This document summarizes key developments in the industrial transformation of the North between 1800-1850, including: 1) The shift from an economy of artisans and skilled craftspeople to one dominated by wage labor in factories, starting with textile production in homes but eventually moving to mills. 2) Innovators like Samuel Slater helped establish the first cotton mills in Rhode Island and Massachusetts based on British models, beginning the rise of manufacturing in the US. 3) The Lowell system recruited young women to work in textile mills, though conditions were difficult, and workers began organizing strikes to protest wages and hours. 4) Inventions and infrastructure projects like canals and railroads facilitated economic growth

1. HIST 2111
Chapter 9: Industrial Transformation in the North, 1800-1850

2. From Artisans to Wage Workers
• 17th and 18th centuries: artisans made goods by hand (shoes, etc.)
• Apprenticeship followed by work as a journeyman (skilled worker without his own shop),
then, eventually, a person would set up a shop
• Late 18th century and early 19th century, merchants in the Northeast, etc., began using
unskilled wage labor to make more profit by reducing their labor costs
• Putting-out system: a labor system in which a merchant hired different families to
perform specific tasks in a production process
• Because laborers were unskilled, they could not demand high wages
• They had other jobs and worked as unskilled laborers to bring in additional income
• Work usually done under contract to merchants
• The most common part-time occupation was the production of textiles, which was
usually done by women in their home, giving their husbands control of the time and
pace of their labor

3. The Rise of Manufacturing
• Great Britain led the Industrial Revolution and the U.S. continued to rely on Great Britain for finished
products
• To keep their knowledge to themselves, Great Britain banned the emigration of mechanics and skilled
workers who could build and repair the latest textile machines
• But, some skilled ones like Samuel Slater managed to travel to the U.S.
• He convinced several American merchants in Rhode Island to finance and build a water-powered cotton mill
based on British models
• This success caused more mills to be constructed in other areas of Rhode Island as well as Massachusetts
• The mills were small and employed around 70 people, with workers being organized in family units
• The Rhode Island system: the father was placed in charge of the family unit, and he directed his wife and
children’s labor. He was then given ‘credit’ equal to the extent of his family’s labor that could be redeemed
in the form of rent of company-owned housing or goods from the company-owned store
• The Embargo of 1807 was vital in spurring industrial development in the U.S. because it prevented American
merchants from engaging in the Atlantic trade, which cut their profits

4. The Rise of Manufacturing
• Francis Cabot Lowell and associates formed the Boston Manufacturing Company
and established several mills
• Specialization of tasks: workers did the same task over and over, all day – the
process of deskilling began
• At first workers were usually well fed, carefully supervised, and lived in clean
boarding houses, surrounded by trees and flowers planted by the company
• The Lowell or Waltham System–recruited young, unmarried women from New
England farms to work in factories. They were chaperoned by matrons and were
held to a strict curfew and moral code. They had to attend church every Sunday.
• Although the work was long (12 hours per day, 6 days per week, with no talking
being allowed), many women enjoyed a sense of independence they had not
known on the farm.

5. The Rise of Consumerism
• Because of the manufacturing process, consumer goods that were
once viewed as luxury items became widely available
• All but the poor could afford oil lamps, parlor stoves, iron cookstoves
with multiple burners, carpets and upholstered furniture, curtains,
wallpaper, and clocks

6. The Work Experience Transformed
• In factory work, workers were expected to report at a certain time, usually early in the morning,
and expected to work all day
• They could not leave when tired or take breaks other than at designated times
• Late workers found their pay docked – being 5 minutes’ late could result in the loss of several
hours’ worth of lost pay
• Perpetually late workers would be fired
• Monotonous tasks made the day seem longer
• Most worked 10-12 hours a day, and oil lamps lit the factory when the sun set early in the winter.
This caused eye strain, and the lamps also produced smoke, which made them cough
• Drinking was not permitted, and some employees were not even allowed to sit down
• Doors and windows were kept closed, causing workers’ health to suffer
• Fire was a common hazard, and hands and fingers were often maimed or severed when caught in
machines

7. The Work Experience Transformed
• Sometimes, workers lost limbs, or were crushed to death
• Workers with injuries lost their jobs and income
• Corporal punishment of children and adults was common, and
sometimes children died at the hands of an overseer
• Working conditions deteriorated in mills as time went on
• Workers had more machines to tend to, and the machines worked
fast and faster
• Wages were cut and workers were paid for amount of work produced,
not hours worked

8. Workers and the Labor Movement
• Long hours, low wages, and strict discipline soon led workers to organize to
protest their working conditions and pay
• 1821, young women at the Boston Manufacturing Company went on strike for 2
days when their wages were cut
• 1824, workers struck to protest reduced pay rates and longer hours – their meal
times had been cut short
• Similar strikes occurred throughout
• 1830s, female mill workers formed the Lowell Factory Girls Association and
organized strike activities due to wage cuts
• Later, they established the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association to protest the
12 hour workday
• Strikes were rarely successful and workers were usually forced to accept
decreased wages and longer hours

