northern industrialization

Early Industrialization in the North HIS 103

Travel Times from New York City in 1800

Copyright 2000, Bedford/St. Martin's

Transportation Revolution 

Turnpikes  

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built & operated by private companies (300 by 1810) Mostly in New England & Middle States

Canals 

Erie Canal (1817-1825) 

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cut shipping costs from $100/ton to under $9/ton Carried $15 million worth of freight annually

Delaware & Hudson Canal (1828) connected Pennsylvania coalfields to New York City

Transportation Routes, 1840 Copyright 2000, Bedford./St. Martin’s

Erie Canal Map

Transportation Revolution (cont.) 

Steamships 

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Robert Fulton & Robert Livingston’s Clermont (1807) 1st successful commercial steamship Supreme Court ruled in Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) that state licenses couldn’t invalidate federal ones

Packet service  

Black Ball Line (NYC – Liverpool) was 1st (1818) 52 lines by 1845

Railroads 

Railroads take over beginning in 1840s 

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Railroads in 1860 Copyright 2000, Bedford./St. Martin’s

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Baltimore & Ohio Railroad est. in 1827 to compete against NYC & Erie Canal 3,328 miles of track by 1840 30,626 miles of track by 1860; 2/3 in the North Reduced transportation costs by $150-175 million 1859: 2 billion tons shipped by rail; 1.6 billion by canal

Panic of 1837 partly due to states’ heavy investment in railroads & canals

Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Replica of Peter Cooper’s “Tom Thumb” engine

Charles Carroll laying the Cornerstone, July 4, 1828

Strap iron rails

Baltimore & Ohio Railroad

Carrollton Viaduct, Carrollton, MD

Communication Revolution 

U.S. Postal Service est. network of post offices & post roads, & provided stage transportation  

104,521 miles of post roads by 1829 Rates varied by mileage: 6 – 25 cents (1825-38)

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Cheap printing  Telegraph    

Samuel F. B. Morse invented it in 1832 1st commercial line established in 1844 between Baltimore & Washington, D.C. Western Union & American Telegraph Co. created national networks in the 1850s San Francisco connected by 1861

Samuel Morse & the Telegraph

Two-Stage Process of Industrialization 

1st Stage = Involution (1790s - 1820s)  

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Intensification of local, traditional practices Merchants needed to introduce cash to bridge gap between local barter economy & international cash/credit economy Young, unmarried women take in “out-work”

2nd Stage = Revolution (1830s - 1860s)   

Long-distance, capitalist practices take over Merchants invest capital in new factories Young, unmarried women move to factories

Early Factories Samuel Slater est. 1st power loom at Pawtucket, RI in Dec. 1790  Boston Manufacturing Co. opened 1st full cotton textile factory at Waltham, Mass. in 1813  Woolen mills opened in Lowell (1830) & Lawrence (1845)  Conn. gunmakers Eli Whitney & Simeon North introduced use of machine-made interchangeable parts  Conversion from water to steam (powered by coal), 1830-50  Value of industrial products exceeded value of agricultural products for 1st time in 1859 

Slater & his mill

The Lowell System

Merrimack Mills & Boarding Houses, Lowell, Mass.

Boott Cotton Mill, Lowell National Historical Park

Weave room Exterior – canal

No Marxist “Class Consciousness”  Work

in factories offered independence from family control  Wages were low, & kept down by influx of cheaper immigrant labor  Factory workers insisted on middle-class identity as “producers”  Factory owners also claimed to be middle-class producers  Many

had been former master craftsmen  Way of reducing class conflict

Fueled by Consumerism 

More widespread desire to imitate genteel lifestyle 

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Gentility now associated with middle class, rather than aristocracy Link between morality & respectability tied evangelicals to material culture

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Factory goods seen as superior to, as well as cheaper than, home-made  Women played increasing role as consumers, creating “tastes” & “styles”

Ackerman Fashion Plate, 1821

1840s Advertising

Changed Spatial & Social Relationships 

Work separated from home  

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Production separated from management and retail space 

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Women less likely to learn & participate in business Instead, became moral guardians in domestic sphere

Located in different buildings, in different parts of city

Housing clustered around jobs, creating class segregation  

Had to live within walking distance of work Ethnic enclaves further segregate working class