Industrialization & Immigration

The United States experienced a great deal of technological changes and economic growth during the early part of the 19th century. This first wave of industrial growth occurred in the early 1800s, soon after Great Britain began its process of industrialization, which is often known as the First Industrial Revolution.

American Industrial Growth

Industrialization: The United States first had a surge of industrial growth in the early 1800s, which allowed many cities to boom. Access to waterways such as rivers or the newly constructed canals and railroads allowed many cities to thrive during this period. Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, and New York, for example, all became major industrial cities in the mid-1800s primarily because of their access to waterways. Pittsburgh, the steel capital of America, is located where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers flow together to form the Ohio River. Cleveland is on Lake Erie, and Chicago is on Lake Michigan. Access to the shipping routes of the Great Lakes, along with the growing rail system in the Midwest, enabled Cleveland and Chicago to become large industrial centers. New York City rose in population and importance after the American Revolution. Because of its location on the Hudson River and the Atlantic Ocean, it was an excellent place for a port. After the construction of the Erie Canal, New York became an important trade center.

War of 1812: Though the U.S. had great industrial potential in the early 1800s, most manufactured goods were imported from other countries like Great Britain at this time. When the War of 1812 broke out between the U.S. and Great Britain, however, the British enacted a naval blockade of American ports, and the U.S. found itself without many of the goods that the country usually imported. In order to combat the decreased supply, many American industrial centers began the process of increasing manufacturing. By the end of the war, U.S. merchants, especially in New England, were producing a much larger amount of goods than they had been before the war. This process continued into the post-war years and American manufacturing continued to increase throughout the 1800s.

American System: Henry Clay's American System was an economic plan that was designed to give the new factories in the U.S. a chance to produce goods and help the U.S. become economically independent after the War of 1812. It called for high tariffs, support for improvements like road-building and railroads, and a national banking system. With improvements in infrastructure, transportation and trade between different areas of the country became much easier.

Factory System: As a method of manufacturing, the factory system came to replace the domestic system during the early years of the Industrial Revolution. In the domestic system, people worked from home or in small workshops using simple machines and hand tools in order to produce goods. The factory system, on the other hand, brought workers and machines into one building in order to make the production of goods more efficient. The working conditions of the factory workers in America reflected the adverse situation of British factories. Americans, who were used to working on their own terms as farmers, had many adjustments to make. The factory workers had to follow rules and decisions made by others and work longer hours. The division of labor was such that many workers were unskilled with little training. Textile mills were among the first industries in the United States. Immigrant women and children often worked in textile mills, where they provided cheap labor and worked long hours for little pay. Francis Cabot Lowell was a Boston merchant who invented a water-powered loom and established the Boston Manufacturing Company, a textile mill in which all the operations for taking raw cotton and producing cloth were located under the same roof. The loom that Lowell designed was an updated model of looms he had seen in use in England. Though Lowell had been unable to take notes of the mills he toured in England, he was able to remember the loom designs and improve upon them. The design of his loom and the establishment of his company were an important step in the development of industrialization in the United States. Plantation System: Farming had long been the traditional industry of the nation, but the Industrial Revolution modernized agriculture through the use of new inventions. Inventions such as the cotton gin and the spinning jenny helped develop cotton as a cash crop. Cotton was so popular, especially in the South, that the crop was referred to as "King Cotton." The Southern plantation system that was based on mass production farming was a result of the spread of cotton to most areas of the South.

Immigration and the Labor Force: Throughout the 1800s, immigrants swarmed to the United States, many to find new opportunities or to escape bad conditions in their homelands. This resulted in a major increase in the population, which helped fuel industrialization because immigrants became a new source of labor. Because many immigrants were unskilled workers, they found jobs in the factories of the growing cities.

National Road: Construction on the first nationally funded highway, known as the National Road, began in 1811 in Cumberland, Maryland, which is located on the Potomac River. By 1818, the road had reached Wheeling, Virginia, which is located on the Ohio River. The road was constructed to connect more areas of the country so that industrial centers could have easier access to raw materials. The road also allowed farmers and industries in the interior of the country a better way to transport their goods to the markets on the East Coast.

Erie Canal: The Erie Canal, built between Lake Erie and the Hudson River in New York, was completed in 1825. The canal made a water route that linked cities on the Great Lakes to places in the Northeast and the Atlantic Ocean, via the Hudson River. The canal made it easier to transport goods between the Midwest and the Northeast.

Railroads: The construction of railroads was important to industrial and economic development of the United States in many ways. First, the railroads allowed settlers to travel greater distances, which resulted in increasing number of people who traveled to unsettled parts of the country. Railroads also changed the perception of time and distance, as the journey to many areas, including the western territories, was much shorter and less dangerous than it had been previously. Finally, the construction of railroads created thousands of jobs, most of which were filled by Irish and Chinese immigrants.

