The industrialization of the United States began in the early 1800s, fueled by free enterprise and new technologies. Factories sprang up and large cities grew as thousands moved from farms to urban areas for work. Textile mills, established by Samuel Slater and Francis Lowell, drove the growth of the cotton industry. Infrastructure projects like the National Road, Erie Canal, and railroads connected regions and markets, facilitating trade and western expansion. The economies of the North and South diverged, with the North industrializing and the South specializing in cotton and slavery. Inventions like the cotton gin, reaper, telegraph, and interchangeable parts advanced industry and agriculture.

1. Early U.S. Industrialization

2. Industrial Revolution
Time of change in business and industry in which manufacturing shifted
from hand tools to large, complex machines.
Goods were made in factories instead of workshops in homes. Manufactured
goods were sold nationwide and overseas.
The “Industrial Revolution" began in Great Britain.

3. Free Enterprise
Industry developed quickly in the United States in the early 1800s. An
important factor was free enterprise.
In this system:
1. Americans could make money and make their own choices about how to
use it.
2. Encouraged industrialization because companies were in competition
made goods cheaper.
3. New technologies to make faster.

4. Rise of Large Cities
Industrialization caused the rise of large cities. Thousands of people moved
from farms and villages to towns and cities in search of factory jobs and
better pay. By 1860 eight cities in the U.S. had populations of more than
100,000. The growth of cities led to opportunities for many kinds of jobs.

5. Samuel Slater
Slater was the supervisor of machinery in a textile factory in England. He
left England illegally in 1790 to come to Rhode Island, where, in 1793, he
founded the first permanent mill in America for spinning cotton into yarn.
In doing this, Slater founded the cotton textile industry in America.

6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rauJq_LTMYI

7. Francis C. Lowell
After touring British textile mills, Francis Lowell established a textile factory in
1813 near Boston, Massachusetts. It was a cotton textile mill that mass produced
finished cotton cloth, eliminating the need for cottage industries. Lowell factory
hired mainly young girls, separating these girls from their families.
“Lowell Factory Girls” were young, unmarried women, usually between 15 and 30 years old, working in textile
factories such as the Lowell factory. Most of these girls left their families’ farms in order to gain independence or to
help their families financially. In the factories, they found poor working conditions and strict discipline. Lowell
paid them lower wages than men, but offered benefits that many girls were eager to earn. Mill girls lived in clean
company boardinghouses with chaperones, were paid cash, and benefitted from religious and educational activities.

8. America’s Natural Highways
Rivers were a faster, easier, and cheaper way to move goods than were
roads. The only problem was that loaded boats and barges could travel
only downstream or with the current.

9. American System
Plan proposed by Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky which was meant to
improve the nation's infrastructure, promote U.S. businesses, and unite the
country.

10. Infrastructure
What provides the framework and connections for holding something
together (canals, railroads, roads, etc.)

11. National Road
The National Road was the largest federally funded transportation project of
its time. Construction began in 1811 on the National Road, a major east-west
highway that started in Cumberland, Maryland, and ended in Wheeling,
Virginia (now West Virginia). The road progressed west during early 1800s,
advancing father west with each year.
Conestoga wagons carried pioneers west on this road. Farmers
traveled east on this road to bring their livestock and farm
products to markets in the East.

12. Robert Fulton
In 1807, Robert Fulton introduced a steamship, the Clermont, on the Hudson
River and obtained a monopoly on ferry service there until 1824. Steamships
created an efficient means of transporting goods upstream, and this led to an
increase in the building of canals.
Use of the steamboat caused an increase in river travel and canal building. This increased trade
between regions created economic growth.

13. Canals
Man-made waterways meant to make travel faster and easier.

14. Canal Locks
Canal boats use a system of locks to bypass areas
wherever a change in altitude appear along a waterway.

15. Erie Canal
Construction began in 1817 and was completed in 1825. It stretched about 365
miles from Albany to Buffalo and provided a shipping route from Lake Erie to
the Hudson River. It helped make New York a dominant commercial center by
expanding its markets and also sped up western migration by allowing people
to travel much more cheaply and easier.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-gIFYOCIfE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQE2sNfYXpg

16. New York City
Northeastern city which became a key economic center of the country in
the years following the War of 1812.

17. Railroads
Railroads were built in America in the early 1800s. Trains were faster than
stagecoaches or wagons, and they could go more places than steamboats could.
Railroads helped settle the West and expand trade among the nation’s regions.

18. Sectionalism
Refers to the economic, social, cultural, and political differences that exist
between different parts of the country.
• The North and Midwest were industrial, increasingly educated, and
populated by a growing immigrant population.
• The Southern states relied heavily on agriculture and slave labor for
all aspects of its economy. Politics were dominated by wealthy
plantation owners.
South- Agriculture Based on Slavery
West- Agriculture
North- Industrial

19. Northern Economy
Industrialization began in the Northeast. The swift-flowing streams
provided waterpower for the factories. The Northeast had entrepreneurs
and merchants who had money to invest in industry.

20. Family Farms
Industry and cities grew in the Northeast during the early 1800s. Farming,
however, was the country’s main economic activity and had the most
workers until the late 1800s. Farming was more important in the South than
in the North. The South had few cities and industries. The North began to
focus on manufacturing.

21. Southern Economy
The economy of the South was based on the farming of several major cash
crops. The cash crops included tobacco, rice, and sugarcane. The major cash
crop was cotton. It was grown in a wide area stretching from inland South
Carolina, west through Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, and into eastern
Texas.
With its focus on agriculture, the South did not industrialize as quickly as
the North. The South had to import most of its manufactured goods.

22. Eli Whitney
He revolutionized the South's economy with the invention of his cotton gin
and greatly impacted the northern economy with his innovative concept of
interchangeable parts.

23. Interchangeable Parts
Whitney was an inventor who introduced the concept of interchangeable parts
in 1798. The tools and machines he invented allowed unskilled workers to build
absolutely uniform parts for guns, so that the whole gun no longer had to be
replaced if a single part malfunctioned or broke. This was the beginning
of mass production.

24. Cotton Gin
In 1793 Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, which removed the seeds from
cotton bolls. The cotton gin greatly increased the production of cotton in the
South. At this same time, textile mills in Europe were expanding and wanted all
the cotton they could get. The cotton gin made Southern planters rich.
The demand for cotton created a
huge demand for slave labor.
Between 1820 and 1860, the
number of enslaved people in the
South rose from 1.5 million to
nearly 4 million.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eT4bNxkv-c

25. Cotton Kingdom
Nickname given to the South as cotton became its most profitable crop and
the basis of the South's economy during the 1800s.
In 1860 Southern cotton made up almost two-thirds of the total export trade for the United States.

26. John Deere
In 1837 John Deere designed a plow with sharp-edged steel blades that
were able to cut cleanly through the tough Midwestern sod and cut in half
the labor needed to farm an acre.

27. Cyrus McCormick
Prior to the reaper, people used a
hand-held scythe, a device that
had remained basically unchanged
for 5000 years.
McCormick was an inventor who improved upon previous designs for the
mechanical reaper. He patented his reaper in 1834 and built a factory to
mass produce it in 1847. This invention lessened the work of western
farmers by mechanizing the process of harvesting wheat.

28. Samuel Morse
Morse invented the telegraph in 1844. This invention was enthusiastically
accepted by the American people; telegraph companies were formed and
lines erected quickly. The telegraph allowed rapid communication across
great distances.