2. The new nation went bounding into the 19th century in a burst of movement. Better roads, faster
steamboats, farther-reaching canals, and railroads all helped move people, raw materials, and
manufactured goods from coast to coast and Gulf to Great Lakes by the mid-19th century.

3. THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT
The West, with its raw frontier, was the most typically American part of America. Demographically,
America was young and on the move. Distinguish between the perceptions and realities of pioneer life.
What did the men sometimes do for entertainment? Were the pioneers well-informed?

4. SHAPING the WESTERN LANDSCAPE
The westward movement also molded the physical environment by exhausting the land in the tobacco
regions and then pushing on, leaving behind barren and rain-gutted fields. By the 1820’s American fur-
trappers were setting trap lines all over the vast Rocky Mt. Region. By the time beaver hats had gone
out of fashion, the hapless beaver had all but disappeared. Buffalo and sea-otters suffered the same
plight.

5. THE MARCH of the MILLIONS
As the American people moved west, the center of population continued to change and it also
multiplied at an amazing rate. By the mid-19th century the population was still doubling approx. every
25 years and the high birth rate accounted for most of the population increase. Urban growth
continued explosively and brought some undesirable by-products.
Explain the growth of urban centers in
the U.S.
Identify some of the problems associated
with the over-rapid growth.

6. The influx of immigrants tripled in the 1840’s and quadrupled in the 1850’s. These first two waves
primarily consisted of Irish and Germans. What were the primary reasons for these immigrants risking
a journey to America?

7. THE EMERALD ISLE MOVES WEST
Ireland, already groaning under the heavy hand of British overlords, was prostrated in the mid-
1840’s. Describe the disaster that forced tens of thousands to flee Ireland.

8. Where did the Irish immigrants primarily settle when they
arrived? Why?
How were the Irish treated once they settled into their
homes?
To improve their plight, what was their successful
strategy?

9. THE GERMAN FORTY-EIGHTERS
The influx of refugees from Germany between 1830 and 1860 was hardly less spectacular than that
from Ireland. How many arrived during the three decade period? Why did most of them
emigrate? And how were they received, compared to the Irish? What were they known for?

10. FLARE-UPS of ANTIFOREIGNISM
The invasion by this so-called immigrant “rabble” in the 1840’s and 1850’s inflamed the prejudices of
American “nativists.”Describe the fears that sparked this nativist prejudice.
To address this “immigrant threat,” nativists moved
on the political front by forming the “Know-
Nothing” Party, which advocated rigid restrictions
on immigration and naturalization.
Despite the strong anti-foreign sentiments,
describe the important immigrant Where political tools were not used, violence and
contributions to America. intimidation were often used.

11. THE MARCH of MECHANIZATION
A group of British inventors, beginning about 1750, perfected a series of machines for the mass
production of textiles. This ushered-in the modern factory system, better known as the Industrial
Revolution. Agriculture, transportation, and communication would be greatly transformed by this
phenomenon. The factory system gradually spread from Europe to the U.S.
Why was the youthful American Republic, destined to be an industrial giant, so slow to embrace the
machines of the Industrial Revolution?

12. WHITNEY ENDS the FIBER FAMINE
Samuel Slater has been acclaimed the “Father of the
Factory System” in America. Explain how Slater
earned his nickname.
With Slater providing the efficient machinery for
spinning cotton thread, the dilemma was the supply of
cotton fiber.
Handpicking one pound of lint from three pounds of seed
was a full day’s work for a slave or a woman, and this
made cotton very expensive.

13. Massachusetts-born Eli Whitney developed a crude machine called a cotton gin that was 50 times more
effective than the handpicking process. What inspired him to invent this machine?
Few machines have ever wrought
so wondrous a change.
Identify & describe the impact of
this machine on America.

14. MARVELS in MANUFACTURING
America’s factories spread slowly until about 1807, when the sequence of embargo, non-intercourse,
and the War of 1812 necessitated manufacturing. The post-1812 flood of foreign goods was slowed by
a series of American tariffs.
As the factory system flourished, it embraced other industries in addition to textiles, including the mass
production of firearms created by Eli Whitney and using interchangeable parts.
The principle of interchangeable parts became the basis of modern mass-production, assembly-line
methods. How did Whitney ironically aid both the South and the North?

