1. in the Antebellum Period
America's Economy
in the Antebellum Period
What were the
results of
early 19th century
industrialization
in America?

2. The
Transportation
Revolution
Refer to the next 10 slides

3. Cumberland (National) Road
1811 – 1839

4. Conestoga Covered Wagons
Conestoga Trail, 1820s

5. Erie Canal System

6. Erie Canal, 1820s
Begun in 1817; completed in 1825

7. Principal Canals in 1840

8. Robert Fulton & the Steamboat
1807: The Clermont

9. Inland Freight Rates

10. Clipper Ships

11. The “Iron Horse” Wins! (1830)
1830  13 miles of track built by Baltimore & Ohio RR
By 1850  9000 mi. of RR track
By 1860  31,000 mi.

12. The Railroad Revolution, 1850s
Mostly immigrant labor built northern RRs.
Mostly slave labor built southern RRs.

13. New Inventions: "Yankee Ingenuity" 1800  41 patents approved

14. Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin, 1791

15. Eli Whitney’s Gun Factory Interchangeable Parts Rifle

16. John Deere & the Steel Plow (1837)

17. Cyrus McCormick & the Mechanical Reaper: 1831

18. Samuel F. B. Morse
1840 – Telegraph

19. Elias Howe & Isaac Singer
1840s Sewing Machine

20. Samuel Slater (“Father of the Factory System”)

21. Lowell Mill
The power loom and related machinery permitted the combination of all the steps in the production of cloth under a single roof. Instead of relying on traditional family labor, the company recruited young single women from the surrounding countryside. So great were the profits at Waltham that the Boston Associates soon looked for new sites, first at East Chelmsford (renamed Lowell), and then Chicopee, Manchester, and Lawrence. The "Waltham-Lowell system" succeeded beyond their expectations, giving the Boston Associates control of a fifth of America's cotton production by 1850.
was a paternalistic textile factory system of the early 19th century that employed mainly young women [age 15-35] from New England farms to increase efficiency, productivity and profits in ways different from other methods. Emphasis was placed on mechanization and standardization; the entire textile industry used this as a model, and machines using this system were sold to other mills.

22. Daguerreotype of a young mill girl, c. 1850, Massachusetts
This young girl probably worked at a mill in Waltham or Lowell during the late 1840s. Her swollen and rough hands contrast with her youth, neat dress, and carefully tied, beribboned hair. Her hands suggest that she worked, as did most 12- and 13-year-olds, as a warper, straightening the strands of cotton or wool as they entered the looms. (Courtesy of Jack Naylor)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

23. Middlesex Company Woolen Mills, Lowell, Massachusetts, c
Middlesex Company Woolen Mills, Lowell, Massachusetts, c. 1848, artist unknown
Middlesex Company Woolen Mills, Lowell, Massachusetts, c. 1848, artist unknown
In the 1830s an unknown artist painted Middlesex Company Woolen Mills, portraying the hulking mass of the mill buildings. The company organized all the manufacturing processes at a single location, in Lowell, Massachusetts, on the Merrimack River. (Museum of American Textile History)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

24. New England Textile Centers 1830s

25. Regional Specialization
NORTHEAST  Industrial
SOUTH  Cotton & Slavery
WEST  The Nation’s “Breadbasket”

26. American Population Centers in 1820

27. American Population Centers in 1860

28. National Origin of Immigrants: 1820 - 1860
Why so many from Ireland and Germany?

29. The Order of the Star-Spangled Banner”
Nativism
The Order of the Star-Spangled Banner”

30. Changing Occupation Distributions: 1820 - 1860