First Party System [1789–1824] III Flashcards
(30 cards)
Review - Timeline: A Nation on the Move - Westward Expansion, 1800-1860
1803 - Thomas Jefferson brokers ‘Louisiana Purchase’. 1805 - Lewis and Clark’s expedition reaches the Pacific Ocean. 1819 - U.S. acquires Florida under the Adams-Onis Treaty. 1820 - Missouri Compromise divides Louisiana Purchase into “slave”and “free” states. 1845 - United States annexes Texas. 1846 - U.S. declares war on Mexico; Great Britain cedes Oregon territory to U.S. 1848 - Mexican Cession adds vast new territory to U.S. 1848 - California Gold Rush begins. 1850 - Henry Clay brokers ‘Compromise of 1850’.
Timeline: Industrial Transformation in the North, 1800–1850
1807 - Robert Fulton builds first successful steamboat. 1813 - Francis Cabot Lowell founds ‘Boston Manufacturing Company’. 1819 - Bank panic leads to depression. 1825 - Erie Canal opens. 1831 - Cyrus McCormick invents mechanical reaper; Mohawk and Hudson Railroad begins service. 1838 - Samuel Morse first demonstrates the telegraph. 1841 - P.T. Barnum’s ‘American Museum’ opens in NYC.
Describe population growth in America in the first half of the 19th century and the causes of it.
In the early 1800s, the United States was growing. Immigration, birth rates, new territory, and the demand for slaves helped the American population to increase by a third every decade. It had taken less than a century for the new nation to grow from just 13 little states to the fourth biggest country in the world. A lot of these new residents went west and farmed the land to provide food for the rapidly increasing cities.
*On the Move: The Transportation Revolution*
A transportation infrastructure rapidly took shape in the 1800s as American investors and the government began building roads, turnpikes, canals, and railroads. The time required to travel shrank vastly, and people marveled at their ability to conquer great distances, enhancing their sense of the steady advance of progress. The transportation revolution also made it possible to ship agricultural and manufactured goods throughout the country and enabled rural people to travel to towns and cities for employment opportunities.
Explain advancements in transportation during the first half to the 19th century.
Developments in transportation contributed to its economy and population growth. The steamboat traffic along the major rivers was most influential, especially for transporting agricultural products from the interior of the continent to the east. Canals linked waterways to one another and were largely constructed with public funds. Railroads began connecting eastern locations in 1827. Foot trails opened up as far west as the Pacific Ocean and as far south as Mexico. Enterprising Americans began trading along the Santa Fe Trail, and fur trappers went deep into the Rocky Mountains. New cities sprang up everywhere along the new transportation routes, and places like Chicago, Cincinnati, and St. Louis helped drain some of the power and influence away from New York, Boston, and Philadelphia.
*Vibrant Capitalist Republic*
The selling of the public domain was one of the key features of the early nineteenth century in the United States. Thousands rushed west to take part in the bounty. In the wild frenzy of land purchases and speculation in land, state banks advanced risky loans and created unstable paper money not backed by gold or silver, ultimately leading to the Panic of 1819. The ensuing economic depression was the first in U.S. history. Recovery came in the 1820s, followed by a period of robust growth. In this age of entrepreneurship, in which those who invested their money wisely in land, business ventures, or technological improvements reaped vast profits, inventors produced new wonders that transformed American life.
Understand how corporations influenced the economy during the first half of the 19th century.
Supreme Court protection for corporations began another shift in the American economy. This business model limited the liability of investors, making it easier to raise huge amounts of private capital. Chartered by individual states, corporations (with the help of some manufacturing inventions) helped pay for factories, which slowly transferred population into the cities, and along with the farming revolution in the west, helped push America towards a market economy.
Describe the conditions in America prior to the Market Revolution.
