the long run, textile factory owners. Slave labor made the whole country rich, and fueled (financed) the US Industrial Revolution.

27 The Putting-Out System
In the early 19th century merchants “put out” raw goods for processing in homes. Despite industrial growth, the system persisted into the 1830s In the case of shoe-making artisans: journeymen cut the leather wives and daughters bound the upper parts together the men stitched the shoe together

28 The Putting-Out System
As demand grew, merchants like Micajah Pratt built central workshops and brought workers into Lynn, Massachusetts. Pratt modified the putting-out system providing greater control over the workforce and the flexibility to respond to changing economic conditions.

29 The Putting-Out System
The putting-out system and the central workshops caused the decline of the artisan shop.

30 The Spread of Commercial Markets
As more workers became part of the putting-out system wages for piecework replaced bartering. families bought mass-produced goods rather than making them at home. Commercialization did not happen immediately or in the same way across the nation.

31 New Routes West Between 1830 and 1850 the population of the Old Northwest almost quadrupled. The National Road and Erie Canal both facilitated movement from the Northeast to the Midwest. Southern migrants moved to the Old Southwest.

32 The Yankee West The Yankee West

33 1830s Innovations in farm tools greatly increased productivity
This advertisement contrasts farmers harvesting traditionally with a sickle compared to the speed of the mechanized McCormick reaper.

34

35 John Deere’s Steel Plow 1837
Innovations in farm tools greatly increased productivity.

36 C) Industrialization:
Pt.1 C) Industrialization: The Industrial Revolution began in the British textile industry and created deplorable conditions. Slater – our industrial spy! Setup his first mill in us in US in 1793. He built a mill that followed British custom by hiring women and children.

37 C) Industrialization:
Pt.1 C) Industrialization: The Industrial Revolution began in the British textile industry and created deplorable conditions. Lowell helped invent a power loom and built the first integrated cotton mill near Boston in (Lowell, Massachusetts) Factories had elaborate divisions of labor that set up a hierarchy of value and pay.

38 Women at work tending machines in the Lowell textile mills
Give Me Liberty!: An American History, 4th Brief Edition Copyright © 2014 W. W. Norton & Company

39 1853 Time Table Broadside Give Me Liberty!: An American History, 4th Brief Edition Copyright © 2014 W. W. Norton & Company

40 Illustration of seamstresses at work, from Sartain’s Union Magazine, January 1851
This illustration of seamstresses at work, from Sartain’s Union Magazine, January 1851, shows an early abuse created by the market revolution. Women workers were crowded into just a few occupations, thereby allowing owners to offer very low wages for very long hours of work. The women in this illustration appear to be gathered together in a central workshop, where they had each other for company. Many other women sewed alone at home, often for even lower wages.

41 Map 9.6 Cotton Mills, 1820s Give Me Liberty!: An American History, 4th Brief Edition Copyright © 2014 W. W. Norton & Company

42 Mechanization and Gender
Industrialization a major threat to status, independence of skilled male workers. Breakdown of the family work system harmed independent urban artisans, destroyed apprenticeship system. Garment industry led many women to work, sewing ready-made clothing for piece rates.

43 Mechanization and Gender
So poorly paid were these tasks, that women might work fifteen to eighteen hours a day.

44 Early Strikes Women at Lowell protested a wage cut with a spontaneous strike in 1834. Pressure from workers led New Hampshire, Maine and Pennsylvania to adopt “ten hour day” laws in the 1840s. Most early strikes were unsuccessful because owners were able to find new workers.

45 Early Strikes (cont'd) Labor-management tensions led to a breakdown of the pre-industrial notion of a community of interest between owners and workers.

46 Map 9.4 The Market Revolution: the spread of cotton
cultivation, 1820–1840 Give Me Liberty!: An American History, 4th Brief Edition Copyright © 2014 W. W. Norton & Company

47 The ‘American’ System of Manufacture
American manufacturing based on interchangeable parts rifles developed by Eli Whitney, Simeon North, John Hall Standardization E.g.: sewing machines American thinking about democracy and equality

48 The Springfield Rifle 1861

49 Part 2: The Second Great Awakening
Origins: Began 1790’s in New England, by spread through Protestant churches of entire country Central Institution: The CAMP MEETING, especially on the frontier, it included many different sects, and could go on for days. E.g: In Kentucky in 1801, a group of 20k came together for a week of praying and singing. New audience: People whose lives were changed by the market revolution, and were adjusting to the new economic order

50 Religious Camp Meeting, a watercolor from the late 1830s
Give Me Liberty!: An American History, 4th Brief Edition Copyright © 2014 W. W. Norton & Company Religious Camp Meeting, a watercolor from the late 1830s

51 First vs. Second Great Awakening:
Pt.2 First vs. Second Great Awakening: First Awakening: Puritan notions of Pre-destination GOD chooses the fate of mankind Character is BORN, not made Second Awakening: Evangelism stresses self-discipline and individual achievement The INDIVIDUAL chooses the his own fate (through salvation) Character is MADE

52 (Preacher) Charles G. Finney
Preachers such as Charles G. Finney urged businessmen to convert and accept the self-discipline and individualism that religion brought.