Inventions

Interchangeable Parts: The invention of interchangeable parts made mass production possible by making manufacturing faster and easier. Before the use of interchangeable parts, many types of goods were custom made, and it was quite difficult to make repairs if something broke. When people began using parts that were the same, people could simply change a single part that needed to be replaced instead of having to repair the entire machine or object. Eli Whitney was one of the first people to use interchangeable parts when he made firearms that he sold to the United States military.

Steamboat: In 1807, Robert Fulton built and launched the first steamboat, called the Clermont, on the Hudson River. Soon after, steamboats started being used on many rivers, including the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. Steamboats were important for transporting cargo and people over long distances and contributed to the population growth of the central part of the United States. The invention of the steamboat also contributed to economic growth as they helped factories move their goods over long distances.

Steam Locomotive: The first steam-powered locomotive in the United States was the Tom Thumb, built for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1829 by Peter Cooper, an American industrialist and inventor. Known as the "iron horse," the steam locomotive was first built by a British inventor, but Cooper was responsible for bringing it to the U.S. Prior to the steam locomotive, train carriages were pulled by horses along railways. Cooper's engine, by contrast, could pull a much heavier load much more quickly and much further than horses could. This innovation therefore had a great impact on transportation by making rail travel faster and more reliable.

Spinning Jenny: The spinning jenny was a hand-powered machine that could easily spin cotton into thread. It was invented by a British carpenter and weaver in 1764. It was much faster than the previous method, the spinning wheel, and was capable of spinning eight times more cotton into thread.

Inventors

Samuel Morse: Samuel Morse was an American inventor and painter who is most often associated with the invention of the single-wire telegraph. He worked for twelve years to perfect his version of the electric telegraph, which was based on European models, and created his own code, known as Morse code, to send messages through his invention.

Eli Whitney: Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793. Prior to this invention, cotton was cleaned by hand, and the process of separating the seeds from the fibers was very time consuming. The cotton gin was capable of separating cotton fiber and seeds faster and more efficiently, which allowed for a drastic increase in cotton production. Since cotton could be processed much faster, there was an increased demand for slaves as more slaves were needed in the fields to pick cotton.

John Deere: In 1837, John Deere invented a steel plow that efficiently turned the hard and heavy prairie soil found on the Great Plains. Deere became one of the world's greatest plow and tractor makers.

Cyrus McCormick: The McCormick reaper made it easier for farmers to harvest their crops. It was invented by Cyrus McCormick and Jo Anderson, a slave. This had a major impact on farming because it increased productivity.

In the late 1800s, the United States experienced a great increase in immigration. Many immigrants settled in cities like Boston, New York, and Chicago. At the same time, many farmers from rural areas in the U.S. moved to cities. The rapid increase in population coupled with a lack of space for housing led to the growth of low income slums in the country's large cities.

Immigration

New vs. Old Immigrants: In the late 1800s, the United States experienced a huge increase in immigration, particularly in areas of the Northeast and California. Before the 1800s, most of the immigrants were from Western European nations, including Great Britain, Ireland, and Germany, among others. Immigrants from these regions became known as "old immigrants" as a surge of "new immigrants" flooded into the country from other areas of the world. These "new immigrants" came to the U.S. in the late 1800s and were mostly from areas in Eastern and Southern Europe, especially Italy, Poland, and Russia. The "new immigrants" settled into ethnic neighborhoods in large cities such as Boston, New York, and Chicago.

Nativism: Some Americans did not welcome immigrants and feared competition for jobs. These Americans were known as nativists. They were mostly Protestants with British heritage. Along with mistrusting immigrants in general, nativists also disliked Catholics because they feared that Catholics would feel more loyalty to the pope and their religion than to the United States. One group in particular that was a target of scorn were the Irish, many of whom were Catholic. The Irish were leaving Ireland in large numbers as a result of British rule over Ireland and the Irish Potato Famine. In a 40 year period between 1820 and 1860, approximately two million Irish immigrants arrived in the United States. As a result of so many immigrants, prejudice against the Irish was common, as many people saw the Irish as a drain on society.

Social Darwinism: During the late 1800s, the idea of Social Darwinism developed as people extended Charles Darwin's theory of evolution to politics and sociology. This philosophy stated that the fittest and strongest civilizations were the natural rulers of the world. Adherents of this philosophy also believed that some people were wealthy and some were poor because of "natural" inequalities. This philosophy was also used as justification for the poor treatment of immigrants and minorities.

Americanization: The Americanization movement can best be defined as the attempt to assimilate immigrants into mainstream American culture instead of encouraging the existence of many different cultures. An example of Americanization is asking or forcing storeowners to use English instead of their native language.

Chinese Exclusion Act: During the mid-1800s, many Chinese laborers came to the U.S. to build the Transcontinental Railroad. After the railroad was completed, Chinese immigrants faced increasing amounts of discrimination, and some white workers felt the Chinese were driving down wages. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, prohibiting Chinese workers from immigrating to the United States for the next ten years. Since most of the Chinese immigrants were coming to the United States for job opportunities, this act kept nearly all Chinese immigrants from coming to the United States. This was the first national legislation that placed restrictions on immigration.

