In the 1840s, improved transportation such as steamboats, canals, and the beginning of railroads connected different regions of the US and facilitated the growth of a national market economy. Inventions in agriculture like the cotton gin and mechanical reaper increased productivity on large commercial farms in the South and West. The North specialized in manufacturing to supply the growing agricultural sectors, leading to urbanization and the rise of early factories like the Lowell Mills. However, the US economy remained regionally specialized, with the North industrializing, the South growing cotton, and the West producing wheat and other crops.

1.  EEsssseennttiiaall QQuueessttiioonn:
 How did new inventions & improved
transportation help facilitate a national
market economy in the 1840s?

2.  In the 1830s & 1840s, territorial &
technological growth led to important
changes in America:
 Improved transportation
 Rapid technological innovation
 A growing nnaattiioonnaall economy
 Mass European immigration
 Desire for transcontinental expansion (“Manifest
Destiny”)

4.  In 1816, Henry Clay’s AAmmeerriiccaann SSyysstteemm
initiated federally funded “internal
improvements”
 The NNaattiioonnaall RRooaadd became the 1st federal
transportation project
 Thousands of private turnpikes were built by
entrepreneurs
 Roads were useful but they did not meet the
demand for low-cost, over-land transportation

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6. Cumberland (National Road), 1811

7. Steamboats & canals stimulated commercial
agriculture by providing for the free-flow of
manufactured goods to the West

8. Steamboats provided upstream shipping
with reduce costs & increased speeds
 Mississippi & Ohio Rivers helped farmers get
their goods to the East but there was no way
to get manufactured goods to the West:
 Fulton’s invention of steamboats helped connect
the West with Northern manufacturing
 State-directed canal projects cut shipping costs
by 90% between the West & the North

9. Robert Fulton’ s Steamboat
The Clermont

10. The Erie Canal (1825) provided
the 1st link between East & West
The Erie Canal made
New York City the commercial
capital of the U.S.

11. Inland
Freight
Rates

12.  From 1840 to 1860, the greatest new
transportation advance was the expansion
of railroads
 In 1840s, railroads began to challenge canals’
dominance
 Stimulated industrial & commercial agricultural
growth
 Led to new forms of finance, such as “preferred
stock” & state & local gov’t subsidies

13. The “Iron Horse” Wins! (1830)

14. Railroad Expansion by 1860
The Expansion of Railroads by Region
 Immigrant labor
built railroads in
the North
 Slave labor built
railroads in the
South

15. Jackson’s assault on the 2nd BUS in the 1830s,
killed Clay’s “American System” but it did
not stop transportation improvements

17.  In the 1840s, American industrial production
became more efficient:
 Due to numerous industrial innovations, growth
of factories, & a demand for goods from farmers
in West & South
 Led to an increased division of labor &
urbanization in the North & an increase in
staple-crop commercial farming

18. Ohio, NY, & PA specialized in wheat while
the South grew tobacco, rice, & cotton
 The antebellum era saw a boom in
specialized, staple-crop, “commercial”
farming due to:
 Lower transportation costs
 New agricultural innovations like McCormick’s
mechanical reaper, Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, the
steel plow, thresher, & cultivator
 The use of long-distance marketing & credit to
sell crops

19. Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin, 1793
Actually invented
by a slave!

20. John Deere & the Steel Plow

21. Cyrus McCormick
& the Mechanical Reaper

22.  In 1815, 65% of all U.S. clothing was made
by women at home in the “putting out”
system
 By 1840, textile manufacturing grew,
especially in New England, due to a series of
new inventions
“Cottage Industry”
 The most famous factory was the Lowell Mill in
Boston
Brought families extra income
 Still, only 9% of Americans were involved in
manufacturing

23. Samuel Slater
Early
Textile
Loom
(“Father of the Factory System”)

24. Elias Howe & Isaac Singer
1840s
Sewing Machine

25. Eli Whitney’s Other Critical Invention
Introduced Interchangeable Rifle Parts

26. Cyrus FFiieelldd’’ss TTrraannssaattllaannttiicc CCaabbllee,, 11885588
Samuel Morse’s Telegraph in 1840

27. Lowell Boarding Houses
The Lowell System:
The 1st Dual-Purpose Textile Plant
Francis Cabot Lowell’s town - 1814

28.  Francis C. Lowell studied the British
spinning machine.
 Lowell helped invent a power loom and built
the first integrated cotton mill near Boston
in 1814.
 The mill drove smaller competitors out of
business.
 Lowell’s successors soon built an entire
town to house the new enterprise.