53 Part 3: The New Middle Class -- & the Workers
A) The “Self-Made Man” B) Temperance Movement C) New middle class family D) Pushing Middle Class values on the workers

54 A) Self-Made Man Pt.3 Origins: Self-made myth:
Religion  The idea of choosing implied the perfectibility of mankind, if only mankind would choose God. Self-made myth: The only thing that holds people back is their own inability You are in charge of your own life, and get what you deserve Implications of the myth: FAILURE (measured as poverty) is proof of individual inadequacy, not of social injustice. But also (as per Foner ppt)With the market revolution, the right to compete for economic advancement became essential to American freedom. Symbols of liberty were bound up with symbols of prosperity. John Jacob Astor, the son of a poor German immigrant, became the richest man in America by using money earned from shipping to invest in Manhattan real estate. His story, and the stories of men like him, seemed to embody opportunities open to the “self-made man.” This success was achieved not through hereditary privilege or government favoritism, as in Europe, but through hard work and intelligence. The market revolution and expanding commercial life enriched bankers, merchants, industrialists, and planters and produced a new middle class of clerks, accountants, and other professionals, such as teachers, doctors, and lawyers.

55 B) Temperance Movement
Pt.3 B) Temperance Movement Ideological stance: Every industrious man, who watched his money, watched his time, and put his time to good use, would thrive in the world. Drunkenness led to vice of all kinds, you wasted your money, you wasted your time, you depleted your body, & engaged in all kinds of immoral activities.

56 Temperance Movement Pt.3 Scope: In this period before the Civil War,
Temperance was the largest voluntary movement in the United States.

57 The Free Individual continued
Utopian Reactions in the Burned Over district (Upstate NY) The Free Individual continued The Emergence of Mormonism (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) 1830 One of the lasting and largest Second Great Awakening religious communities was the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, whose members are most often referred to as Mormons. Joseph Smith, claiming to have found ancient tablets, which he transcribed as the Book of Mormon, founded the church in the late 1820s in upstate New York. His absolute authority over his followers and Mormons’ refusal to separate church and state alarmed many, as did their practice of polygamous marriage, in which one man could have more than one wife. The Mormons were persecuted and driven from state to state, until the Mormon leader Brigham Young led more than 10,000 Mormons to the shores of the Great Salt Lake in modern-day Utah. The case of the Mormons showed the limits of religious toleration in nineteenth-century America.

58 Implications of the New Middle Class Ideology:
Pt.3 Implications of the New Middle Class Ideology: Lent moral legitimacy to the dominance of the middle class in the factories, and the government, and the economy of the United States. Put incredible importance on upbringing and education, and the making of the American character.

59 C) New middle class family
Pt.3 C) New middle class family Role of Women: Bourgeois domesticity: The virtue of the homemaker No other identity for women of middle class than wife and mother. Since men’s work left the home, women’s work became more domestic.

60 Role of Children for the New Middle Class:
Pt.3 Role of Children for the New Middle Class: No longer were big families favored, since children’s labor (as on the farm) was no longer needed (Average: 6 children in 1810 to 3 children in 1850) Parents needed to think in terms of investing in few children, not just education, but business, training- ships, etc. For daughters, parents made sure they had good marriages. So: Piano lessons, dresses for events, etc, etc. Abstinence was the main form of birth control, but abortion was still legal, (and wouldn’t be made illegal till the 1870s).