Ellis Island: In 1892, Ellis Island began to serve as the chief immigration station of the United States. Nearly all immigrants who came across the Atlantic Ocean stopped at Ellis Island before continuing on to the mainland. There, each immigrant was given identity papers, checked for infections, and sent to the mainland of the United States through New York City.

Angel Island: Known as the "Ellis Island of the West," Angel Island was an immigration station in San Francisco Bay that processed immigrants from 1910 to 1940. The majority of immigrants who came through Angel Island from Asia, particularly from China and Japan. Because of the Chinese Exclusion Act, Chinese immigrants faced many restrictions and were not allowed to enter the country unless they had relatives who were American citizens. Immigrants were detained on the island in prison-like conditions for weeks or months as they waited for immigration officials to determine whether or not they would be allowed to enter the country.

Gentlemen's Agreement: The "Gentlemen's Agreement" of 1907 was an informal agreement between the United States and Japan in which the U.S. agreed that it would not pass laws excluding Japanese immigration as long as Japan prevented its citizens from emigrating.

Immigration Act: In the years following World War I, there was a great deal of anti-immigrant sentiment, and the federal government passed various laws restricting immigration. With the Immigration Act of 1924, a quota system was enacted in which no more than 2 percent of the population of each nationality that was living in the U.S. in 1890 could be admitted as immigrants. This law eliminated immigration from Asia and severely limited immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, particularly Russia and Italy.

Sacco and Vanzetti Trial: Support for nativism in the 1920s increased further during the controversial trial of two Italian immigrants: Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Sacco and Vanzetti were staunch anarchists who were accused of robbery and the murder of the robbed paymaster and his guard. The case became controversial when many liberals and civil rights advocates stated that the two were being persecuted for their status as immigrants and for their radical political beliefs. Cities and Living Conditions

Urbanization: With the influx of immigrants to the United States, cities grew rapidly, especially in the Northeast. Urbanization, which occurs when rural areas develop into urban areas, was on the rise. People within the U.S. were flocking to the cities from rural areas, immigrants were settling in the cities, and both groups were in search of factory work.

Slums and Tenements: Many cities could not keep up with the quickly increasing populations, and areas known as slums grew. Immigrants and the poor moved into tenement houses, also known as dumbbell tenements. Tenements were overcrowded and lacked the necessary sanitation and ventilation. Families often lived all in one room and sometimes shared a room with another family. Along with the cramped living conditions came diseases such as cholera, typhoid, and tuberculosis. Diseases spread quickly through these densely populated areas in cities due to the lack of proper sewage systems.

Settlement Houses: In an effort to help people living in slums, social reformers began to set up settlement houses. A settlement house was a neighborhood institution where trained workers tried to improve social conditions by providing community services and promoting cooperation among neighbors. Jane Addams founded Hull House in Chicago, one of the most famous settlement houses in the United States. Hull House served as a community center for the neighborhood and later was a center for social reform activities.

Photojournalism: Photojournalist Jacob Riis brought attention to the immigrants and poor who lived in the tenements and slums when he published a book called How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York. In the book, Riis used photographs, drawings, and written descriptions to advocate better living and working conditions for the urban poor. His book included images of child labor, sweatshops, and overcrowded and unsanitary tenements in an effort to bring about social reform.

Political Machines: The increasing population of the nation's cities resulted in many changes into the political atmosphere. During this time, political machines came to dominate local politics in some of the country's largest cities. A political machine was an organization led by a political boss. Political machines maintained power by being involved in elections and by controlling various government officials such as mayors and city council members. Political machines were corrupt in many ways and were involved in voter fraud, graft, bribery, and kickbacks.

Mass Transportation: With the development of mass transit systems such as commuter trains, subways, and trolley cars, cities were able to expand and cover larger areas. As new forms of transportation were developed, the cities grew much larger.

The lesson below discusses some of the technological developments that have had an impact on the state of North Carolina.

Dismal Swamp Canal: The Dismal Swamp Canal was completed in 1805. The canal was an important transportation route in northeastern North Carolina because much of the area is covered in swampland, and it was very difficult to travel on land. The canal connected Albemarle Sound in North Carolina to the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia. The Dismal Swamp Canal is still in use today as part of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. It is the oldest man-made canal in operation in the U.S.

Wilmington and Weldon Railroad: The Wilmington and Weldon Railroad connected Wilmington in New Hanover County to Weldon in Halifax County. When it was completed in 1840, it was the longest railroad in the world. During the Civil War, the railroad was an important transportation route for the Confederacy. The port at Wilmington had access to the Atlantic Ocean and remained open after other Confederate ports fell to the Union. Supplies were shipped to Wilmington and were then transported on the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad to Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy.

The Wright Brothers: Wilbur and Orville Wright were from Dayton, Ohio, and they were very interested in flight. They came to the area known as Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk on the Outer Banks of North Carolina to do experiments with gliders. They chose the area because it was extremely windy, and the sand dunes provided soft landings for their glider experiments. On December 17, 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright completed their historic flight in the first powered airplane.