15. The sewing machine, invented by Elias Howe and perfected by Isaac Singer gave another strong boost
to northern industrialization.
Each momentous new invention seemed to stimulate still more imaginative inventions, as evidenced by
the increased number of patents. Technical advances spurred equally important changes in the form and
legal status of business organizations. The principle of limited liability and laws of
“freeincorporation” stimulated manufacturing – explain these.

16. WORKERS and “WAGE SLAVES”
One ugly outgrowth of the factory system was an increasingly acute labor problem. Hitherto
manufacturing had been done in the home, or in the small shop, where the master craftsman and his
apprentice could maintain an intimate and friendly relationship.
The Industrial Revolution submerged this personal association in the impersonal ownership of stuffy
factories in “spindle cities.” Slum-like hovels of the “wage slaves” clustered around these cities.

17. Describe the plight of the factory worker. Children were especially vulnerable to exploitation – how
young were these children? And, what was the impact of factory work on them?
Adult wage workers did improve their lot markedly in the 1820’s and 1830’s. What rationale did
employers use to fight the 10 hour work day? When did federal employees win the 10 hour work day?
Day laborers learned that their strongest weapon was the strike. How did employers counter this
tactic?How was the court case,Commonwealth v. Hunta victory for labor? Did it legalize strikes?

18. WOMEN and the ECONOMY
Farm women and girls had an important place in the pre-industrial economy, making many commodities
by hand. New factories undermined these activities, cranking out manufactured goods much faster than
could be made by hand at home. Yet these same factories offered employment to the very young women
whose work they were displacing.
Factory jobs promised greater economic independence
for women, as well as the means to buy the
manufactured products of the new market economy.

19. “Factory girls” typically toiled six days a week, earning a pittance for dreary, limb-numbing, ear-
splitting stints of 12 or 13 hours – “from dark to dark.”
The girl workers were carefully supervised on and off the job by watchful matrons. Escorted regularly
to church from their company boardinghouses and forbidden to form unions, they had few opportunities
to share dissatisfaction over their grueling working conditions.

20. The following accounts support the monotony of factory work.
Did the textile factory jobs “liberate” American
women?
How did women’s changing roles affect the
American family?

21. WESTERN FARMERS REAP a
REVOLUTION in the FIELDS
Identify and explain the innovations that transformed American agriculture.
American agriculture moved from subsistence
to commercial during the first half of the 19th
century.
Farm commerce moved north & south on the
river systems. Before it could move east-west
in bulk, a transportation system would have to
emerge.

22. HIGHWAYS and STEAMBOATS
Cheap and efficient carriers were imperative if raw materials were to be transported to factories and
finished products were to be delivered to consumers. Likewise for agricultural products. The
construction of highways and the steamboat craze were triumphs in transportation.

23. “CLINTON’S BIG DITCH” in NEW YORK
New York, cut-off from federal aid by states’ righters, themselves dug the Erie Canal from 1817 until
1825.

24. Identify and explain the economic ripples and profound economic and political changes following
the canal’s completion.

25. THE IRON HORSE
The most significant contribution to the
development of a continental economy proved
to be the railroad.
It was fast, reliable, cheaper than canals to
construct, and not frozen over in winter. Able
to go almost anywhere, it defied terrain and
weather.
At first the railroad faced strong opposition
and obstacles – why? What innovations
were introduced to overcome these
obstacles?

26. The first railroad appeared in the U.S. in 1828. By 1860, the U.S. boasted 30,000 miles of rail, ¾ of it
in the rapidly industrializing North. Rail expansion would coincide with the mass production of steel.

27. CABLES AND CLIPPERS
In 1858 Cyrus Field stretched a cable under the deep North Atlantic waters from Newfoundland to
Ireland – it lasted 3 weeks. A heavier cable in 1866 permanently linked the American and European
continents. In the 1840’s and 1850’s, a golden age dawned when the clipper ship was launched.
Whatwere the trade-offs? Unfortunately, the hour of glory was brief, for the steamer replaced these
ships.

28. THE MARKET REVOLUTION
No less revolutionary than the political upheavals of the antebellum era was the “market revolution”
that transformed a subsistence economy of scattered farms and tiny workshops into a national network
of industry and commerce. American life was changed forever.
Did Americans prosper evenly?
Distinguish between the perception and reality of social mobility.