Forging the National EconomyAP U.S. HISTORY

Essential Question

• How was Jacksonian Democracy a reflection of the changing American society?– Frederick Jackson Turner saw Jacksonian Democracy as sectional

conflict between Western farmers and the aristocratic east.– Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. characterized Jacksonian Democracy as

class conflict between poor farmers and laborers versus the business community.

– What do you think?

Frederick Jackson Turner Arthur M. Schlesinger

Who you gonna believe, a man with killer hair or a guy

with a bow tie?

1890 called, they want their

moustache back.

The Westward Movement• ½ of Americans were under the age of thirty!

Europe stretches to the Alleghenies;

America lies beyond

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ohio

Kentucky

By 1840, there were just as many people west of the Allegheny Mountains than there were east of it (demographic center).By 1860, the demographic center had moved west of the Ohio river! O

hio

Riv

er

Hi

I’m over here now!

Popular American literature, like Captain Ahab in Moby Dick or Natty Bumppo in the Leatherstocking Tales, symbolized America’s restless spirit and the Jacksonian glorification of rugged individualism.

The Westward Movement

A lot of American literature glorifies the westward movement, like the muscular frontiersman, Paul Bunyan.

Life was actually much more tough for pioneer families. There was disease, malnutrition, depression, and poor housing to battle.

In Kentucky, I lived in a 3-sided lean-to

made out of brush and sticks for a year.

Abraham Lincoln

There’s only so much knitting a woman can do.

Women had it especially rough because they were supposed to socialize only with other women but they were cut off from human contact for weeks at a time.

Shaping the Western Landscape

The farther west one went, the more rugged it got. For instance, the primary economic activity in the Rocky Mountain West was fur-trapping, as the big fad among the wealthy was to wear beaver skin hats and beaver lined clothing.

While American tended to change the physical environment, like exhausting the soil in tobacco country or clearing areas of trees, Americans also felt the American wilderness out west made the U.S. unique and special. George Catlin, the painter for the work above, even advocated the creation of a national park to protect Native Americans and America’s mystique.

The March of Millions

Irish German

By 1860, there were 33 states in the Union. Most of the growth in population was driven by a high birthrate, but hundreds of thousands of immigrant were coming too.

The Irish, starving in Ireland and very poor, came to America and settled in eastern cities, like Boston and New York.

No Lucky Charms jokes

please.

German immigrants tended to be better off and were able to buy land out West, such as in present-day Wisconsin. They were against slavery and political corruption too.

Kindergarten, Christmas trees, and lager bier

(beer) are all us. You’re welcome.

A changing American identity due to immigrants.

Flare-ups of Anti foreignism

The illustration above shows a New York City teacher with a Bible shielding his students from crocodiles, dressed as Catholic bishops, coming ashore to eat them; with the Vatican in the background.

Many prejudice Americans, or “nativists” distrusted the Irish because they were poor and Catholic.

Germans and Irish were seen as stealing elections and violating Puritan values.

Creeping Mechanization

Industrialization was at first slow to arrive in America because there was a shortage of labor, capital, and consumers.

And Nativists blame us for hurting

America? We helped grow the economy by working in factories!

Irish immigrantGerman immigrant

In America, there was plenty of land and

wealth to go around. We weren’t taking

from anyone!

The textile industry, like this factory making yarn out of cotton, was the first factory system of manufacturing to come to America. A lot of women worked in textile factories.

After all, why invest, and work in, a factory when there’s so much land out west to buy and sell?

Whitney Ends the Fiber Famine

Eli WhitneySamuel Slater

First, I helped America copy

the British textile machinery.

Then, I invent the cotton gin, which sped-up the process of

harvesting cotton.

Thanks a lot Eli. Slavery expands because of your

damned invention.

He thought the cotton gin would make slave labor obsolete. Boy was he wrong. Growing cotton became profitable and the South became tied to King Cotton.

The spread of cotton into southwestern states caused an expansion of the textile industry in New England and the Middle states. There weren’t enough factory workers, so women and children filled the void. Also, wages for most American workers rose because there was lots of demand but not a lot of supply. That is, except for women and children.

