1. Chapter 14- Forging the National Economy 1790-1860

2. Western Movement Andrew Jackson-first president from the west.
America was west of the Alleghenies-Emerson
Frontier life wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Trapping and farmland offer opportunity in the West.
George Catlin calls for preservation of nature

3. Welcome to America Population still doubling
Overrapid urbanization has its many faults
Immigrants flocked to America.
Quadrupling by the 1850’s
Primarily Irish and German immigrants

4. No Irish Need Apply Potato Famine of 1840’s drove Irish movement.
Remained near seaport cities
Catholic roots struck fear in Protestants
Interest in politics
Tammany Hall
Patronage

5. The Old Dutchmen Former farmers who suffered failed crops
Settled in the Midwest
Conestoga wagons, Kentucky rifle, Christmas trees
Pro-public education. Anti-slavery

6. King Cotton Eli Whitney and the cotton gin
50 times more effective than handpicking
Cotton in the south was spun in mills in the north
New England top choice for textile mills

7. The Life of the Factory Worker
Long hours
Low wages
Skimpy meals
Labor unions forbidden
Child labor
Children under 10
“Whipping rooms”
Spurred need for public education

8. What About the Ladies? Factory girls worked from dark to dark
20% had worked before marriage
“Cult of domesticity”
“Domestic feminism”
Child rearing will shape, rather than break the will of the child

9. Transportation Lancaster Turnpike started the craze
Led to the Conestoga wagon
Robert Fulton invents the steamboat
Governor Clinton digs the Erie Canal, linking the Great Lakes and the Hudson River
‘Iron Horse’ was faster, more reliable, and cheaper than the rest

10. Market Revolution
Transformed America from a subsistence economy of the Antebellum Era to a national network of industry and commerce
Big business brought new problems for federal and state governments
Family structures changed as a result of industrial work
Polarity between rich and poor became heightened