HIST 1301 Lecture 9 The Era of Good Feelings PDF

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HIST 1301 Lecture 9: The Era of Good Feelings I.

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Brief political recap a. Washington (1789-1797); John Adams (1797-1801); Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809); Madison (1809-1815) b. 1812 Madison re-elected c. 1816 James Monroe d. 1820 James Monroe e. 1824 John Quincy Adams f. 1828 Andrew Jackson g. 1832 Andrew Jackson h. 1836 Martin Van Buren i. 1840 William H Harrison Emergence of a Market Economy (chapter 8) a. You will all recall that the Marquis de Lafayette was a French noble who volunteered with the Continental Army during the Revolutionary war and was one of General Washington’s favorite aids. Well, nearly 50 years later, he visited America again in 1824. He toured the states for 13 months, and a few things had changed. i. The nation’s population had tripled to nearly 12 million ii. The US’s political institutions had thrived iii. The land area had more than doubled iv. The 13 states of 1784 had grown to 24 (and he visited every one) v. The journey would have been nearly impossible 40 years before vi. He traveled up the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers by steamboat, a recent invention that was helping to bring economic development to the trans-Appalachian West vii. He crossed New York by means of the Erie Canal, the world’s longest man-made waterway, which linked the region around the Great Lakes with the Atlantic coast via the Hudson River The market revolution a. This series of innovations in transportation and communication helped to transform the US’s market economy in the first half of the 19th century i. During the colonial era, there had been hardly any technological innovations ii. No important alterations to sailing vessels iii. No major canals were built iv. Manufacturing was done by hand, with skills passed on from artisan to journeyman to apprentice v. At the dawn of the 19th century, most roads were little more than rutted paths through woods vi. Transporting goods just 30 miles inland by road cost as much as shipping the same cargo from England

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vii. In 1800, it took 50 days to move goods from Cincinnati to NYC by flatboat down the Mississippi River to New Orleans and then by sailboat along the Gulf and up the Atlantic coast b. Ams had been active in the global market since the colonial ere i. Southern planters marketed products of slave labor as early as the 1600s ii. In 1700s, drawn into Britain’s commercial empire iii. Consumer goods like sugar and tea, as well as the market-oriented tactics like the boycott of Brit goods had been central to the political battles leading up to independence iv. However, as Ams moved across the Appalachian Mts and into the interior regions of the mid-Atlantic states, they were more and more isolated from the markets v. In 1800 – rural families focused on subsistence or household economy 1. Produced just enough food, livestock for own family’s needs 2. made what they need for themselves, from clothing to farm implements 3. What they could not make, they bartered with neighbors or purchased from local stores and rural craftsmen like blacksmiths and shoemakers 4. Farms not located near cities or navigable waterways found it impossible to market their produce th vi. As 19 cent unfolded, more farm families engaged in commercial rather than subsistence agriculture 1. Produced surplus crops and livestock to sell in distant regional and even international markets 2. With cash earned, families able to buy more land, better farm equipment, and latest manufactured household goods vii. Farming for sale rather than consumption is called a market-based economy viii. The transition from traditional household economy to a modern market economy involved massive changes in the way people lived, worked, traveled and voted ix. Many Ams devoted energies to solving the technological probs that inhibited commerce x. Within the first ½ of the 19th Cent, in rapid succession, the steamboat, canal, railroad and telegraph wrenched Am out of its economic dilema 1. Opened new land to settlement 2. Lowered transportation costs 3. Made it easier to sell products 4. Linked farmers to national and world markets 5. And made them consumers of manufactured goods