Marvels in Manufacturing

Eli Whitney

Eli Whitney figured out how to mass produce muskets, with interchangeable parts, for the U.S. Army

Dude, I helped slavery grow in the South and I helped the North with mass-production. Hello Civil

War. No, I am not a werewolf.

Elias Howe, inventor of the sewing machine, also boosted northern industrialization.

The legal status of businesses changed. For example, limited liability helped investors because one could only lose what you invested if the company went bankrupt. More businesses and competition was the result.

I help businesses communicate with

the telegraph invention.

Samuel F.B. Morse

Workers and “Wage Slaves”

The benefits of the factory system were not equally distributed.

Factory owners grow very wealthy.

Working people worked long hours in unsanitary buildings and they could not form labor unions.

Child workers were worked especially hard, with no time for education or play.

Men, under Jacksonian democracy, were able to vote. They became loyal to the Democratic Party and made sure their wages and working conditions improved.

Leisure time allows the Devil to create

mischief. Better to work, work, work!

Huzza for Jackson!

Women and the Economy

“Factory girls” worked six days a week, 13 hour days, earning low wages. Not surprisingly, there was a drop in the average number of children per household.

The female workers, who were formerly New England farm girls, in the Lowell mills in Lowell Massachusetts became known as the Lowell girls. They were young because they were expected to get married eventually and stop working.

Industrialization affected the American family life. There was the beginning of independent women and the “modern” family: small, affectionate, and child-centered.

Western Farmers Reap a Revolution in the Fields

This region of America was quickly becoming a leader in growing corn for the nation.

Corn was fed to hogs or distilled into liquor for easier transport. The western produce was often floated

down the Mississippi River to feed the “Cotton Kingdom” of the South.

Just like the smoke-belching factories were changing eastern environment, the western landscape was changing with the help of inventors like John Deere and Cyrus McCormick.

The steel plow allowed farmers to farm tough western soil in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.

The mower-reaper was to the western farmer what the cotton gin was to the southern planter.

I can do the work of

5 men!

Highways and Steamboats

As Western farmers bought more land and harvested more crops with new machinery they dreamed of shipping their products to the east.

I’m a dreamer.

Instead of being stuck shipping products north and south along the Mississippi River, many northwestern farmers wanted better transportation systems, like highways and steamboats, to ship products east and west also.

The Cumberland Road connected Maryland to Illinois.

Lake Erie

Lake Ontario

The success of steamboats encouraged canals to be built, so that rivers and lakes could be connected and transportation could thus be made even easier.

In steamboats, people could go against downstream currents, wind, waves, and tides.

The Market Revolution

The new regional “division of labor” created by improved transportation, mechanization, and a market-oriented economy meant the South specialized in cotton, the West in grain and livestock, and the East in manufacturing. What were the causes of this revolution?

My idea for an “American

System” and federal financing of projects were most important.

Congressman Henry Clay

Don’t forget about me. I led a

political revolution.

Not so fast. The prohibition of

permanent charters and limited liability

laws were important.

Chief Justice Roger B. Taney

President Jackson

You can’t have a market without transportation. The Erie Canal is

all me.

Governor Clinton of New York

Slow your rolls gentlemen.

Inventions drove this revolution.

Eli Whitney, inventor

The Market Revolution

The transportation web bound the Union together, but not equally. With the Allegheny Mountains breached by highways, canals, and steamboats, the West and East were linked economically much more so than with the South. The South had much fewer canals, roadways, and eventually, railroads, compared to the North.

The days of self-sufficient households were over. The home became a place of refuge and a separate sphere for women. In growing numbers, people scattered looking for work at mills or sold crops at market and then bought goods produced by strangers.

Cities bred extreme economic inequality. Up to half the city populations were transient workers! Rags to riches was largely a myth, but there was more opportunity here than in Europe and wages did rise overall.

Questions to Consider

1. Did Jacksonian Democracy reflect sectionalism or class conflict? Why?

2. How did the developing national economy affect people?

3. What were the primary drivers of the new national economy?

4. How were Irish and German immigrants treated upon first arriving?

5. Why weren’t there more class and ethnic conflicts in America during this time period?