9. Workers and the Labor Movement
• Labor theory of value: an economic theory holding that profits from the sale of goods produced
by workers should be equitably distributed to those workers
• Factory owners should receive less
• In Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston, workers united to form political parties
• Working Men’s Party: radically opposed what they viewed as the exploitation of workers. It was
formed by Thomas Skidmore, and in his 1829 treatise, The Rights of Man to Property, he called for
the abolition of inheritance and the redistribution of property. The party also called for an end to
imprisonment for debt. Skidmore also advocated for equality for women and enslaved peoples
(vote, own property). However, his work was cut short when he died from cholera.
• Between 1840 and 1860, the overwhelming majority of immigrants who arrived in the United
States came from Ireland and Germany
• They were willing to work longer hours for less pay, so worker activism became less common
• Irish men laid railroad track and dug canals
• No one’s job was safe as workers became deskilled. Everyone was replaceable.

10. The Land Office Business
• People poured into the territories of the west
• Speculators looking for cheap land from the federal government
• The Ohio Country: “Ohio fever” resulted, thousands traveled there
• The federal government oversaw public auctions of public land (land
offices)

11. The Panic of 1819
• Serious economic crisis: the Panic of 1819, following a period of high
foreign demand for American farm goods
• The rising prices for farm goods led to a land boom in the West and
land speculation caused land prices to soar
• Credit was easily available from the government and banks
• In 1819 the national bank began tightening credit, calling in loans,
and foreclosing mortgages
• State banks fail
• Financial panic ensues and 6 years of depression follow

12. Entrepreneurs and Inventors
• American inventors – Eli Whitney is credited with the invention of the cotton gin (1793), hoping to end
enslavement
• However, the invention made cotton crops spread throughout the South
• He also introduced a system of interchangeable parts which helped farmers be able to repair their machines
themselves
• Robert Fulton invented the steamship in 1807
• Soon, water transportation no longer depended on wind direction, and steamboats were faster, cheaper,
and more efficient
• Cyrus McCormick: horse-drawn mechanical reaper for wheat
• John Deere improved plows
• Samuel Morse: 1832, sent signals along an electric cable. Electricity as a communication device! He creates
the Morse Code
• Congress funded an experimental telegraph line between Baltimore and Washington from 1843-1844
• Western Union Telegraph Company
• Telegraph offices were often in railroad stations

13. Roads and Canals
• Construction of roads and turnpikes
• Cumberland Road: a national highway that provided thousands with a
route from Maryland to Illinois
• Goal: ship goods directly to open markets and ports -- canals – funded
mostly by states
• Erie Canal in New York – construction began in 1817
• It opened in October 1825
• Provided a route to the Great Lakes
• Resulted in an increase in white settlement in the Northwest

14. Railroads
• Mohawk and Hudson Railroad: 1st steam-powered locomotive railroad in
the U.S. (1831)
• The railroad eventually became the primary transportation system
• Expensive to build so the government helped fund them and provide public
land grants
• Huge impact on all facets of American life
• Fast and a relatively cheap form of transportation
• Economic growth
• Birth of a modern corporate form of organization
• Visible sign of American progress

15. Americans on the Move
• Roads, canals, and railroads made travel faster, easier, and cheaper
• Easier to transport goods throughout the nation, enabling the market
revolution
• Rural areas became less isolated
• Soon led to the formation of class divisions, specific cultures, and
different views on enslavement

16. The Economic Life
• The fast-growing economy made the wealthy even richer
• Distinctive social and cultural characteristics developed among different
economic groups
• Industrial capitalist elite in places like Boston, New York City, and Philadelphia
• Industrial capitalism based on factories
• Marriages between leading families
• Exclusive neighborhoods
• Chambers of commerce
• Social clubs
• Some artisans became manufacturers
• Those who had inherited their wealth looked down upon self-made men

17. The Middle Class
• The fastest-growing group was the middle class:
• Economic development – work in shops or businesses, trade, professions, etc.,
• They valued cleanliness, discipline, morality, hard work, education, and good manners
• Middle-class children did not work – they went to school and read, played music, etc.,.
Families had less children so that they could spend money educating the ones they had
• Middle-class women usually remained in the household and purchased goods, and often
hired servants, usually unmarried immigrant women
• Many in the middle-class looked down upon enslavement, as it allowed for leisurely
activities without hard work (for the enslavers)
• Many in the middle-class also promoted temperance – no alcohol!
• They also believed in free moral agency: the freedom to change one’s own life and bring
about one’s own salvation

18. The Working Class
• The working class: a class of wage workers
• Suffered greatly during economic slumps
• Children often received a basic education and then entered the workforce
to provide income
• Wives often did laundry for extra income
• The circus was a popular form of entertainment after P.T. Barnum opened
the American Museum in New York in 1842 with Siamese twins, magicians,
little people, albinos, and more.
• Men often went to taverns for drinking, talking, and games after work
• Wage workers in the North were often hostile to the abolition of slavery, as
they feared job competition; many were also hostile to immigrants for the
same reason