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xi. The spread of market relations, the westward movement of the pop, and the rise of a vigorous political democracy, all powerfully affected the development of Am society 1. Helped reshape the idea of freedom 2. Identifying it ever more closely with economic opportunity, physical mobility and participation in a vibrantly democratic political system xii. Downside: slavery was also moving westward with the young republic 1. The same steamboats and canals that enabled millions of farm families to send goods to market, facilitated the growth of slave-based cotton plantations in the south 2. Slavery drew a strict boundary around Am democracy 3. Making voting, officeholding and participation in public sphere privileges for whites alone 4. Half a century of winning indep., the coexistence of liberty and slavery, and their simultaneous expansion, remained the central contradiction in Am life c. Better roads i. First advance in overland transportation 1. Construction of toll roads or “turnpikes” 2. Built by localities, states and private companies 3. Btween 1800 and 1830, New England and Mid-Atlantic states chartered more than 900 companies to build new roads 4. 1806 – congress authorized constriction of the paved National Road from Cumberland, Maryland to the Old Northwest a. Reached Wheeling on the Ohio River in 1818 b. By 1838 extended to Illinois, ended c. Quickened settlement of West d. Quickened emergence of truly national market economy – i. Reduced transportation costs ii. Opened new markets iii. Stimulated growth of towns 5. Most private toll roads never made a profit a. Maintenance costs higher than expected b. Many towns built “shunpikes” – short detours, residents could avoid tollgates ii. Even on new roads, horse-drawn wagons remained inefficient way to get goods to market, except for short distances d. Waterways i. Improved water transportation dramatically increased speed and lowered expenses ii. Robert Fulton, Pennsylvania-born artist and engineer 3

1. Experimented with steamboat designs while living in France in 1790s 2. Launched a steamboat on the Sein River in Paris in 1803 3. Fulton’s ship, the Clermont, navigated the Hudson River from NYC to Albany in 1807, demonstrating the steamboat’s technological and commercial feasibility 4. Made upstream commerce possible (travel against the current) on the major rivers 5. Also provided rapid transport across Great Lakes 6. Eventually across the Atlantic Ocean 7. By 1811 – first steamboat on Mississippi River a. 20 yrs later – some 200 were navigating the river iii. Erie Canal 1. 1825 – 363-mili long Erie Canal was completed across upstate NY 2. Remarkable feet of engineering at a time when Am’s next largest canal was only 28 miles long 3. Allowed goods to flow between Grt Lakes and NYC 4. Canal attracted influx of farmers migrating from New England a. Establishing cities such as Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse along path 5. State-financed, NY Gov DeWitt Clinton oversaw construction 6. Canal gave NYC primacy over competing ports in access to trade with old Northwest 7. By being financed by the state, the canal demonstrated the developing transportation infrastructure 8. (at this time fed govt under control of political leaders hostile to federal funding for internal improvements, so burden fell on the states) a. Between 1787 and 1860 – fed govt spent about $60 million building roads and canals and improved harbors – states spent nearly 10X as much iv. Completion of Erie Canal set off scramble among other states to match NY’s success v. Several borrowed so much money to finance elaborate programs of canal construction that they went bankrupt during economic depression that began in 1837 vi. By then, however, more than 3,000 miles of canals had been built 1. Created network linking Atlantic states with Ohio and Mississippi Valleys 2. Drastically reduced cost of transportation vii. Canals connected existing waterways e. Railroads i. RRs opened vast area of Am interior to settlement 4

ii. Stimulated mining of coal for fuel, manufacture of iron for locomotives and rails iii. Work on Baltimore and Ohio, nation’s first commercial RR, began in 1828 iv. 5 yrs later – South Carolina Canal and Railroad – 1st long-distance line to begin operation 1. Stretched from Charleston across the state to Hamburg v. By 1860 – Am RR network grown to 30,000 miles 1. More than the total in the rest of the world combined at that time f. Communications i. At the same time – telegraph made instantaneous communication possible throughout nation 1. Device invented during 1830s by Samuel F. B. Morse, artist and amateur scientist in NYC 2. Put into commercial operation in 1844 3. Using Morse code, messages could be sent over electric wires a. Each letter and number represented by own pattern of electrical pulses 4. Within 16 years, some 50,000 miles of telegraph wire had been strung 5. Initially a service for govt, businesses, esp. newspapers, rather than individuals 6. Helped speed flow of info and brought uniformity to prices throughout country 7. Helped RR operators schedule trains more precisely and avoid confusion 8. With advent of telegraph, New Orleans newspaper claimed “scarcely anything now will appear to be impossible” ii. Mail deliver improved 1. Number of US post offices soared from 75 in 1790 to 28,498 in 1860 iii. New steam-powered printing presses 1. Mass production of newspapers 2. Reduced cost of papers from 6 cents to a penny each a. Enabled just about everyone to benefit from the news g. Ocean transportation i. 1845 – launch of first clipper ship, the Rainbow, was a great innovation in ocean transport 1. Built for speed 2. 19th Century equivalent of supersonic jetliner 3. Twice as fast as older merchant ships 4. Long and lean, taller masts and larger sails than conventional ships 5

