  Canals  allowed for faster & cheaper trade  By 1840, US had 3,300 miles of canals connecting the country  Most famous – Erie Canal (allowed for trade from Atlantic Ocean to Great Lakes – made Chicago a booming city)  Steamboat  invented by Robert Fulton  1 st – the Clermont (steamed 150 miles up the Hudson River from NY in just 32 hrs) Transportation ???Why is transportation on water cheaper and faster????

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  Roads & Turnpikes  National Road  Construction started in 1811  Started in Cumberland, MD and ended in Vandalia, Illinois (ran out of money)  Several changes/improvements have been made since, but today it runs most closely with US Rt. 40 Transportation ???How was the impact of roads different from canals????

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  Trains  Developed in early 1800s  Tom Thumb was the first American locomotive  Allowed people and goods to move quickly from city to city across the country.  Allowed consumers, business owners, farmers, etc. to buy items from other cities Transportation ??? What other industries were spurred from the invention of the train? ???

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  Technological Advances  Eli Whitney  Cotton Gin (pulled seeds out of cotton, still had to pick it, but didn’t have to separate it)  Interchangeable parts (machines were made of multiple pieces that could be replaced instead of replacing the whole machine; ex. Guns)  Samuel F. B. Morse  Invented the telegraph in 1832 and developed Morse Code, both for sending messages Early Industry

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  New inventions and advancements in transportation spurred more people to move to northern cities in search of jobs in developing industries….like textile mills.  Cities became overcrowded (overcrowding leads to unstable employment…leading to poverty…leading to crime)  People worked very long hours and often under poor conditions in the factories that developed along rivers. Life in the North

  City streets were filled with animal waste, garbage, etc.  Until the 1850s, many cities did not have schools, and school was not mandatory.  The North became a haven for runaway slaves and free blacks  Many became factory workers or dock workers and sailors in New England  Others became carpenters, shoemakers, preachers, and school teachers in the Mid-Atlantic states Life in the North

  Agriculture remained the leading economic activity in the US – helped feed the country (north and south)  Southern farmers first produced tobacco and cotton, then corn and wheat  It was very hard work; all members of the family contributed Life in the South

  Invention of the cotton gin allowed farmers to produce much more (1,000 lbs per day with little expense)  In order to put more cotton through the gin….more cotton needed to be grown….to grow more cotton, more slaves were necessary.  By the 1840s, the US was the world’s greatest supplier of cotton Cotton Becomes King

  Slaveholding in the South (based on population of all free men)  Non-slaveholders: 64%  Owning less than 5 slaves: 18%  Owning 5 – 49 slaves: 15.5%  Owning 50 or more slaves: 2.5%  Owning 500 or more slaves: 11 families Society in the South

  Planter class (smallest class; 37,000 people)  wealthy families that owned large plantations  Less than 0.5 percent (half of one percent) of white Southern families (over two percent of total population)  Yeoman class (largest class; 62% of Southern pop.)  Ordinary farmers and southern poor  Most did not have slaves, but the ones that did had one or two that lived with them  Slaves (3.6 million blacks in the South; 93% enslaved = 37% of Southern pop.) Society in the South ??? Why did non-slaveholders support the institution of slavery? ???