NNEC - Regional Differences in the Market Revolution (Lesson)
Regional Differences in the Market Revolution
As with most everything else, particularly in the mid-19th century, the market revolution played out differently in the North and South of Antebellum America.
The North and South were both growing economically in the early 19th century. The growth in both regions reinforced each other, but that didn’t last long. Politics and ideological differences became evident as the United States approached mid-century---at that point, the similarities between the North and South were overshadowed by the differences on the road to the Civil War.
Vast Changes During the Market Revolution
Commerce and Trade in the North
- 40,000+ women worked in textile mills in New England.
- Waltham-Lowell System: all stages of textile production under one roof, employees lived in company housing—this model soon spread to other industries.
- Manufacturing appeared in the “Old Northwest”---cities like Cincinnati and Chicago.
- Use of interchangeable parts (essential to mass production) spread to other industrial processes (ex. agricultural tools, clocks, ironware, etc.).
“King Cotton” in the South
Cotton replaced other staple crops as the most profitable between 1800 and 1850 across the South.
The profits of cotton production led to a dramatic increase in slavery in the first half of the century and also the expansion of the internal slave trade. (Remember technically the international slave trade was banned by Congress in January 1808.) Southern cotton grown using unfree labor was used in New England textile manufacturing. (The cotton was exported to England and around the world too.)
Eli Whitney’s cotton gin (1793) led to a rapid increase in cotton processing and that, in addition to the nearly unlimited demand for cotton in the North and in Great Britain, led to an increase in acreage under cotton cultivation in the South.
Cotton cultivation connected the United States to economies around the world.
1860: 58% of American exports (cotton).
Cotton exports
- 1830: 700,000 bales.
- 1860: almost 5 million bales.
- Cotton called “King Cotton.”
- As cotton cultivation increased, so did the number of enslaved workers.
Native-Born Migrations
Background: The Market Revolution changed human movement patterns, expanded varieties of people, changed class relations, and redefined gender and family roles; also cities were linked and created regional dependencies.
Small, localized economies from the 1700s became a national and later became an international economy.
As a result of the changes brought about by the Market Revolution, native-born white Americans moved into the “West” and settled in new communities along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers.
Simultaneously, American manufacturing jobs drew immigrants from abroad into expanding cities. From 1800 to 1860 immigration came mostly from northern and western Europe. The two largest groups of immigrants came from Ireland and Germany.
Many immigrants found jobs and settled in the Northeast and some continued moving into the interior. (Immigrants didn’t move into the South for the most part because there were few manufacturing jobs and because they couldn’t compete with unfree labor. Why hire wage workers when you can use unfree labor?)
Irish Immigration
- Irish: largest group of immigrants.
- The increase in the 1840s was mostly because of the potato blight in Ireland that caused mass starvation.
German Immigration
- The 2nd largest group of immigrants came from Germany. German immigrants were financially better off than Irish immigrants and many Germans were skilled artisans and entrepreneurs who escaped political repression that resulted from the failed revolution in 1848 in the German states.
- These immigrants were more likely to have the funds to move beyond the East Coast than the Irish immigrants. So the Germans continued into the interior and settled in the “German triangle” of western cities like Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and St. Louis.
Westward Migration
Improvements in transportation after the War of 1812 (roads, canals, railroads) opened access to new areas.
From 1800-1840 over 4 million people crossed the Appalachian Mountains to settle in the West. Most of these people moved in groups. The migrants helped each other clear land, build houses and barns, and eventually towns.
Many Southern farmers and planters moved into Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and later Texas. Many of these farmers wanted to replicate the “Cotton Kingdom” in the West on cheaper land.
From the North, farmers moved into what is now the southern part of the Midwest—Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.
New Englanders on the move settled in northern Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
Some immigrants “squatted” on land that wasn’t legally theirs and others bought land from the federal government or land speculators.
The newly settled areas developed their own identities over time based on where the settlers originated.
The towns of the Old Northwest (currently considered the Upper Midwest) began to have the “feel” of New England because the settlers brought their customs and traditions with them.
Likewise, the ‘New Southern’ settlements resembled the Deep South.