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5. Their supremacy on the oceans lasted less than 2 decades 6. Am thirst for Chinese tea prompted clipper boom a. Asian tea leaves had to reach market quickly after harvest b. Clipper ships made this possible 7. Discovery of gold in California in 1848 lured thousands of prospectors and entrepreneurs a. This massive wave of new residents generated an urgent demand for goods on the west coast b. Clippers met the demand 8. While fast, clippers laced space for cargo or passengers 9. After Civil War, clipper would give way to steamships h. Role of government i. Transportation improvements financed by both state govts and private investors ii. Unlike in Europe, practically all of the RRs in US built by private companies and investors iii. But fed govt helped, despite debates over whether was constitutional to use fed funds to finance internal improvements 1. Fed govt also bought stock in turnpike and canal companies 2. After success of Erie Canal, awarded land grants to several western states to support canal and RR projects Westward movement (foner 324) a. These innovations in transportation, steamboats, canals and RRs, and in communications connected the western areas of country with east i. Boosted trade ii. Spurred dramatic growth in cities iii. Between 1800 and 1860 – an undeveloped nation of scattered farms, primitive roads and modest local markets was transformed into and engine of capitalist expansion, urban energy and global reach iv. Helped open west for settlement, making possible its rise as a powerful, self-conscious region of the new nation v. Between 1790 and 1840 – 4.5 million people crossed Appalachian Mountains 1. Most of migration took place after end of War of 1812 2. In six years following the end of the war in 1815, 6 new states entered the union: Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi and Main (Main was an eastern frontier for New England) vi. Few moved west as lone pioneers, most traveled in groups 1. Cooperated with each other to clear land, build houses and barns 2. Established communities

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vii. One stream of migration, small farmers and big planters with slaves, flowed out of the south to create the new Cotton Kingdom of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas viii. Many farm families from Upper South crossed into southern Ohio, Indiana and Illinois ix. Another set of migrants moved from New England, across NY to the Upper Northwest – northern Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin x. Some became squatters – set up farms on unoccupied land without clear legal title xi. Purchased land acquired from 1. fed govt a. Price after 1820 - $1.25 per square acre b. Payable in cash 2. Or from land speculators on long-term credit b. By 1840 – settlement reached Mississippi River i. Two large new regions entered the Union 1. Old Northwest 2. Old Southwest c. Became home of regional cultures much loke those the migrants left behind i. Upstate NY and Upper Northwest resembled New England 1. With small towns, churches, schools ii. Lower South replicated the plantation-based society of southern Atlantic states d. As pop moved west, nation’s borders expanded i. National boundaries made little difference to territorial expansion ii. Florida (later in Texas and Oregon) 1. Am settlers rushed in to claim land under jurisdiction of foreign countries 2. Spain, Mexico and Britain or Indian tribes iii. Confident American sovereignty would follow iv. Florida became a part of US 1. Despite resistance of local Indians 2. Spain’s rejection of Am offers to buy the area 3. In 1810 – Am residents of West Florida rebelled and seized Baton Rouge 4. US soon annexed the area 5. Drive for acquisition of East Florida spurred by Georgia and Alabama planters who wanted to eliminate the attraction of the area as a refuge for runaway slaves and hostile Seminole Indians 6. Andrew Jackson led troops into the area in 1818 a. While on foreign soil, created international crisis i. Executed 2 Brit traders, and number of Indian chiefs 7

b. Although Jackson withdrew, Spain was aware it could not defend the territory c. Spain sold it to US in 1819, Adams-Onis Treaty e. Remarkable western growth i. By 1840 – US govt had sold 43 million acres of land to settlers and land companies ii. 7 million Ams, 2/5 of total pop lived beyond Appalachian Mts iii. Between 1810 and 1830 – Ohio’s pop grew from 231,000 to more than 900,000 1. Reached nearly 2 million in 1850, ranked 3rd largest at the time f. The west and freedom i. Westward expansion and market rev profoundly affected lives of all Ams 1. Reinforced older ideas of freedom, helped create new ones ii. Am freedom long associated with availability of land in the west iii. New York journalist John L. O’Sullivan – first employed phrase “Manifest Destiny” in 1845 1. Meaning that US had a divinely appointed mission to occupy all of North America 2. Had that right by nation’s mission to extend the area of freedom iv. In myth and ideology, west would long remain the last home of the freeborn American v. Settlement and economic exploitation of west promised to prevent US from following same path as Europe 1. Becoming a society with fixed social classes and a large group of wage-earning poor vi. Land in west more readily available, oppressive factory labor less common vii. Pop and land prices rose dramatically in older states, so young men’s prospects for acquiring a farm or setting up a shop declined there viii. The west still held out the chance to achieve economic independence and social condition of freedom V.

