Chapter Nine: The Transformation of
Chapter Nine: The Transformation of American Society, 1815-1840
Westward Expansion
• By 1840, one-third of Americans living between Appalachian Mountains and Mississippi River – developed own western culture (Old Northwest/Old Southwest)
• Migrants expected a better life in the West because of the:
o Growing power of federal government (Removed Native Americans)
o More land means more crops
o Boom in agricultural prices after War of 1812
The Sweep West
• 1791-1803: Vermont, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio. 1816-1821: Indiana, Illinois, Mississippi, Alabama, Maine, Missouri.
• Traveled as families rather than as individuals for security
• Stayed near rivers and waterways
• Clustered/settled around people from the same region
Western Society and Customs
• Most westerners craved sociability – rural families joined with their neighbors in group sports and festivities
o Men competed in strength/ability testing games—wrestling, weight lifting, gander pulling
o Women combined work and play with quilting/sewing parties, etc.
• Pioneer men did heavy labor, like cutting down trees and plowing land
• Women woke earliest. They made food, clothing, and even slaughtered animals!
• Most western sports and customs had been transplanted from the east but the west developed its own
• Neighbors shamelessly borrowed from richer ones because they “had plenty”
• Westerners’ relative lack of refinement made them easy targets for easterners’ contemptuous jibes
o The exchange of “half-savage yokels” westerners and “soft and decadent” easterners fostered a regional identity among westerners and further shaped their behavior
o Westerners were intolerant of western neighbors with pretensions to gentility
The Far West
• Area between Appalachian Mountains and Mississippi River no longer considered “far West” – beyond the Mississippi River was far West
• 1806 – Zebulon Pike sights Colorado peak later named after him
• 1811 – New York merchant John Jacob Astor founded the fur-trading post of Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon county
• White trappers AKA “mountain men” – men who gathered furs
o Kit Carson, Jedidiah Smith, Jim Beckwourth
• Smith went on a long expedition through South Dakota, California, and the Sierras to come back home to Illinois
The Federal Government and the West
• Of the various causes of expansion to the Mississippi River from 1790 to 1840, the one that operated most generally and uniformly throughout the period was the growing strength of the federal government
• Land Ordinance of 1785 – set forth plans for surveying and selling parcels of several states’ ceded western land claims to the federal government as public treasure to settlers
• Northwest Ordinance of 1787 – provided for the orderly transformation of western territories into states
• Louisiana Purchase of 1803 – brought entire Mississippi River under American control
• Transcontinental Treaty of 1819 – wiped out the last vestiges of Spanish power east of the Mississippi
• The Feds gave military bounties to former soldiers
• Congress authorized funds to extend the National Highway
• War of 1812 settled by Treaty of Ghent – Indians were the real losers of the war
o Louisiana Purchase and Transcontinental Treaty stripped them of Spanish protection
o Britain had insisted on creation of an Indian buffer state between US and Canada in the Old Northwest but after the American victory at the Battle of Plattsburgh, Indians were abandoned to Americans
The Removal of the Indians
• Five Civilized Tribes: Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, Chicasaws, Seminoles. Many Cherokees were “mixed”
• Treaty of Indian Springs (1825) – Creek Chief William McIntosh sold all Creek lands in Georgia and two-thirds of Creek lands in Alabama to the government and was executed
• Many legislatures made laws that forced Natives to move west or outlawed tribal government
• President Andrew Jackson believed it ridiculous to treat Indians as independent nations, rather, they should be subject to the laws of the states where they lived
• Indian Removal Act (1830) – authorized by President Jackson to exchange public lands in the West for Indian territories in the East and appropriated $500,000 to cover expenses of removal
• Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws left. Creeks were forcibly removed and Seminoles engaged in war, but were also removed
• Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831) – Chief Justice John Marshall denied the Cherokees’ claim to status as a republic within Georgia: rather, they were a “domestic dependent nation,” a kind of ward to the US and that prolonged occupancy had given the Cherokees a claim to their lands in Georgia
• Worcester v. Georgia (1832) – Chief Justice John Marshall rules that Cherokees are a “distinct” political community entitled to federal protection from tampering by Georgia
• Treaty of New Echota (1835) – ceded all Cherokee lands in the US for $5.6 million and free passage west. Cherokees took revenge, killing three of its signers
• Trail of Tears (1838) – forced removal of 16000 Cherokees to Oklahoma. 8000, or 1/3 of the whole nation, died
• Winnebago Red Bird and Sac/Fox Black Hawk led uprisings in the Northwest, they but failed
• Between 1832 and 1837, US acquired nearly 190 million acres of Indian land in Northwest for $170 million in gifts and annual payments
The Agricultural Boom
• After War of 1812, rising prices of agricultural commodities drew settlers westward in search for better farmland
• Causes of skyrocketing farm prices:
o US captured British and Spanish markets b/c both countries exhausted by 2 decades of war
o Demand within US intensified after 1815 as the quickening pace of industrialization and urbanization in the East spurred a shift of workers toward nonagricultural employment