61 The Limits of Prosperity
The Cult of Domesticity Earlier ideas of “republican motherhood” were replaced by this “cult of domesticity.” Virtue came to be defined as a personal quality associated with women, who were expected to be sexually innocent, beautiful, frail, and dependent on men. Many opportunities created by the market revolution were also closed to women. As the household declined as a site of economic production, women’s traditional roles were undermined by mass-produced goods once made at home. Some women entered factories, while others embraced a new definition of femininity centered in women’s ability to create a private sphere in the home removed from the competitive tensions of the market economy. Here, a woman’s role was not to produce things but to sustain nonmarket values such as love, friendship, and mutual obligation, providing men with a shelter from the rigors of the market. Earlier ideas of “republican motherhood” were replaced by this “cult of domesticity.” Virtue came to be defined as a personal quality associated with women, who were expected to be sexually innocent, beautiful, frail, and dependent on men. The cult of domesticity minimized even women’s indirect participation in public life, viewing women as nurturing, selfless, and ruled by emotions, while seeing men as rational, aggressive, and domineering. While men could move freely between the public and private spheres, women were to remain confined within the private family.

62 “Married” lithograph from around 1849
Give Me Liberty!: An American History, 4th Brief Edition Copyright © 2014 W. W. Norton & Company

63 The Limits of Prosperity
Women and Work But the cult of domesticity did not capture the realities of life for the many women who worked for wages at least part of their lives. Women who worked outside the home could not compete freely for jobs, since only low-paying jobs were open to them, and married women could not sign their own contracts or, until after the Civil War, keep their wages, which went to their husbands. Many poor women worked as domestic servants, factory workers, and seamstresses. Respectability was earned in middle-class homes, which were segregated in neighborhoods distant from other classes, in part by keeping wives and children at home and hiring women to do household work. Even working-class men adopted these values and protested that capitalism was ripping women from the home and subjecting them to exploitation and abuse in the marketplace.

64 Middle-Class Children
“Childhood” emerged as an ideal as children’s education and professional training is prolonged. Schooling, schooling, and more schooling new norm. (or aprenciticeships) No longer start work at 15; childhood itself becomes longer.

65 Middle-Class Children
Mother one responsible for training children in self-discipline. Women formed networks and read advice magazines to help them in these tasks. Mothers made contacts that would contribute to their children’s latter development.

66 The Second Great Awakening
Sex and Gender: A New Paradigm within the Reproductive Matrix: “Early Victorian Sex/Gender System” Emerges parallel to The Second Great Awakening

67 Roots of Victorian Sex/Gender System (Early 19th Century)
“Passionlessness” A Complex tradeoff

68 Victorian Sex/Gender System Continued
But note: By Late 19th Century: Control is lost by women, Especially to the rising medical profession. Late Victorian Sex/Gender Ideology will become counterproductive for women.

69 Market Society The Growth of Immigration
Economic growth fueled a demand for labor, which was partly filled by immigrants. Immigration swelled between 1840 and 1860, when over 4 million people came to the United States, mostly from Ireland and Germany. Modernization of agriculture, the industrial revolution, and steamship and rail transportation spurred many of these migrants to America. Most went to the North, where jobs were plentiful and slaves were few and would not compete with them. Very few immigrants went to southern states, except for peripheral cities such as New Orleans, St. Louis, or Baltimore. Immigrants in northern cities and rural areas were quite visible. America offered political and religious freedom to Europeans living under repressive governments and rigid social hierarchies. But the largest number of immigrants fled catastrophe—the Irish men and women who escaped from the Great Famine of 1845–1851, when a potato blight starved 1 million Irish to death and caused another million to migrate, mostly to America. These migrants, having worked mostly in agricultural labor, moved into unskilled or low-skilled jobs—men into common labor, rail and canal construction, longshore and factory work, and women into domestic service. The Germans were the second-largest group of immigrants. They had more skilled workers, tended to be artisans, craftsmen, and shopkeepers, and formed tight-knit immigrant communities in the East and West.

70 Table 9.2 Total Number of Immigrants by Five-Year Period
Give Me Liberty!: An American History, 4th Brief Edition Copyright © 2014 W. W. Norton & Company

71 The Rise of Nativism Market Society
While English immigrants were easily absorbed in American culture, the Irish faced bitter hostility. They were Roman Catholics in a mostly Protestant society with deep anti-Catholic traditions, and they increased the visibility and power of the Catholic Church. Irish immigrants in the 1840s and 1850s alarmed many native-born Americans, and “nativists,” who feared the impact of immigration on American political and social life, blamed immigrants for crime, political corruption, heavy drinking, and job competition that undercut wages for native-born skilled workers. The Irish were rapidly integrated into the Democratic Party’s urban political machines, which dispensed jobs and poor relief to immigrants. Nativists believed that the Irish in particular were a lazy, childlike, and irrational people unfamiliar with American ideas of liberty and subservient to the Catholic Church, thus threatening democratic institutions, social reform, and public education. Riots targeted immigrants and their institutions, and nativist politicians were elected in the 1840s and 1850s.

