UNIT 3: Life in Early Nineteenth-Century America - The Market Revolution, Westward Expansion and the Creation of an American Culture
The first half of the nineteenth century was a time not only of profound political change but also of great technological and economic innovation. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Europe in the 1700s, had produced new inventions and methods of production. American inventors transformed the U.S. economy with new innovations of their own. This rapid development of manufacturing and improved farming had such a profound effect on American society that historians often refer to it as the Market Revolution.
The Market Revolution was characterized by a drastic change in how manual labor was conducted in the United States. This development was marked by improvements in how goods were processed and fabricated as well as by a transformation of how labor was organized to process trade goods for consumption. Traditional commerce was made obsolete by improvements in transportation and communication.
During this period, the United States and its citizens were moved by a belief in Manifest Destiny, which held that it was the right and fate of the United States to cover the continent. Manifest Destiny tapped into America’s nationalist spirit, which had been growing since the War of 1812, and echoed Protestant beliefs that America was a “called nation”—that is, chosen by God as a haven. Technology dramatically accelerated economic expansion, as the government increased the production of early roads, extensive canals along navigable waterways, and later elaborate railroad networks.
Over time, regional specialization emerged: the West farmed to feed the Northeast, the South grew cotton to ship to the Northeast, and the Northeast produced manufactured goods to sell in the West and South. The roads, canals, and other internal improvements made this nationwide trade possible. The steamboat, invented by Robert Fulton in 1807, permitted fast two-way traffic on the nation’s new waterways. The Erie Canal, completed in 1825, was only the first of several canals in the North that linked western farmers with eastern manufacturers. Other major canals were built in Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Railroads also allowed people and goods to move faster and more cheaply. Long-distance communication was revolutionized by Samuel F. B. Morse’s invention of the telegraph in 1835 (as well as the Morse code system that bears his name). The first transatlantic cable was laid in 1858, enabling rapid communication between the United States and Europe.
Expansion intensified the sectional tension between the North and South by bringing to the forefront the issue of the extension of slavery into the West. Northern cities started to have a more powerful economy, while most southern cities (with the marked exception of free labor metropolises like St. Louis, Baltimore, and New Orleans) resisted the influence of market forces in favor of the region's slave-based economy. Brief compromises relieved the tension from time to time, but no compromise was able to resolve the fundamental differences between the North and South.
In the mid-1800s, Americans surged westward past the Mississippi River, the previously drawn boundary of the frontier. As settlers migrated toward the Pacific coast in their overloaded wagons, the West became the fastest growing area of the country. Despite fierce resistance from Native Americans, Mexicans, and the British, Americans eventually claimed the entire region west of the Mississippi. Westward expansion had its costs: Native Americans suffered greatly at its hands. The country moved quickly west, and we will move even more quickly, covering thousand of miles and fifty years in two weeks lime.
Events
1793 Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin
1797 Whitney invents interchangeable parts for firearms
1807 Robert Fulton invents the steamboat
1823 Lowell Mills opens in Massachusetts
1825 Erie Canal is completed
1828 First U.S. railroad appears
1834 Cyrus McCormick invents the mechanical mower-reaper National Trades Union forms
1835 Samuel F. B. Morse invents the telegraph
1837 Cumberland road (National Road) is completed
1838 John Deere invents the steel plow
1846 Elias Howe invents the sewing machine
1858 First transatlantic telegraph cable unites Europe and the Americas
Vocabulary
Dynamic Changes: Western Settlement and Eastern Capitalism 1790-1820
Cumberland Gap
Eli Whitney
Erie Canal
Marbury v. Madison judicial review
Louisiana Purchase
Lewis and Clark
War of 1812
Battle of New Orleans
McCulloch v. Maryland
The Quest for a Republican Society 1790-1820
Washington Irving
Noah Webster
Slavery and the South
Internal Slave Trade
African-American culture
Missouri Compromise
Henry Clay
Economic Transformation, 1820-1860
Industrial & Market Revolutions
Cyrus McCormick
Mass production
Division of labor - factory/mechanics
Robert Fulton
Transportation Revolution
Middle Class Social Trends
Irish & German Immigration
Temperance movement
A Democratic Revolution 1820-1844
Alexis de Tocqueville
“New” Democracy
Political machine
Patronage
Jacksonian Democracy
Indian Removal Act of 1830
“Trail of Tears”
Five “Civilized Tribes”
Antebellum Religion & Reform 1820-1860
Second Great Awakening
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Transcendentalism
Henry David Thoreau
Walt Whitman
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Herman Melville
Underground Railroad
Dorothea Dix
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Sojourner Truth
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Expansion, War, and Sectional Crisis 1844-1860
Texas War for Independence
Manifest Destiny
Annexation of Texas
Mexican-American War
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
Compromise of 1850
Gadsden Purchase
Dred Scott v. Sanford
Raid at Harper’s Ferry
Election of 1860
The first half of the nineteenth century was a time not only of profound political change but also of great technological and economic innovation. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Europe in the 1700s, had produced new inventions and methods of production. American inventors transformed the U.S. economy with new innovations of their own. This rapid development of manufacturing and improved farming had such a profound effect on American society that historians often refer to it as the Market Revolution.
