New Ways to Produce Goods

Unit 4 An Era of Expansion

Chapter 14: North and South

I. The Growth of Industry

A. Farming Inventions

1. In the 1800s, the North was a seedbed for new inventions. Several inventions made work easier for farmers. a) John Deere- made a lightweight plow made of steel. b) Cyrus McCormick (1847) opened a factory in Chicago that manufactured mechanical reapers that could do the work of five people using hand tools. c) Reaper - a horse drawn machine that mowed wheat and other grains.

2. The reaper and the steel plow helped farmers raise more grain with fewer hands. As a result, thousands of farm workers left the countryside. a) Some went west to start farms of their own. b) Others found jobs in new factories in northern cities.

B. The Telegraph

1. 1844 - Samuel Morse received a patent for a "talking wire", or telegraph. a) Telegraph - a device that sent electrical signals along a wire. b) The signals were based on a code of dots, dashes, and spaces. This code became known as Morse Code.

2. Telegraph companies sprang up everywhere, stringing thousands of miles of wire. a) Newspaper reporters wired their stories in. b) Businesses benefited from being able to find out instantly the supply, demand, and prices of goods in different areas.

C. The First Railroads

1. The first railroads were built in the early 1800s. Horses or mules pulled carts over wood rails covered with strips of iron.

Chapter 14 1 a) 1829 - An English family (the Stephensons) developed a steam-powered engine to pull rail cars. b) The Rocket - barreled along at 30 miles an hour, an amazing speed for the time. c) By the 1850s, railroads linked eastern cities to Cincinnati and Chicago in the Midwest. d) Cities at the center of railroad hubs grew rapidly.

D. Yankee Clippers

1. At the same time, trade also increased between the United States and other nations. Speed was the key to successful trade at sea. a) 1845 - An American named John Griffiths launched the Rainbow, the first of the Clipper Ships. b) These sleek ships had tall masts and huge sails that caught every gust of wind. Their narrow hulls clipped swiftly through the water. c) The speed of Clipper Ships helped the United States win a large share of the world's sea trade in the 1840s and 1850s.

2. In the 1850s, Britain launched the first oceangoing steamships. a) They carried more cargo and traveled faster than clippers.

E. The Northern Economy Expands

1. Advances in Technology a) Factories started to use steam power instead of waterpower. b) Factories no longer had to be alongside swift flowing rivers. c) New machines made it possible to produce goods for less.

2. Railroads a) Allowed factory owners to ship raw materials and finished goods cheaply and quickly. b) Many New England farms closed because they could not compete with cheap grains and other goods railroads brought in from the west. c) More and more, New Englanders turned to manufacturing and trade.

Chapter 14 2 II. Life in the Industrial North

A. Factory Conditions Worsen

1. By the 1840s there was an oversupply of workers. Many factory owners now treated workers like machines. a) Workers worked longer hours for lower wages. b) Factory owners no longer built planned villages with boarding houses and parks. Instead workers lived in dark, dingy houses in the shadow of the factory.

2. Families in factories a) Some owners hired entire families. b) At 4am the family would get dressed and head off to work. c) At 7:30am and noon they would have breakfast and lunch breaks. The workday ended at 7:30pm, when a final whistle sent workers home.

3. Hazards at work a) Few factories had windows or heating systems. b) Machines had no safety devices, and accidents were common. c) There were no safety laws to protect workers. Injured workers often lost their jobs.

B. Factories Replace Workshops

1. For skilled workers, the spread of the factory system changed the nature of work. a) Skilled workers - people who have learned a trade, such as carpentry or shoemaking.

2. The nature of work changes. a) Apprentice system fades into small factories where unskilled workers did only one part of the job. b) More and more, laborers rather than skilled workers produced clocks, barrels, and other goods.

3. 1830s - Skilled workers in many trades were uniting to form trade unions. a) They called for a shorter workday, higher wages, and better working conditions. Sometimes they went on strike.

Chapter 14 3 b) Strike - union workers refused to do their jobs. c) At the time, strikes were illegal. Strike leaders were often fired.

4. Workers made progress a) 1840 -President Van Buren approved a 10-hour workday for government employees. b) 1842 -a Massachusetts’s court declared that workers had the right to strike. c) Skilled workers won better pay. d) Unskilled workers held jobs that needed little or no training.

C. Women Workers Organize

1. Women workers faced special problems. a) They earned less money than men did. b) Unions did not want women to work. c) Women organized on their own. They staged several strikes in Lowell Massachusetts.

D. Millions of New Americans

1. By the late 1840s, many workers in the new factories of the North were immigrants. a) Immigrant - a person who enters a new country in order to settle there. b) 1840s-50s - about 4 million immigrants entered the U.S.

2. The Irish - In the 1840s, a disease destroyed the potato crop across Europe. a) This caused a famine, or severe food shortage in Ireland. b) Between 1845 and 1860, over 1.5 million Irish fled to the United States. c) Most were too poor to buy farmland. Many settled in New York and Boston.

3. The Germans - Between 1850 and 1860, nearly 1 million Germans arrived. a) Political unrest in Germany. b) Many wanted to make a better life for themselves. c) Some bought farms in the Midwest. Others settled in eastern cities.