72 Figure 9.1 Sources of Immigration
Give Me Liberty!: An American History, 4th Brief Edition Copyright © 2014 W. W. Norton & Company

73 Give Me Liberty!: An American History, 4th Brief Edition
Copyright © 2014 W. W. Norton & Company Riot in Philadelphia

74 Part 4: The Working Class: Irish example
A) Education? B) Not the “Self Made” man C) Moral clash D) Middle Class Reformers E) Community-oriented F) Marriage & love G) Discretionary spending

75 Pt.4 A) Education? Labor: For working class Irish families, they depended on everybody in the family working, including children Religion: Americanization & religion were intertwined, so Catholic parents didn’t want to send their kids to predominantly Protestant schools Custom: Many parents believed that children shouldn’t be more educated than the father.

76 B) Not the “Self Made” man
Pt.4 B) Not the “Self Made” man The Irish did very badly in terms of social mobility at first. They were still, after 20 or 30 years, concentrated in the bottom ranks of unskilled and semiskilled laborers To the middle class “self made” men , this only proved that they were right all along, and that the immigrants were not of equal character as themselves.

77 Pt.4 C) Moral clash The middle-class saw the lack of birth control use as irresponsible. To the MC, the supposed lack of sexual control the Irish had, made it seem like the Irish constantly had sex, without birth control.

78 Pt.4 D) Moral Reformers Wives of these new middle-class American families, considered it their religious mission to convert Catholics to Protestantism They went into Irish working class neighborhoods and homes to exert the Irish to convert Home visits were part of the benevolent or charitable networks of middle class women in the cities.

79 E) Community-oriented
Pt.4 E) Community-oriented The Irish helped one another when they could, but there was a great deal of tension that comes with overcrowding, poverty, etc. The tenements weren’t private. Walls paper thin. Everybody took their problems to the neighbors to settle Vs. strong middle class value on privacy

80 Pt.4 F) Marriage & love In working class marriages there was little articulated tenderness, in the new age of Romantic Love for middle class people. Marriages were regarded as a relationship of reciprocal responsibilities and obligation A man supposedly gave wages, while a woman gave domestic service and sexual partnership Violence was common.

81 G) Discretionary spending
Pt.4 G) Discretionary spending Irish Working class socialized at the pub & spent $$$ on weddings, wakes.

82 The Free Individual Focus Question: How did the meanings of American freedom change in this period? The purpose of the focus questions is to help students find larger themes and structures to bring the historical evidence, events, and examples together for a connected thematic purpose. As we go through each portion of this lecture, you may want to keep in mind how the information relates to this larger thematic question. Here are some suggestions: write the focus question in the left or right margin on your notes and as we go through, either mark areas of your notes for you to come back to later and think about the connection, OR as you review your notes later (to fill in anything else you remember from the lecture or your thoughts during the lecture or additional information from the readings), write small phrases from the lecture and readings that connect that information to each focus question AND/OR are examples that work together to answer the focus question.

83 The Free Individual The West and Freedom
By the 1830s and 1840s, the market revolution and westward expansion had profoundly affected all Americans’ lives, reinforcing older ideas of freedom and creating new ones. American freedom had long been linked with available land in the West. In this period was coined the phrase “manifest destiny,” referring to the divine mission of the United States to occupy all of North America and extend freedom, despite any costs to peoples and nations already there. But an old idea connecting freedom and a divine mission to move west and settle land had its origins in colonial times. In national myth and ideology, the West would long remain a sanctuary for the free American. To many, the settlement and exploitation of the West offered America a chance to avoid becoming like Europe, where society was marked by fixed social classes and large numbers of wage-earning poor. In the West, free or cheap land was abundant and factory labor less common. The West seemed to offer men facing wage labor and rising land prices in the East an opportunity to gain economic independence—the social condition of freedom.

84 A New Economy Railroads and the Telegraph
While canals connected only existing waterways, railroads opened vast new areas of the interior, while stimulating coal mining, for fuel, and iron manufacturing, for locomotives and rail. Work on the first railroad, the Baltimore and Ohio, began in By 1860, the nation’s rail network was 30,000 miles long, more than the total in the rest of the world combined. At the same time, the invention of the telegraph in the 1830s by Samuel F. B. Morse allowed for instantaneous communication. First used commercially in 1844, the telegraph served businesses and newspapers by helping to speed the flow of information and bringing uniformity to prices.