o West’s river system expanded markets to the East, West Indies, South America, and Europe
• Cotton craze
o Cotton gin (1793) – Eli Whitney
o Cotton clothing came into fashion in Britain (1815) and provided demand for cotton—most came from Alabama/Mississippi
The Growth of the Market Economy
• Subsistence agriculture – growing only enough food to feed your family
• Commercial agriculture – AKA market economy – adds a cash crop where crops were sold for profit
• Farmers had no control over prices in distant markets, long interval between harvest and sale forced farmers into short-term debt
Federal Land Policy
• Ordinance of 1785 – divided public lands into sections of 640 acres
• Land Law of 1800 – dropped minimum purchase & allowed more time for payment, kept minimum price at $2, but decreased over time
• National bank increased amount of money and stimulated the chartering of state banks, who often gave out loans for land purchases
The Speculator and Squatter
• Squatter – owned land before the creation of the public domain-- formed claims associations to police land auctions and prevent speculators from bidding up the price of land. Demanded Preemption rights
• Preemption rights – right to purchase at the minimum price lands that they had already settled on and improved
• Farmers who arrived after speculators bought land with high interest rates—had debt, so they focused on cash crops
The Panic of 1819
• Causes
o State banks’ loose practices – passed out more bank notes than they could redeem in specie
o Bumper crops in Europe & British recession trimmed foreign demand for US agriculture; made farmers unable to pay back loans
o To pay debts to the Bank of the US, state banks had to force farmers and land speculators to repay loans
• Significance
o Left a bitter taste about banks, especially the Bank of the US
o Plummeting prices for cash crops demonstrated how dependent farmers were on distant markets
o Accelerated search for better forms of transformation to distant markets b/c if cost of transportation could be cut, farmers could keep a larger share of the value of their crops and adjust to falling prices
The Transportation Revolution
• Problems with America’s transportation system in 1820:
o Rivers flowed only North to South, not East to West
o Roads expensive to maintain
o Horse drawn wagons could carry only limited produce
• Steamboats
o 1807 Robert R. Livingston and Robert Fulton introduced steamboat Clermont on Hudson River
o Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) – Chief Justice john Marshall rules that congress’s constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce applied to navigation and was supreme over New York’s power to license the monopoly
o Faster than keelboats and travel on low water levels
o Allowed upriver navigation
• Canals
o Expensive to build but cheap to maintain
o Offered prospect of connecting Mississippi-Ohio river with Great lakes, and Great Lakes with eastern markets
o 1817–1825: Erie Canal connected Hudson River with Lake Erie
o Reduced shipping costs
o Rapidly speeded the growth of lake cities (Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago) but populations in river cities (Cincinnati, Louisville) declined
• Railroads
o Started after depression in 1830s - had to scrap expensive canal projects
o Transportation for areas with no water (Boston and Baltimore)
o Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (1828)
o Boston and Worcester Railroad (1831)
The Growth of the Cities
• Canals/Railroads increased opportunities for city businesses (banks, insurers, warehouses, brokers, etc.)
• The War of 1812 stimulated the growth of St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati
• All of the major Western cities were on rivers and were commercial hubs rather than manufacturing centers
• Creation of the Erie Canal made the Great Lakes the center of Western economic activity
Industrial Beginnings
• Spurred initially by the transportation revolution and development of interregional trade, the growth of cities/towns received an added boost from the development of industrialization
• 1789 – Samuel Slater helps design/build first cotton mill in US at Pawtucket, Rhode Island (actual spinning frame invented by Englishman Richard Arkwright)
• Industrialization
o Varied widely from region to region with little in South and much in New England
o Subdivided workers by task
o Replaced workers with machines
o Made products cheaper b/c not produced by hand anymore
Causes of Industrialization
• Causes of Industrialization
o Embargo Act (1808)—made merchants invest in factories
o Era of Good Feelings—made Americans believe in the need for tariffs
o Environmental advantage
o Tension in rural New England economy—too many people, too little land. People sold/made multiple things to make money
o Americans had no craft organizations that tied artisans to a single trade (guilds)
o Transportation Revolution—allowed eastern manufacturers to sell goods in the south and west
o Britain had less land/more people, and hired people more cheaply than America—Americans had to find machines to do the work
o Growth of cities
• Eli Whitney—made muskets with interchangeable parts
Textile Towns in New England
• Boston Manufacturing Company (1813) – Boston Associates and Francis Cabot Lowell
o Build mills in Waltham/Lowell. Made ten times the capital of any previous American mill
• Waltham and Lowell mills
o Turned out finished fabrics that required only the additional step of stitching into clothing, unlike Slater’s mills that only carded and spun yarn
o Upset the traditional order of New England society – young unmarried women worked there instead of men, lured from farms by promise of wages
o Workers lived in boarding houses and were bound by strict rules (curfews, keeping Sabbath, etc.)