Impact on Economic Status
Economic prosperity (particularly in the South) led to a growing middle class and changed the culture as people gained some social mobility.
There was a burgeoning wealthy “business elite” and the expansion of a huge class of laboring poor (wage workers.)
Overall, material wealth increased a great deal during the Market Revolution.
Americans’ average income increased and the standard of living improved. The United States’ economy provided workers with the hope of gaining skills and earning higher wages and industrial and agricultural workers could dare to hope for their own land in the expansive West.
The “free labor” ideology took hold in the United States during this period. This concept held that in the United States, it was possible for wage workers to own land and become independent. The dignity of work was a tenet and led Northerners to see their society as superior to that of Southerners.
In the South physical labor was denigrated and associated with enslaved people. The “free labor” concept became central to Abraham Lincoln’s Republican Party in the 1850s.
“Free labor” was a reality for many Americans, but large numbers of factory workers were stuck in low paying factory work.
The fruits of an expanding economy were not evenly distributed and a large share of the benefits were enjoyed by a small portion of citizens.
People who accrued vast fortunes were accumulated by bank owners, merchants, industrialists, and entrepreneurs and by 1860, about 5% of the population controlled ½ the country’s wealth. (Before the American Revolution, ½ the wealth was controlled by 10% of the population. There is a trend here.)
While a few people became ultra-wealthy, a middle class did form. For example, the institutions like banks, corporations, legal offices, etc., required a workforce of lawyers, clerks, accountants, customs officials, and other professionals to fill those positions.
These types of jobs led to economic advances for many Americans.
Early Unions (1830-1850 only)
Unions are typically associated with the Gilded Age and beyond, but early unions did exist. The widespread growth of factories reduced workers’ autonomy and beliefs about self-governance. As individual workers lost autonomy, they were increasingly drawn to the idea of forming unions to advance their goals and improve their working conditions.
Labor unions allowed workers to collectively bargain with employers and in the 1830s mill workers in Lowell, Massachusetts did just that. The union of female workers called themselves the Factory Girls Association and they held two strikes—one in 1834 was unsuccessful in protesting a wage reduction. In 1836 the union held a strike to protest rent hikes at the boarding houses and that strike was successful.
There were skilled workers’ unions in the period—the National Typographical Union (1852) and the Stone Cutters (1853) had a larger degree of success.
The development of the early union movement signaled a move away from face-to-face relationships that were the norm in 18th century workplaces.
Gender Roles and Families in the Market Revolution
The Market Revolution led to changes in gender roles and families in the first half of the 19th century. Many Americans came to see separate “spheres” in society---the male-dominated “public” sphere and the female-oriented “private” sphere---the home. Domestic ideals were labeled the “cult of domesticity” and it took the place of “republican motherhood” from the early republic.
Many of these new cultural ideals centered on the emerging middle class—a culture that focused on the home, a preoccupation with the idealized past and sentimentality as well as Christian piety. As a part of this shift to the “cult of domesticity,” women were assigned a dependent role as the “weaker sex.” In an increasingly commerce-focused society, women were seen as people to be protected from the “ugliness” of the “public sphere” of politics and money. Women were assigned qualities like timidity and innocence; the qualities were promoted by Protestant ministers in their sermons and by female authors of popular novellas. (Fictional book-length writing had gained popularity among women since the post-revolutionary period.)
Antebellum society redefined women’s “proper” social roles. In the years immediately following the American Revolution, “republican motherhood” gained traction as the idea that mothers were important because they were raising future generations of (hopefully) smart (white male) voters who would be responsible for the continuation of the republic in the future. After the turn of the 19th century, “republican motherhood” faded and the “cult of domesticity” came to the forefront. The “cult of domesticity” held that women must create a “Christian home”—separate from their husbands’ public sphere of politics, business, and competition---the wife was supposed to create a haven from the outside world by ensuring that the home was a place where he was taken care of and the wife provided him the “perfect home.” This concept discouraged women from participating in the public sphere.
Legally women had always been relegated to a second-class status. They were not allowed to serve on juries, vote or seek legal counsel to escape from abusive husbands. Additionally, when women married, their property became the property of their husbands. Under the legal structure of femme covert, wives had no independent political or legal standing.
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