29. Lowell Girls
What was their typical “profile?”

30.  Young women from New England farms
worked in the Lowell textile mills.
 Initially, the women found the work a welcome
change from farm routine, but later conflict
arose with their employers.
 By the 1830s, mill owners cut wages and
ended their paternalistic practices.
 The result was strikes and the replacement of
the young women with more manageable Irish
immigrants.

31. MAP 12.3 Lowell, Massachusetts, 1832 This town plan of Lowell, Massachusetts in 1832,
illustrates the comprehensive relationship the owners envisaged between the factories and the
workforce. The mills are located on the Merrimack River, while nearby are the boarding houses for
the single young female workers, row houses for the male mechanics and their families, and
houses for the overseers. Somewhat farther away is the mansion of the company agent.

32. This timetable from the Lowell Mills
illustrates the elaborate time
schedules that the cotton textile mills
expected their employees to meet.
For workers, it was difficult to adjust
to the regimentation imposed by
clock time, in contrast to the
approximate times common to
preindustrial work.
SOURCE:Baker Library,Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University.

33.  The rise of the garment industry led many
women to work, sewing ready-made clothing
for piece rates.
 So poorly paid were these tasks that women
might work fifteen to eighteen hours a day.
 Women’s work in 1837 was centered in the
manufacture of hats, bonnets, boots and
shoes.

34. New England
Dominance in
Textiles

35.  1840s: Factory labor begins shifting from
women, children to men
 Immigrants dominate new working class
 Employers less involved with laborers
 Post-1837 employers demand more work for
less pay
 Unions organized to defend worker rights

36.  Middle-class women managed their homes
and provided a safe haven for their husbands.
 Attitudes about appropriate male and female
roles and qualities hardened.
 Men were seen as steady, industrious, and
responsible; women as nurturing, gentle, and
moral.

37.  The gap between rich and poor grew rapidly.
 Economic class was reflected by residence as:
 poor people (nearly 70 percent of the city) lived in
cheap rented housing
 middle-class residents (25-30 percent) lived in more
comfortable homes
 very rich (about 3 percent) built mansions and large
town houses.

38.  About half of the nation’s free African Americans lived in
the North, mainly in cities, where they encountered:
 residential segregation
 job discrimination
 segregated public schools
 limits on their civil rights
 Free African Americans formed community support
networks, newspapers, and churches.
 The economic prospects of African-American men
deteriorated.
 Free African Americans engaged in antislavery activities,
but were frequent targets of urban violence.

39.  Competition for the votes of workers shaped urban
politics.
 Big-city machines arose reflecting the class structure of
the fat-growing cities.
 The machines cultivated feelings of community by:
 appealing directly for working-class votes through mass
organizational activities
 creating organizations that met basic needs of the urban poor
 The machines also had a tight organizational structure
headed by bosses who traded loyalty and votes for
political jobs and services, leading to charges of
corruption.

40. The Five Points neighborhood in lower Manhattan illustrates the segregated housing patterns
that emerged as New York City experienced rapid growth. Immigrants, free African
Americans, the poor, and criminals were crowded together in New York’s most notorious
slum, while wealthier people moved to more prosperous neighborhoods. SOURCE:1859 lithograph;The Granger Collection.

41.  Increased cotton demand from New England
textile factories
 Eli Whitney and the cotton gin
 New, fertile land available in old Southwest
 Slavery permitted large-scale operation

42.  90% of slaves lived on plantations or farms
 Most slaves on cotton plantations worked
sunup to sundown, 6 days/week
 About 75% of slaves were field workers, about
5% worked in industry
 Urban slaves had more autonomy than rural
slaves

43.  By 1840, improved transportation &
innovation reduced time & cost to ship goods
& allowed for a nnaattiioonnaall market economy:
Northern industry
 U.S. economy Southern developed a self-sustaining national
of commercial cotton production
farming & manufactured
goods
Western commercial farming
 But, the U.S. economy was driven by rreeggiioonnaall
specialization

44. TThhee AAnntteebbeelllluumm SSoouutthh
 Cotton production divided society in the Deep
South:
 Large plantations with lots of slaves made
good money
 Poor yeoman (with few or no slaves) mixed
commercial & subsistence farming

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47. TThhee AAnntteebbeelllluumm WWeesstt
 Land was cheap
 Settlers transformed the West from wilderness to cash-producing farms:
 Wheat & corn
 Hogs & cattle
 Better transportation made it easier for farmers to get their goods to market

48. TThhee AAnntteebbeelllluumm
NNoorrtthh
 Shifted from
yeoman to small
commercial
farming
 Made
manufactured
goods for
farmers in the
West & South
 Experienced
rapid
urbanization

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51.  New innovations made work easier &
improved American industry & agriculture
 However, the U.S. was not an “industrial
society” in the 1840s
 60% of the population were still involved in
farming
 Most production was still done traditionally in
small workshops