o Poor mill conditions (air kept purposely humid, windows boarded, etc.)
o Besides textiles, most factories depended on industrial outwork—merchants gave families raw materials to make goods
Artisans and Workers in Mid Atlantic Cities
• Artisans and craftsmen beginning to be replaced by cheap labor
• Merchants-turned-businessmen went all over the country, taking orders for their products
• Late 1820s – skilled male artisans in New York, Philadelphia and other cities began to form trade unions and workingmen’s political parties to protect their interests
• Steadily deteriorating working conditions of early 1830s tended to throw skilled/unskilled workers into same boat
o 1835 US’s first general strike – coal haulers in Philadelphia struck for a ten hour day and were quickly joined by carpenters, cigar makers, shoemakers, leather workers and other artisans
Equality and Inequality
• Antebellum America=(Pre-Civil War)
• Egalitarianism—rich treated poor as equal and vice versa
• Servants were neighbors, invited to assist in running a house rather than as a permanent subordinate
• Transportation and market revolutions made things less equal; Eastern farmers who couldn’t pay to move couldn’t compete w/ the west
Growing Inequality – The Rich and the Poor
• Small fraction of rich people owned most of America’s wealth
• Rags-to-riches rarely true
• Extremely wealthy usually born into wealth, married into more wealth, then invested it
• Most antebellum Americans lived close to edge of misery, depended on their children’s labor to meet expenses, and had little money to spend on medical care or recreation
• Paupers were called the “Deserving Poor”: due to old age, job loss, epidemics
• Immigrants seemed like they could never escape poverty
• Poorest white immigrants form Ireland – English landlords had evicted peasants from the land and converted it to commercial use in the 1700’s. Five Points in New York City became America’s worst slum.
• Americans started to believe that poverty was the person’s fault—not God’s.
Free Blacks in the North
• Slavery had largely disappeared from the North by 1820 but still faced many discriminations
o voting rights restricted
o laws frequently barred free blacks from migrating too their states and cities
o segregation everywhere
o restricted to least skilled/lowest paying jobs
• Important black response to discrimination: formation of own churches
o African Methodist Episcopal Church (1816) – organized by Richard Allen as the first black-run Protestant denomination – provided for black community and campaigned against slavery
• Blacks depended on the philanthropy of whites for the education of their children
The “Middling Classes”
• Middle class included professionals, merchants, manufacturers, farmers, and artisans
• Commercial economy made peoples’ incomes/success/failures more unpredictable
• Artisans were becoming more like businessmen—took orders most of the time
• Middle class became more mobile (transient)-- became easier to buy goods, made more people abandon farms for other professions
• Farmers, lawyers, clergymen, and doctors all moved around a lot
The Attack on Professions
• Americans were becoming more individualistic and began to question authority more
• Lawyers’, physicians’, and ministers’ true status and authority was questioned/distrusted
o Doctors shouldn’t have to be trained
o Lawyers prolonged court cases to get more money
o Parishioners fired Ministers they did not agree with
• People in the west invented titles for themselves like “Judge”, “Colonial”, and “Squire” and dueling became common
The Challenge to Family Authority
• Parental authority questioned
o wanted to enjoy own life, not be stuck working on farm
o left home at earlier ages
• Courtship/Marriage
o wanted to decide own mate
o no longer married in order of birth
o wanted to marry those they loved, not those they would “learn to love”
o growing number of long engagements – womens’ fear of losing her independence
• The Young Man’s Guide (31 editions 1833-1858) – William Alcott – exhorted youths to develop habitual rectitude, self-control, assumed the parent had little control over them and advised young men and women not to return to farms
Wives and Husbands
• Wife and husband becoming “equal” by separate spheres – men “superior” in making money and women “superior” for moral influence, raising children
• Letters to Mothers (1838) – Lydia Sigourney – instructed mothers to discipline their children by loving them and withdrawing affection when they misbehaved rather than using corporal punishment
• Home was to be a refuge from disorderly society
• Andrew Jackson Downing – architect who published plans for peaceful single-family homes
• Steady decrease in child rearing so that mom could nurture each child more and have more time for other duties
• Decline in birth rates accomplished by abstinence, coitus interruptus (withdrawal of penis before ejaculation), and abortion
• Fruits of Philosophy (1832) – Charles Knowlton described procedure for vaginal douching
Horizontal Allegiances and the Rise of Voluntary Associations
• Vertical allegiance—authority flows from top to bottom (artisan and apprentice, father and family, etc.)
• Horizontal allegiance—linked people in similar positions (maternal associations, textile operatives and overseers.)
o professed to strengthen family/community, not overthrow authority
• Voluntary association—association that arose apart form government and sought to accomplish some goal of value to their members
o encouraged sociability
o different associations based on gender, race, etc.
o moral reform societies
▪ temperance (stay away from alcohol!)
▪ combating prostitution
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