12.3:

The Market Revolution

A. The Accumulation of Capital

1. The market revolution was caused by rapid improvements in transportation, commercialization, and industrialization.

2. Merchants comprised the business community of the northern seaboard accumulating great wealth.

3. Conflicts between 1807–1815 that disrupted United States trade with Europe led merchants to invest in local enterprises supplemented by banks and the government.

4. Southern cotton produced by slaves bankrolled industrialization. Chart: Growth of Cotton Textile Manufacturing

FIGURE 12.1 Occupations of Women Wage Earners in Massachusetts, 1837 This chart shows how important outwork was for women workers. Textile work in factories occupied less than 20 percent of women, while outwork in palm-leaf hats, straw bonnets, and boots and shoes accounted for over half of the total workforce. Teaching was a new occupation for women in 1837. The small percentage of 3.6 would grow in the future.

B. The Putting-Out System

1. In the early 19th century merchants “put out” raw goods in homes.

2. In the case of shoe-making artisans:journeymen cut the leather

wives and daughters bound the upper parts together

the men stitched the shoe together

C. The Putting-Out System: Central Workshop

1. As demand grew, merchants like Micajah Pratt built central workshops and brought workers into Lynn, Massachusetts.

2. Pratt modified the putting-out system providing greater control over the workforce and the flexibility to respond to changing economic conditions.

3. The putting-out system and the central workshops caused the decline of the artisan shop.

D. The Spread of Commercial Markets

1. As more workers became part of the putting-out system:

a. wages for piecework replaced barteringb. families bought mass-produced goods rather

than making them at home.2. Commercialization did not happen immediately or

in the same way across the nation.

E. Commercial Agriculture in the Old Northwest

1. The transportation revolution helped farmers sell in previously unreachable markets. Government policy encouraged commercial agriculture by keeping land cheap. Regional specialization enabled farmers to concentrate on growing a single crop, but made them dependent on distant markets and credit.

2. Innovations in farm tools greatly increased productivity.

F. British Technology and

American Industrialization

1. The Industrial Revolution began in the British textile industry and created deplorable conditions.

2. Samuel Slater slipped out of England bringing plans for a cotton-spinning factory.

3. He built a mill that followed British custom by hiring women and children.

4. New England was soon dotted with factories along its rivers.

G. The Lowell Mills

1. Francis C. Lowell studied the British spinning machine.

2. Lowell helped invent a power loom and built the first integrated cotton mill near Boston in 1814.

3. The mill drove smaller competitors out of business.

4. Lowell’s successors soon built an entire town to house the new enterprise.

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.

H. Family Mills

1. Factories developed elaborate divisions of labor that set up a hierarchy of value and pay.

2. Mills were run with strict schedules and with fines and penalties for workers who did not meet them.

3. The shift to a precise timetable was a major change.

4. Most mills were “family mills,” where entire families would work and pool their wages.

5. Communities developed antagonistic relationships with the mills, resenting the influx of transient workers and frequently looking down upon them.  

I. “The American System of Manufactures”

1. The American system of manufacturing was based on interchangeable parts in the manufacturing of rifles developed by Eli Whitney, Simeon North, and John Hall. Standardization spread into other areas like sewing machines.

2. The availability of these goods affected American thinking about democracy and equality.

3. Americans could have mass-produced copies, indistinguishable from the originals.