The first half of the 19th century saw a number of developments that helped push America towards a market economy based on cash, wages, and prices. Several key factors were already in place by the end of the War of 1812. Beginning with Jefferson’s Embargo of 1807, American investors who had been involved in lucrative trans-Atlantic commerce began placing their money into safer, domestic manufacturing ventures. Since issues with shipping persisted until the Second Barbary War in 1815, capital continued to be transferred from commerce to manufacturing - creating a strong, if small, industrial base. Corporations were protected; state and local banks were well-established; and the national bank was under development. The South was seeking a new cash crop, and Americans were headed west with the help of water transportation. Everything was in place, ready for a few inventions to spark the Market Revolution.
*Early Industrialization in the Northeast*
Industrialization led to radical changes in American life. New industrial towns, like Waltham, Lowell, and countless others, dotted the landscape of the Northeast. The mills provided many young women an opportunity to experience a new and liberating life, and these workers relished their new freedom. Workers also gained a greater appreciation of the value of their work and, in some instances, began to question the basic fairness of the new industrial order. The world of work had been fundamentally reorganized.
Identify Eli Whitney and explain how his cotton gin and interchangeable parts concept influence the Market Revolution.
In 1793, American Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. The cotton gin made it efficient to remove seeds from cotton by turning a handle. Cotton was in high demand in England’s textile mills and America was able to meet this need. Land was available and cheap and demand for slaves skyrocketed. By 1860 there were four times more slaves than in 1808 when slavery importation was outlawed. By 1820 the cotton industry was 39% of American exports and by 1860 the South provided 2/3rds of the world’s cotton. Whitney also introduced the concept of interchangeable parts, which meant that products no longer needed to be hand crafted from start to finish, but could be assembled and repaired with compatible parts.
Francis Lowell and the Power Loom
Francis Lowell recreated the power loom (mechanized loom for making fabric by weaving yarn or thread) from England and made improvements to it between 1810-1814. He convinced some other investors into business with him. Powered by water mills, the ‘Boston Manufacturing Company’ was America’s first manufacturing plant - converting raw cotton into cloth under one roof. Southern cotton had a new market in New England textile mills.
Factory System or the American System
The power loom together with interchangeable parts led to the ‘factory system’ (or ‘American system’). American factories were churning out all kinds of inexpensive, mass-produced, standardized consumer goods. The factory system also trickled down to the craftsman level. Now, a cobbler no longer produced every part of a shoe from start to finish. He might assemble a pair of shoes after first buying the soles and heels from one source, leather from another and so on.
Technological transformation in early 19th century agriculture.
Cyrus McCormick’s mechanical reaper (1831) and John Deer’s steel plow (1837) made the farming industry more efficient and commercial. The mechanical reaper helped one farmer working the machine to harvest as much wheat as five men in the same amount of time. The steel plow allowed farmers to easily break through the thickly matted virgin soil of the American Midwest. More land was used for farming supplying cities along the eastern seaboard and markets abroad.
Specialization and American Thought
American business leaders were about to see the benefit in specialization, in innovations such as the steel plow, interchangeable parts, and mass production. American society was changed, for better or for worse, from skilled laborers to unskilled workers who could operate machinery.
*A New Social Order: Class Divisions*
The creation of distinctive classes in the North drove striking new cultural developments. Even among the wealthy elites, northern business families, who had mainly inherited their money, distanced themselves from the newly wealthy manufacturing leaders. Regardless of how they had earned their money, however, the elite lived and socialized apart from members of the growing middle class. The middle class valued work, consumption, and education and dedicated their energies to maintaining or advancing their social status. Wage workers formed their own society in industrial cities and mill villages, though lack of money and long working hours effectively prevented the working class from consuming the fruits of their labor, educating their children, or advancing up the economic ladder.
Understand how the Market Revolution affected the North, South, and West
Generally speaking, the market revolution led to increased industrialization in the North with the power loom, the cotton gin transformed the south, and advances in agricultural technology transformed the midwest.
*An Awakening of Religion and Individualism*
Evangelical Protestantism pervaded American culture in the antebellum era and fueled a belief in the possibility of changing society for the better. Leaders of the Second Great Awakening like Charles G. Finney urged listeners to take charge of their own salvation. This religious message dovetailed with the new economic possibilities created by the market and Industrial Revolution, making the Protestantism of the Second Great Awakening, with its emphasis on individual spiritual success, a reflection of the individualistic, capitalist spirit of the age. Transcendentalists took a different approach, but like their religiously oriented brethren, they too looked to create a better existence. These authors, most notably Emerson, identified a major tension in American life between the effort to be part of the democratic majority and the need to remain true to oneself as an individual.
