CM5: The Age of Reform

Question 1

Beginnings of Industrialization

Answer 1

• development of factories
• textile industry:
  - Moses Brown
  - Samuel Slater
  - Oliver Evans
  - Eli Whitney ‘the cotton gin’
  - Francis Cabot Lowell

Question 2

What are the dates of the Age of Reform?

Answer 2

1830s - 1850s

Question 3

Social Developments

Answer 3

• Birth of American Culture
• The people
• Cities
• Education and the role of women
• Wealth

Question 4

Birth of American culture

Answer 4

• Literature:
  - poetry with Edgar Allan Poe
  - novels of James Fenimore Cooper or Nathaniel Hawthorne
  - essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Scientific publications (reports from the Lewis and Clark expedition)
• American Dictionary of the English Language (1828)
• Mass entertainment (minstrel shows, ‘museums’ and circuses)
• popular journalism and magazines

Question 5

The people

Answer 5

• American uniqueness: its people seemed ambitious, optimistic and independent
• Impressive growth of population
• 1845: the phase ‘Manifest Destiny’ was invented by a journalist
• Immigration (Irish and Germans, Norwegians, Swedes, Chinese)
• Reasons:
  - Irish potato famine
  - 1848 revolutions
  - Agricultural depression
• Utopian immigrand colonies (New Harmony, Indiana)
• African Americans
• Life in the country

Question 6

Cities

Answer 6

• Center of wealth and political influence
• New York City
• Increase of taxes; general improvement of services and equipment

Question 7

Education and the role of women

Answer 7

• Emergence of a public educational system and penny press
• New job opportunities in cities
• Creation of women’s colleges (Mont Holyoke in Massachusetts, 1837)
• The duties of womanhood

Question 8

Wealth

Answer 8

• ‘self-made’ man
• number of millionaires by 1850

Question 9

Democratization of politics

Answer 9

• development of suffrage:
  - property and other restrictions of suffrage were abandoned
  - printed ballot replaced the earlier system of voice voting)
• Changes in the selection of candidates: conventions of elected delegates replaced self-appointed cliques meeting in secret
• End of the political machines:
  –> party organization headed by a single boss or small autocratic group that commands enough votes to maintain political and administrative control of a city, country or state
• Power still in the hands of a few:
  –> the legislative programs that ran state politics were designed primarily to reward the party faithful and to keep them in power

Question 10

The Jacksonians

Answer 10

• Jackson = embodiment of popular democracy
• Jacksonian or Democratic Party = loose coalition
• No district parties on the national level
• 1834: creation of the Whig Party: opposed to Jackson

Question 11

Major parties

Answer 11

• Opposition between Whigs and Democrats
• Whigs supported:
  - a weak executive power
  - a new Bank of the US
  - a high tariff
• Democrats approved:
  - an independent tresury
  - an aggressive foreign policy
  - expansionism
  - interests of the propertyless
  –> thrived because of their opportunism and not their ideology

Question 12

Minor parties

Answer 12

Emergence of various political parties:
- the anti-Masons
- the Workingmen’s Party
- the Liberty party (anti-slavery)

Question 13

Spoils system

Answer 13

• practice of the political party winning an election
• rewards its campaign workers and other active supporters
• appointment to Government posts
• other favours

Question 14

Jacksonian war on the Second bank of the US

Answer 14

• Supporters regarded it as:
  
  • a stabilizing force
  • a sound and uniform currency
  • provider of fiscal services
  • facilitator of long-distance trade
  • regulator of state banks
• Jacksonian Democrats thought that that Bank of the US:
  
  • favored merchants and speculators vs farmers and artisans
  • appropriated public money for risky private investments
  • conferred priviledges on a small group of stockholders and financial elites = violating the principle of equal opportunity

Question 15

Bank War timeline

Answer 15

• Early 1832: the President of the bank of the US (Nicholas Biddle) in alliance with the National Republicans, with Senator Henry Clay, submitted a renewal of the Bank’s charter
• Jackson vetoed the bill over the social philosophy of the Jacksonian movement
• Central issue that divided Jacksonians and National Republicans
• Jackson won the election and swiftly removed the Bank’s federal deposits
• 1833: the funds were distributed to a dozen state banks (‘pet banks’)
• The Whig Party saw it as an abuse of Executive power