85 The Free Individual The Transcendentalists
The energetic, competitive world of the market revolution led many Americans to identify freedom with the absence of restraints on self-directed individuals who sought economic advancement and personal development. Opportunities for personal growth presented a new definition of Jefferson’s pursuit of happiness that well fitted a new America in which westward expansion and market relations shattered old spatial and social boundaries. A group of New England intellectuals, called “transcendentalists,” reflected this national mood in their writings and activities. Together they insisted that individual judgment should take precedence over existing social traditions and institutions. Ralph Waldo Emerson defined freedom as an open-ended process of self-realization, in which individuals could remake themselves and their own lives. Henry David Thoreau called for individuals to rely on themselves. The term “individualism” was first used In this era. Unlike in the colonial period, many Americans now believed that individuals should pursue their own self-interest, no matter what the cost to the public good, and that they should and could depend only on themselves. Americans more and more saw the realm of the private self as one in which other individuals and government should not interfere.

86 A view of New York City in 1849
Give Me Liberty!: An American History, 4th Brief Edition Copyright © 2014 W. W. Norton & Company

87 Free African Americans in the North in the Market Revolution
Free blacks were excluded from economic opportunities. Free blacks in northern states experienced discrimination in every sphere of life. They were segregated into the poorest and unhealthiest areas of cities like New York, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati, and were subjected to assaults in riots by white mobs. They were barred from schools and other public facilities, and created their own institutional life of schools and churches, such as the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Many blacks experienced downward economic mobility, unable to practice their craft skills because of discrimination by white employers and workers, and were relegated to the most unskilled and menial low-paid labor. Blacks also could not take advantage of the opening of the West, since federal law barred them from accessing public land, and some western states prohibited them from even entering their territory.

88 Market Society & Transformation of Law after 1840s
American law in this period increasingly supported efforts of Entrepreneurs to participate in the market revolution, while protecting them from local governments and liability that might interfere with their activities. The corporate form of business organization, in which a corporate firm receives a charter from the government and stockholders are not individually liable for company debts, became central to economic life in this period. Corporations found reinforcement in Supreme Court decisions that validated their legal status. \ Local courts found businesses blameless for property damage and held that employers had full authority in the workplace, even using old conspiracy laws to convict workers who joined unions or went on strike. American law in this period increasingly supported the efforts of entrepreneurs to participate in the market revolution, while protecting them from local governments and liability that might interfere with their activities. The corporate form of business organization, in which a corporate firm receives a charter from the government and stockholders are not individually liable for company debts, became central to economic life in this period. Corporations found reinforcement in Supreme Court decisions that validated their legal status. Local courts found businesses blameless for property damage and held that employers had full authority in the workplace, even using old conspiracy laws to convict workers who joined unions or went on strike.

89 The Limits of Prosperity
The Early Labor Movement The “Liberty of Living” Many Americans experienced the market revolution as a loss of freedom. The economy suffered a sharp recession in 1819, a depression starting in 1837, and several downturns in between, all of which caused high levels of unemployment and reductions in wages. While the economic transformations of the market revolution greatly expanded America’s output and trade and increased living standards, it also widened the gap in wealth and income between wealthy merchants and industrialists at one end and workers and the poor on the other, especially in the urban Northeast. Worried by the erosion of their traditional skills and the danger of being reduced to dependent wage earners, skilled craftsmen in the late 1820s created the world’s first Workingmen’s Parties. These were short-lived political organizations that sought to mobilize lower-class support for candidates who demanded free public education, an end to imprisonment for debt, and laws limiting work to ten hours per day. In the 1830s, unions were organized and strikes were common. Wage-earners protesting social conditions and pressing for political demands invoked ideas of freedom and independence from the Revolutionary era to justify their claims. They even compared their status to slaves, using the term wage-slavery. Thus, even while the market revolution offered opportunities to many Americans, it also generated anxieties and protests that came to be reflected in politics.

90 The Shoemakers’ Strike in Lynn—Procession in the Midst
of a Snow-Storm, of Eight Hundred Women Operatives Give Me Liberty!: An American History, 4th Brief Edition Copyright © 2014 W. W. Norton & Company

91 MEDIA LINKS —— Chapter 9 ——
Title Media link Eric Foner on the market revolution, pt 2 Eric Foner on the cotton kingdom Eric Foner on westward expansion in the 19th century Eric Foner on the abolitionist movement Eric Foner on Mormons as an American and global phenomenon

92 Next Lecture PREVIEW: —— Chapter 10 —— Democracy in America, 1815–1840
The Triumph of Democracy Nationalism and Its Discontents Nation, Section, and Party The Age of Jackson The Bank War and After


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