Industrial development a. American technology i. As Ams moved further and further west, new machines and improvements in agricultural and industrial efficiency led to a remarkable increase in productivity 1. By 1860 – one farmer, miner or mill worker could produce twice as much wheat or iron, and more than four times as much cotton cloth as in 1800 ii. Such improvements in productivity were enabled by practical inventiveness of Ams 8

1. Between 1790 and 1811 – US patent office approved average of 77 new patents a year 2. By 1850 – more than 28,000 new inventions were approved iii. Many industrial inventions generated dramatic changes 1. 1844 – Charles Goodyear patented process for vulcanizing rubber – made the product stronger, more elastic, waterproof and winterproof a. Used for no. of products – shoes, boots, seals, gaskets, hoses and eventually – tires 2. 1846 – Elias Howe – patented design for sewing machine a. Improved upon by Isaac Merritt Singer i. Founded Singer Sewing Machine Company ii. Initially produced only industrial sewing machines for use in textile mills iii. But eventually offered machines for home use b. Availability of sewing machines revolutionized women’s work i. Dramatically reduced time to make clothes at home ii. Freed up more leisure time for many women 3. Technological advances improved living conditions a. Houses could be gigger, better heated, better illuminated 4. First sewer systems helped clean up cities a. Rid streets of human and animal waste 5. Mechanized factories meant more goods could be produced faster, with less labor a. Machine-made clothes using standardized form fit better, less expensive than those sewn by hand b. Machine-made newspapers and magazines more abundant and affordable b. King cotton i. Although market revolution and westward expansion occurred simultaneously in North and South ii. Combined effects heightened the nation’s sectional divisions iii. In some ways – most dynamic feature of the Am economy in the first 30 years of 19th century was rise of the Cotton Kingdom iv. The early industrial revolution (began in England) spread to the northern Am states 1. Centered on factories producing cotton textiles with waterpowered spinning and weaving machinery a. Factories generated an immense demand for cotton b. A crop the deep south was particularly suited to growing i. Climate, soil fertility 9

c. Impact of the cotton gin i. Until 1793 – marketing of cotton slowed by laborious task of removing seeds from the plant itself 1. In that year, Eli Whitney, a Yale graduate working in Georgia as a private tutor, invented the cotton gin 2. A simple device consisting of rollers and brushes 3. Gin quickly separated seed from cotton 4. Made possible the growing and selling of cotton on a large scale 5. When Whitney designed his invention in 1793 - US produced 5 million pounds of cotton 6. By 1820 – produced nearly 170 million pounds ii. Thomas Jefferson had believed that European demand for Am grain would underpin the nation’s economic growth and small farmer’s independence 1. But as southern economy expanded westward… a. Cotton produced on large plantations b. Not grain grown by sturdy yeomen c. That became the linchpin of southern development and the most important export of the country d. Expansion of slavery i. Coupled with rising demand for cotton and opening of new lands in west, Whitney’s invention revolutionized Am slavery 1. Many Ams thought the institution would die out a. Its major crop, tobacco, exhausted the soil 2. With cotton now commercially viable, the institution experienced unprecedented expansion ii. First decade of 19th century 1. Cotton plantations spread into the area of South Carolina inland from the Atlantic coast which was previously dominated by small farms a. A major reason the state reopened the African slave trade between 1803 and 1808 2. After war of 1812 – fed govt moved to consolidate Am control over deep south a. Forcing Indians to cede land b. Encouraging white settlement’ c. Acquiring Florida 3. With Am sovereignty came expansion of slavery 4. Settlers from older southern states flooded into the region 5. Planters monopolized the most fertile land a. Poorer farmers generally confined to less productive, less accessible areas of the hill country and piney woods 6. After congress prohibited the Atlantic slave trade in 1808 – the earliest date allowed by the constitution – a massive 10

trade in slaves developed within the US, supplying the labor force required by the new Cotton Kingdom iii. Historians estimate around 1 million slaves were shifted from older slave states to deep south between 1800 and 1860 1. Some traveled with owners to n...