The Second Great Awakening
The Second Great Awakening was a Protestant religious revival during the early 19th century in the United States. The movement began around 1790, gained momentum by 1800 and, after 1820, membership rose rapidly among Baptist and Methodist congregations whose preachers led the movement. It was past its peak by the late 1840s. The Second Great Awakening reflected Romanticism characterized by enthusiasm, emotion, and an appeal to the supernatural. It rejected the skeptical rationalism and deism of the Enlightenment. The revivals enrolled millions of new members in existing evangelical denominations and led to the formation of new denominations. Historians named the Second Great Awakening in the context of the First Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1750s and of the Third Great Awakening of the late 1850s to early 1900s. These revivals were part of a much larger Romantic religious movement that was sweeping across Europe at the time, mainly throughout England, Scotland, and Germany. New religious movements emerged during the Second Great Awakening, such as Adventism, Dispensationalism, and Mormonism.
Identify Charles Finney and Lyman Beecher, and describe their role in the Second Great Awakening.
Revivalist preachers spoke to thousands of people at camp meetings on the expanding frontier. One of the most influential was Charles Finney. He taught that people needed to turn from sin and be born again to good works, especially abolition. He was also a devoted abolitionist and encouraged Christians to see slavery as a moral issue rather than a political or economic one. A revivalist named Lyman Beecher led people to voluntarily stop drinking alcohol since it could easily lead to sin, and he founded the temperance movement to ban the sale of alcohol legally.
Explain the issues Americans took with traditional religious beliefs that led to the Second Great Awakening.
After the Revolution, Americans turned their rebellious spirit toward religion. The Anglican Church was reformed into the Episcopal Church, and the Second Great Awakening was launched. The revolutionary spirit of self-reliance led Americans to shun the earlier denominations that believed in predestination in favor of the Baptist and Methodist teachings of human free will and responsibility. The Mormon and Adventist churches were also founded, along with less traditional spiritual movements, such as Transcendentalists, who sought spirituality apart from religion.
Understand the lasting effects the Second Great Awakening had on religious and social values in the United States.
It could be said that the Second Great Awakening led Americans to look at the culture around them, identify the problems that are most important to them, and then do something about it.
Understand the state of education in America prior to the 19th century.
In America’s earliest days, education was left to the discretion of families and communities, and it varied widely by region. For the better part of 200 years, most American children didn’t have access to a free education. Massachusetts led the way in creating public schools to ensure that all citizens could read the Bible. The next push for public education came from Founding Fathers, like Thomas Jefferson, who believed democracy required educated voters. Many patriots agreed, but they didn’t see this being an appropriate role for the federal government. One-room school houses popped up across the country, but it took the Second Great Awakening to give the final push for widespread educational reform.
Identify Horace Mann and explain how he helped reform American education.
The Second Great Awakening launched many reform movements, including a push for mandatory, free, public education. Reformers taught traditional school subjects as well as moral principles and civics. Once again, Massachusetts was at the forefront, hiring Horace Mann to standardize several aspects of the school system that were widely copied and still accepted today. He created grade levels, common standards, and mandatory attendance to ensure that all citizens could become virtuous, educated voters. Others states copied his system, and by 1870, all states had tax-supported, locally controlled elementary schools, though attendance was usually not required.
Identify McGuffey Readers and Noah Webster,
American schools needed American textbooks, and men like McGuffey Readers and Noah Webster filled the need with his systematic approach to spelling and inclusion of civic values. Blue-backed’ spellers - both took a uniquely American approach to education, mimicking the factory system: break the subject down into its most basic parts and build it from the bottom up. And both of these textbooks systematically taught cultural and religious virtues. Noah Webster is also credited with standardizing American spelling through his 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language.
