What was the Market • Shift away from local or regional markets to national
Revolution? markets in the early 1800s
• Subsistence farmers that used to only produce crops
for their family to eat started to grow cash crops to
put on the market
• Families separated because family members moved
to different places to work in factories and mills
• Americans had more money to buy things
• Improved the economy
First Industrial Revolution • Started around 1760 in Manchester, England (this
was before the United States); it lasted to around
1840
• Many technological innovations were of British origins
• The consequence of the First Industrial Revolution
was the Market Revolution in the United States
Early 1800s - Economic • Early in American history, people produced their own
Development food to eat, NOT sell
• With improvements in technology, more people could
produce food to sell
• Transportation made it easier to trade, and it united
the country
• Other consequences included class conflict, child
labor, more immigration, and an increased demand
for enslaved labor
Trade - BEFORE the War of • Exports did increase in the decades before the War of
1812 1812
• Progress was slow due to continuous wars in Europe
(e.g., French Revolution, Napoleonic Wars)
• Transportation was difficult between states because
of poor infrastructure
• Easier to move stuff across the Atlantic Ocean than
between states
Trade - AFTER the War of • After the War of 1812, the a more united U.S. put
1812 more effort into building infrastructure with Henry
Clay’s American System
• State governments and the Federal Government
funded infrastructure projects
• Built roads, canals, railroads, etc.
• British investment also provided capital to help build
infrastructure
New Economic System • The United States became
a cash economy
• Before, people connected their wealth with how much
land they owned; in the 1800s, it would be connected
more to how much cash they owned
• Newly evolving capitalist system was susceptible to
booms and busts
Transportation Revolution Transportation was a spread of people goods and
more rapid throughout the US.
Steamboats • Before steamboats, boats could only go in the
direction of the current; with the introduction of the
steam engine, they could go both directions
• 1807 – First commercial steamboat service
• More and more steamboats filled the Mississippi
River, Ohio River, and other major rivers
• Robert Fulton
Erie Canal • Clinton’s Big Ditch
• Canal building boom during Market Revolution
• 1825 – Erie Canal completed (1817-1825)
• Erie Canal linked Great Lakes to Hudson River in New
York
• Linked the western farmers to the eastern cities,
linking economies together
Long-Distance Railroad • 1827 – Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O) built first
long-distance railroad in the United States
• Before the long-distance railroad, just short lines
using horse-drawn cars
• State governments would fund more lines
(Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Charleston, …) BIG
CITIES
• In the South they become spur lines going short
number of distances
Local Motive Race
Telegraph • Before the telegraph, messages had to be delivered
by a messenger; these could take days or weeks
depending on the distance
• The telegraph made communication spread quickly
• Messages could be sent long distances very quickly
• 1843 – Samuel Morse persuaded Congress to fund 40-
mile telegraph from Washington D.C. to Baltimore
• Diplomacy and finance
McCormick’s Reaper • Machine to help harvest crops
• What used to have to be done by hand, could now be
done with a horse-drawn reaper
• Revolutionized farming in the United States and
around the world
• More crops could be harvested making food
shortages less likely
• By 1850’s 1,000 would be would every year
• Marketed to those west of the Appalachian Mountains
John Deere’s Steel-Bladed • Hard and unbroken land could be made fertile with
Plow John Deere’s plow
• Helped farmers farm hard land with thick roots in the
West
New York • New York was the largest city because of its location
and the sources brought to it by the Erie Canal
• It has grown so big because it is one of the earliest
cities
• It has easy access to the Atlantic Ocean, so it was
easy to get to other coastal towns and Europe
• Exporting goods through the Hudson River
Chicago • In just a few decades, Chicago was built
• In the mid-1800s, the railroad would make Chicago a
major hub
St. Louis & Cincinnati St. Louis (next to Mississippi River) and Cincinnati (next to
Ohio River) became centers of trade because of the
steamboat
International Slave Trade • 1807 – International slave trade abolished (not
Abolished slavery in the United States, just the international
slave trade)
• British abolished the slave trade and used its navy to
stop the slave ships in the Atlantic Ocean
• Leading to interregional slavery
• Producing boom of reproduction (ex. Chattel)
Mason-Dixon Line • The Mason-Dixon Line separated Pennsylvania,
Maryland, West Virginia (which was Virginia before
the Civil War), and Delaware
• It was originally developed to resolve border disputes
between the states
• 1800’s informal boundaries
Decline of • In early 1800s, more and more northern states above
Northern Slavery the Mason-Dixon Line abolished slavery gradually
(similar to indentured servitude.)
• Textile industry in the north was among the most
prominent industries in the U.S. in the early 1800s
• In some free cities in the North, freed slaves could
vote, own property, have a trial by jury, and start a
business
• Vermont Republic wasn’t a state until 1791, as
American revolution was happing abolishing slavery
was in play
• New Jersey would have slaves until the very
beginning of the civil war (1860s) within the North
Slavery • Slavery was decreasing in the North; slavery was
increasing in the South
• Slavery increased in the South because of the
increased demand for cotton
• Cotton replaced tobacco fields in the South; cotton
became king
• Though the North was abolishing slavery, the demand
for cotton came from the textile mills located in the
North
Cotton Gin • The cotton gin, which was invented by Eli Whitney in
1793, increased the demand for slaves
• It made it easier to pick the seeds out of the cotton,
but it also made the demand for cotton to be picked
from the fields increase
• Increased the demand for slave and increasing the
textiles for the North
Samuel Slater • “Father of the American Industrial Revolution”
• English born industrialist who worked in a textile mill
in England and brought trade secrets to the U.S.
• Opened the first textile mill in the U.S. in 1793
• The U.S. would continue to become more
industrialized in the 1800s
• Known as “Slater the Traitor”
• Pawtucket, Rhode Island
Industrialization • The North was more industrial while the South was
more agricultural
• Laborers in the North knew all aspects of production
(during British America and for the first couple of
decades in the U.S.)
• After 1790s, the work was divided up (specialization)
• Americans often stole technology secrets from Britain
• Development of technological advancements
Lowell Mill Towns • Francis Cabot Lowell lived in Manchester, England for
two years and brought trade ideas back to the U.S.
• Started the mill town of Lowell (1821)
• The beginning of the modern American factory
• First American manufacturing boom
Changes • Apprentice to master relationship changed to
in Industry employer to employee relationship
• Growing gap between rich and poor
• The North felt superior to the South because it used
free labor
• The South felt superior to the North because they felt
slaves were treated better than low-level laborers in
the North
Immigration • Immigration to the U.S. increased from around the
1820s until just after the Civil War
• Immigrants were mostly…
• Irish- Potato famine (not wealthy), came
in individuals
• German- came in as family (some wealth)
• Jewish- treated very poorly
Nativism • Influx of immigrants triggered nativist sentiments
• Feared immigrants would take jobs from Americans
• Anti-Catholic movement wanted to stop the
development of Catholic churches and institutions
• New nativist political party – American Party (Know
Nothing Party) Anit-immigration
• Anti-semantics
Changes In Gender Roles • Women expected to work in homes (Housewives)
• W/ technological advances and families buying more
some traditional duties were obsolete
• Poorer families couldn’t afford wife to work in home
Changes in the Family Life Marriage shifted more from necessity to love
Children from poorer families had to find work
Traditionally, children would apprentice w/ father in
shop, then take same trade at older age; w/the
Market Revolution, more and more children chose
their own directions
