Unit 8

• Benefits of Cotton Gin


  • Made cotton picking easier
  • Slavery got worse
• Interchangeable Parts


  Made machines easier to fix, from British
• Benefits of Patents


  • Gave rights to produce items for 20 years
• Benefits of Limited Liability


  • Debt prevention from shareholders if company goes out of business
• Benefits of Free Incorporation

  • Access to investments and business
• Women in factories


  • Women went to factories
• Factory work


  • Long hours, dangerous conditions and lived in boarding houses
• Factory towns


  • Lowell MA
• Cult of Domesticity/Separate Spheres

  Men=public sphere. Women=home sphere
• Samuel slater


  Father of the factory system, brought over textile machines from Great Britain
• Eli Whitney


  Cotton gin, made cotton picking easier. Thought slavery would lessen but instead got worse due to the increase in demand for cotton to feed to the cotton gin
• interchangeable parts


  Made machines easier to fix, from the British
• New England and the first factories

  Factories started in NE due to poor soil and began to send cotton to new england
• Patents


  Gave rights to produce items for 20 years
• Limited liability


  Debt prevention from shareholders if company goes out of business
• Free incorporation


  Access to investments and business
• Samuel Morse


  Telegraph, helped with business communication
• john deere


  Invented the steel plow, easier to farm
• Cyrus McCormick 


  Mechanical mower, easier to farm
• Lancaster turnpike 


  Privately owned roads
• Robert Fulton 


  NYC to Albany in under 2 days
• Erie Canal


  Made a canal linking North west and north east for farming, wheat prices and crop prices in general decreased as well as shipping prices and price for land around the canal went up
• How did the Market Revolution affect the nature of “work”? How did it impact gender roles? 

  Women went to factories. Made gender worse and better. Middle class formed, were men worked and women stayed home. Cult of domesticity
• Free labor v. slave labor


  Laborers where emplyed for wage while slave labor used slaves
• How was the experience of Irish Immigrants in the North similar to free blacks? How was it different?

  Both experiences racism due to social darwinism
• German immigrants

  Democratic failiure in germany pushed immigrants into US. Skilled artisans. Settles in northwest and built homesteads
• Irish immigrants

  Hard workers,settles in cities and were roman catholic thus experienced racism. Were blamed for social problems.
• Push/Pull of immigration

  Push: Famine, lack of economic opputrunity, poor leadership

  Pull: Economic opportunity, religious freedom
• Know Nothing Party

  Thought Immigrants would take over country
• Examples of discrimination against the Irish

  Faults of the US where plcaed on irish
• Examples of discrimination against Blacks in the North

  Couldn't get jobs, couldn't go to white church
• How did slavery in the United States compared to slavery elsewhere in the world? (Foner lecture)

  Slavery was based on race, self populating and society was built upon the work of slaves
• What was life like for a slave?

  Terrible, long work hours no food and punishment
• Describe southern society. Why did non-slave owning whites support slavery? 

  They wanted to become and be like the slave owners
• Planter Aristocracy

  Controlled government, had plantations and many slaves. No public school and passed tax breaks 
• “Poor whites”

  Poor subsietnce farmers
• Mountain Whites

  Lived in hilly areas with no slaves. Resented planters
• How did the U.S. become more democratic by the 1820-30s and how did Andrew Jackson’s election exemplify this?

  People have more say. Candidates had to campaign. Voters picked electors who picked president. Conventions where held and property rights dropped.
• Universal Male Suffrage

  Males in newly admitted states could vote with no requirements
• Nominating Conventions

  Voters and politicians chose candidates.