The Old South, 1790-1850 (c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved Chapter 9

The Old South, 1790-1850

(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved

Chapter 9Chapter 9

Government and Markets

• 14th Congress (1815)– Chartered national bank– Enacted a protective tariff– Debated federally funded system of roads and

canals

• Many argued that national independence would be achieved through subsidies to commerce and manufactures


The American System:The Bank of the United States

• Henry Clay

• Second Bank of the United States (1816)


The American System: Tariffs and Internal Improvements

• Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun– Tariff of 1816– Internal Improvements

• Presidents Madison and James Monroe oppose internal improvements

• State government and internal improvements– Erie Canal


Markets and the Law

• Courts prioritize legal principles desired by merchant class

• John Marshall– Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1816)– McCulloch v. Maryland (1816)– Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)

• State courts: right to develop property for business purposes more important than neighborhood wishes


The Transportation Revolution

• After 1815: dramatic improvements in transportation:– Roads– Steamboats– Canals– Railroads

• Tied communities together• Made a market society physically possible


Transportation in 1815

• Land transport very expensive compared to water

• flatboats

• keelboats– Mike Fink


Improvements: Roads and Rivers

• Transportation revolution

• National Road

• Robert Fulton– Clermont


Improvements: Canals and Railroads

• Erie Canal– DeWitt Clinton– Model for canal boom across country

• Baltimore and Ohio Railroad

• New York Central


Time and Money

• Freight costs went down

• Speeds improved

• Market revolution

• Foreign trade continued to expand

• Growing internal domestic market


Markets and Regions

• Market-driven economy: “market revolution”– Farmers trade their surpluses for urban products

• Until 1840 markets more regional than national

• North becomes unified market in 1840s and 1850s


From Yeomen to Businessmen: The Rural North and West

• Many young people of Northeast left for cities and factory towns, or headed West

• Remaining generations began new forms of agriculture

• Northwest was transformed from wilderness into cash-producing farms


Shaping the Northern Landscape

• New England farmers could not compete with western, frontier farmers

• Livestock raising replaced mixed farming for many New Englanders – transformed the woodlands into open pastures

• Factories and cities of Northeast provided Yankee farmers a market for their meats and perishables

• More pasture, less cropland


The Transformation of Rural Outwork

• Position of outworkers declines

• Manufacture began to concentrate in factories

• Outworkers were reduced to dependence on merchants, who began to control the labor of outworkers


Farmers as Consumers

• New England farmers became customers for necessities that they had once either produced or acquired through barter– Coal, cotton cloth, straw hats, shoes

• 1820s: storekeepers increased their stock in trade by 45%

• Material standards of living rose• Increased dependence on and vulnerability to

markets


The Northwest: Southern Migrants

• Treaty of Greenville

• Americans migrated into Ohio, Indiana, Illinois

• Southern born pioneers of the Northwest, slavery blocked opportunities for whites

• Neighboring persists


The Northwest:Northern Migrants

• 1830: northeasterners migrated to the Northwest via the Erie Canal and on Great Lakes steamboats

• Wisconsin and Michigan

• Immigrants from Germany and Scandinavia

• New settlers: receptive to improvements in farming techniques and intensive agriculture


Households• 19th Century: Americans begin to limit the size of

their households• Commercialization of agriculture closely

associated with the new concept of housework: – Male work vs. female work

– New expectations of female tasks

• New notions of privacy, decency, domestic comforts

• Emergence of separate kitchens and bedrooms


Neighborhoods:The Landscape of Privacy

• Nature: a commodity to be altered and controlled• Old practices and forms of neighboring

disappeared• Storekeepers gradually demand cash, rather than

bartered goods• Efficient farmers concentrated on commodities to

bring to market and purchases made for family comforts

• Farmers increasingly dependent on outside world


The Industrial Revolution

• 1820-1870: American cities grew faster than ever before or since

• Seaport cities gain more from commerce with interior than overseas

• Beginnings of industry and the greatest period of urban growth in U.S. history


Factory Towns:The Rhode Island System

• Jeffersonians—factory towns are bad and overcrowded with dependent masses

• Neo-Federalists: U.S. can make decentralized factories• Richard Arkwright• Samuel Slater

– Rhode Island (or family) system


Factory Towns:The Waltham System

• Francis Cabot Lowell and the Boston Associates• Waltham System

– Process mechanized to minimize skilled labor

– Labor force primarily young farm women housed in company boarding houses

– Wage labor gave women way out of rural patriarchy


Urban Businessmen• Acceptance of urban class divisions:

– Seaport merchants and wealthy men of finance

– new middle class

– impoverished producers, laborers

• Commercial classes transformed the look and feel of American cities

• Downtown business offices• Main Street storefronts• Shopping markets in Boston, Philadelphia,

Rochester


Metropolitan Industrialization• Growth in amount of laborers who made

consumer goods• Pre-1850s: few goods were made in

mechanized factories – most were made by hand

• Urban working class• Clothing and shoe manufacturing

– Men skilled labor, women unskilled

• Social distinctions between manual and non-manual labor


The Market Revolution in the South

• Cotton belt extended into Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana

• 1840s: cotton accounted for one-half to two-thirds the value of all U.S. exports

• South produced three-fourths the world’s cotton supply


The Organization of Slave Labor

• Many plantations produced only cotton

• Southern planters organized slave labor to maximize production and reinforce dominance of white farm owners

• Frederick Law Olmstead’s observations

• Association of labor with slaves shaped Southern perceptions of dignity of work


Paternalism

• Post-1820: exploitation of slave labor became more systematic and more humane

• Systematic paternalism• Slaves’ material standards rose

– Physical height– Infant mortality

• After 1808, imports of new Africans were banned


Yeomen and Planters• Cotton: economies of scale

– Big farms with many slaves operated more efficiently and profitably than farms with fewer resources

– Wealth becomes more concentrated

– Dual economy• Plantations at center

• White yeoman farmers at fringe

• Upcountry yeoman– Traditional household and neighboring lifestyle


Yeomen and the Market

• Southern yeomen practiced mixed farming for household subsistence and neighborhood exchange

• System of “subsistence plus” agriculture: market serves interests, but does not dominate

• Entrepreneurship and ambition discouraged


A Balance Sheet: The Plantation and Southern Development

• Wealth of South great, but concentrated– Wealth disparity created political cleavage– Wealth concentration stifled southern market

• Effect of Market Revolution on South: more slavery• Technology and development

– Eli Whitney and cotton gin– Little spending on internal improvements– Cities primarily export centers

• DeBow’s Review


Conclusion

• James H. Hammond: “Cotton is king”• The South’s commitment to cotton and slavery:

– Politically isolated the South

– Made the South dependent on financial and industrial centers

• North and West both enriched by Market Revolution– Northeast moves from periphery of world economy to

core


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The Old South, 1790-1850 (c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved Chapter 9