E. A Reaction Against Immigrants

Chapter 14 4 1. One group of Americans, called nativists, wanted to preserve the country for native-born, white citizens. a) They said newcomers stole jobs from native-born Americans because they would work for lower pay. b) Others blamed immigrants for crime. c) Many Irish and Germans were Catholics. Most before them had been Protestant. d) 1850 - nativists formed a new political party. Nicknamed the Know- Nothing party.

F. African Americans in the North - By the early 1800s, slavery was illegal in the north.

1. Denied equal rights. a) Discrimination - a policy or an attitude that denies equal rights to certain groups of people. b) Even skilled African Americans had trouble finding jobs.

2. Some free African Americans became wealthy businessmen. a) James Forten - ran a successful sail making business in Philadelphia. b) Paul Cuffe - owned a small fleet of trading vessels in Massachusetts. c) Both used their money to help other African Americans gain freedom.

3. African Americans made their mark in other fields as well. a) John Rock - a Massachusetts lawyer and judge, presented cases to the Supreme Court. b) Ira Aldridge became one of the most acclaimed actors in the world.

III. Cotton Becomes King

A. The Cotton Gin

1. New Englanders built the first American textile mills in the 1790s. a) These mills used raw cotton to manufacture cloth.

2. At first, southern planters could not keep up with demand. a) Removing the seeds from raw cotton was a slow process.

Chapter 14 5 3. 1793 -Eli Whitney, a young Connecticut schoolteacher, decided to build a machine to clean cotton. a) The Cotton Gin - the teeth separated the seeds from the fibers, leaving the cotton ready to be spun. b) A worker using a Gin could do the work of 50 cleaning cotton by hand. c) Planters could now grow cotton at a huge profit.

B. The Cotton Boom

1. Soil wore out if planted year after year. a) After the war of 1812, cotton planters began to move west. b) By 1850, the Cotton Kingdom extended in a wide band from South Carolina through Alabama and Mississippi to Texas. c) 1792 - 6,000 bales a year. By 1850 -over 2 million a year.

2. The Cotton boom had a tragic side. a) As the Cotton Kingdom spread, so did slavery. b) Cotton still had to be planted and picked by hand.

3. The United States made the slave trade with Africa illegal after 1807. a) Planters in the new cotton regions bought slaves from planters in the southeastern states. b) Many slave families were broken up.

C. No Place for Industry

1. Cotton was the south's biggest cash crop. a) Tobacco, rice and sugar also made money for planters. b) Also raised much of the nation's livestock.

2. Some southerners wanted to encourage industry in the south. a) William Greg modeled his cotton mill in South Carolina after the mills in Lowell, Massachusetts. He built houses and gardens for his workers and schools for their children.

3. Even so, the south lagged behind the north in manufacturing. a) Rich planters invested their money in land and slaves rather than in factories.

Chapter 14 6 b) Also, slavery reduced the demand for goods. Slaves could not afford to buy anything. This hurt southern industry.

4. With little industry of its own, the South depended on the North and Europe for goods such as cloth, furniture, and tools. a) Many southerners resented this situation.

IV. Life in the Cotton Kingdom

A. White Southerners

1. The "Cottonocracy" - a planter was someone who owned 20 or more slaves. a) 1860 - 2 million white families in the south, only 50,000 where families of planters. b) Most southern whites were small farmers.

2. Poor Whites - There was a small group of poor whites. a) They did not own their own land. They rented it often paying the owner part of their crop. b) Despite their hard lives, they were still free.

B. African Americans in the South - Both free and enslaved African Americans lived in the South.

1. Free Blacks - Most free African Americans were descendants of slaves freed during the American Revolution. a) Others bought their freedom. b) Most lived in Maryland and Delaware or cities such as New Orleans, Richmond, and Charleston.

2. Slave owners feared free blacks would encourage slaves to rebel. a) Passed laws that made life harder for them. b) They were not allowed to vote or travel.

3. Many free African Americans made valuable contributions. a) Norbert Rillieux - invented a machine that revolutionized sugar making. b) Henry Blair - patented a seed planter.

Chapter 14 7 4. Southern states passed laws known as slave codes to keep slaves from either running away or rebelling. a) Forbidden to gather in groups of three or more. b) Could not leave their owner's land without a pass. c) It was a crime for slaves to learn how to read or write.

5. The life of African Americans varied from plantation to plantation. a) Some owners made sure their slaves had descent food. b) Others spent as little as possible on their slaves.

6. Family life - hard to keep families together. a) Laws did not recognize slave marriages. b) Owners could sell a husband or wife to different buyers. c) Extended family - Grandparents, parents, children, aunts, uncles and cousins formed a close-knit group. d) Many were devout Christians.

E. Resisting Slavery

1. Some African Americans struck back. a) Some broke tools, destroyed crops, and stole food. b) Many dared to run away, trying to reach the North. c) Many were caught.

2. A few slaves used violence to resist the brutal system they faced. a) Denmark Vesey, a free African American, planned a revolt in 1822. He was betrayed before the revolt could begin. He and 35 other people were killed. b) An African American preacher, Nat Turner, led a major revolt. He led his followers through Virginia killing more than 57 whites. c) Terrified whites hunted the countryside for him. They killed many innocent African Americans before catching and hanging him.

3. As slavery grew, the economic ties between the North and South became stronger.

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