The Market Revolution was characterized by a drastic change in how manual labor was conducted in the United States. This development was marked by improvements in how goods were processed and fabricated as well as by a transformation of how labor was organized to process trade goods for consumption. Traditional commerce was made obsolete by improvements in transportation and communication.
During this period, the United States and its citizens were moved by a belief in Manifest Destiny, which held that it was the right and fate of the United States to cover the continent. Manifest Destiny tapped into America’s nationalist spirit, which had been growing since the War of 1812, and echoed Protestant beliefs that America was a “called nation”—that is, chosen by God as a haven. Technology dramatically accelerated economic expansion, as the government increased the production of early roads, extensive canals along navigable waterways, and later elaborate railroad networks.
Over time, regional specialization emerged: the West farmed to feed the Northeast, the South grew cotton to ship to the Northeast, and the Northeast produced manufactured goods to sell in the West and South. The roads, canals, and other internal improvements made this nationwide trade possible. The steamboat, invented by Robert Fulton in 1807, permitted fast two-way traffic on the nation’s new waterways. The Erie Canal, completed in 1825, was only the first of several canals in the North that linked western farmers with eastern manufacturers. Other major canals were built in Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Railroads also allowed people and goods to move faster and more cheaply. Long-distance communication was revolutionized by Samuel F. B. Morse’s invention of the telegraph in 1835 (as well as the Morse code system that bears his name). The first transatlantic cable was laid in 1858, enabling rapid communication between the United States and Europe.
Expansion intensified the sectional tension between the North and South by bringing to the forefront the issue of the extension of slavery into the West. Northern cities started to have a more powerful economy, while most southern cities (with the marked exception of free labor metropolises like St. Louis, Baltimore, and New Orleans) resisted the influence of market forces in favor of the region's slave-based economy. Brief compromises relieved the tension from time to time, but no compromise was able to resolve the fundamental differences between the North and South.
In the mid-1800s, Americans surged westward past the Mississippi River, the previously drawn boundary of the frontier. As settlers migrated toward the Pacific coast in their overloaded wagons, the West became the fastest growing area of the country. Despite fierce resistance from Native Americans, Mexicans, and the British, Americans eventually claimed the entire region west of the Mississippi. Westward expansion had its costs: Native Americans suffered greatly at its hands. The country moved quickly west, and we will move even more quickly, covering thousand of miles and fifty years in two weeks lime.
Events
1793 Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin
1797 Whitney invents interchangeable parts for firearms
1807 Robert Fulton invents the steamboat
1823 Lowell Mills opens in Massachusetts
1825 Erie Canal is completed
1828 First U.S. railroad appears
1834 Cyrus McCormick invents the mechanical mower-reaper National Trades Union forms
1835 Samuel F. B. Morse invents the telegraph
1837 Cumberland road (National Road) is completed
1838 John Deere invents the steel plow
1846 Elias Howe invents the sewing machine
1858 First transatlantic telegraph cable unites Europe and the Americas
Vocabulary
Dynamic Changes: Western Settlement and Eastern Capitalism 1790-1820
Cumberland Gap
Eli Whitney
Erie Canal
Marbury v. Madison judicial review
Louisiana Purchase
Lewis and Clark
War of 1812
Battle of New Orleans
McCulloch v. Maryland
The Quest for a Republican Society 1790-1820
Washington Irving
Noah Webster
Slavery and the South
Internal Slave Trade
African-American culture
Missouri Compromise
Henry Clay
Economic Transformation, 1820-1860
Industrial & Market Revolutions
Cyrus McCormick
Mass production
Division of labor - factory/mechanics
Robert Fulton
Transportation Revolution
Middle Class Social Trends
Irish & German Immigration
Temperance movement
A Democratic Revolution 1820-1844
Alexis de Tocqueville
“New” Democracy
Political machine
Patronage
Jacksonian Democracy
Indian Removal Act of 1830
“Trail of Tears”
Five “Civilized Tribes”
Antebellum Religion & Reform 1820-1860
Second Great Awakening
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Transcendentalism
Henry David Thoreau
Walt Whitman
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Herman Melville
Underground Railroad
Dorothea Dix
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Sojourner Truth
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Expansion, War, and Sectional Crisis 1844-1860
Texas War for Independence
Manifest Destiny
Annexation of Texas
Mexican-American War
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
Compromise of 1850
Gadsden Purchase
Dred Scott v. Sanford
Raid at Harper’s Ferry
Election of 1860