Unit 7: Sectionalism

• Sectionalism


  Loyalty or support of a particular region or section of the nation, rather than the United States as a whole
• Regional Specialization


  • EAST: Industrial
  • SOUTH: Cotton & Slavery
  • WEST: The Nation's "Breadbasket"
• Factors contributing to industrialization

  • Stable currency under the Second Bank of the United States
  • Constitution protecting rights to inventions
  • 1800: 41 patents approved
  • 1860: 4,357 patents approved
• Inventors & Inventions


  • Textiles: Eli Whitney (Cotton gin & interchangeable parts), James Hargreaves (Spinning jenny), Elias Howe & Isaac Singer (Sewing machine)
  • Steam Power: James Watt (Steam engine)
  • Railroads: Robert Fulton (Steamboat & steam shovel)
  • Communication: Pony Express, Samuel Morse (Telegraph)
  • Agriculture: John Deere (Cast-steel plow), Cyrus McCormick (Mechanized reaper)
• Patents rewarded innovation
• Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin, 1793
• Eli Whitney's Gun Factory
• John Deere & the Steel Plow
• Cyrus McCormick & the Mechanical Reaper: 1831
• Oliver Evans, First prototype of the locomotive/steam engine
• Oliver Evans, First automated flour mill
• Samuel F. B. Morse, 1840 – Telegraph
• Cyrus Field & the Transatlantic Cable, 1858
• Elias Howe & Isaac Singer, 1840s, Sewing Machine
• Developments in transportation
• Distribution of Wealth


  • During the American Revolution, 45% of all wealth in the top 10% of the population
  • 1845 Boston, top 4% owned over 65% of the wealth
  • 1860 Philadelphia, top 1% owned over 50% of the wealth
• The gap between rich and poor was widening!
• Cottage Industry/Putting Out System


  Goods produced in homes, division of labor between journeymen, wives, daughters; wages for piecework replaced bartering; families bought mass-produced goods rather than making them at home
• Commercialization did not happen immediately or in the same way across the nation
• Samuel Slater ("Father of the Factory System")
• Lowell/Waltham System


  First Dual-Purpose Textile Plant, Francis Cabot Lowell's town - 1814
• New England Textile Centers, 1830s
• New England Dominance in Textiles
• American Population Centers in 1820
• American Population Centers in 1860
• National Origin of Immigrants: 1820 - 1860
• The North: Female Textile Laborers

  Lowell Mills, Francis C. Lowell studied the British spinning machine, Lowell helped invent a power loom and built the first integrated cotton mill, Drove smaller competitors out of business, Lowell's successors soon built an entire town to house the new enterprise, Employed women, Paternalism (fear British example), Boardinghouses
• 1850 engraving by the American Banknote company shows women tending looms at Lowell
• Working Conditions


  • Divisions of labor with hierarchy of value and pay
  • Strict schedules with fines and penalties for workers who did not meet them
  • Absenteeism
  • Work performance
  • "devil in petticoats"
  • Shift to a precise timetable was a major change
  • Most mills were "family mills," where entire families would work and pool their wages
• Personal Relationships


  Putting out-system destroyed the apprenticeship tradition in artisan production, replacing it with child labor, Older system of personal relationships between master and workers was replaced with an impersonal wage system, By subdividing tasks, masters could hire low-skill, low-wage women and children, denying opportunities to male artisans
• Women Workers


  The rise of the garment industry led many women to work, sewing ready-made clothing for piece rates (hats, bonnets, boots and shoes), Poor pay, long hours (15-18), Lowell Mill Girls and the factory system, 1840 primary source, Early strikes (Wages, hours, conditions), Not successful
• Popular Culture


  Sentimental novels, Housekeeping guides, Advice magazines, Publishers found a lucrative market for novels of this genre, especially those written by women, Sentimentalism became more concerned with maintaining social codes
• The South and Slavery


  Primarily agrarian, Economic power shifted from the "upper South" to the "lower South", "Cotton Is King!" (1860: 5 million bales/year, 57% total exports, 1 bale = 500lbs.), Very slow development of industrialization, Rudimentary financial system, Inadequate transportation system
• 1619: first African slave brought to Jamestown
• 1790-1860: slave population grew from 700,000 to four million
• Globe Trekker: Transatlantic Slave Trade
• Expansion of cotton concentrated in the rich soil sections of the South known as the black belt
• Growth of the cotton economy committed the South to slavery
• Value of Cotton Exports as % of All US Exports

  • 1820
  • 1860
• Cotton Production and the Slave Population

  • 1820
  • 1860