4.5

• Market Revolution


  The linking of northern industries with western and southern farms, created by advances in agriculture, industry, and transportation
• The Market Revolution marked America's transition from mainly an agrarian society into a firmly capitalist society
• Innovations in transportation


  1. Construction of the National Road (Cumberland Road)

  2. Building of canals, most significantly the Erie Canal

  3. Development of steamboats

  4. Expansion of railroads
• National Road (Cumberland Road)

  • Connected Maryland on the east coast to Illinois in the heartland, stretching for a thousand miles, all paved
• Canals


  • Human constructed rivers to facilitate trade and transportation
• Erie Canal


  • Lined western farms with Eastern manufacturing and created the occasion for a flurry of canal building throughout the states
• Steamboats


  • Allowed goods to be delivered downstream and then powered back upstream, increasing efficiency of trade
• Railroads


  • Largely replaced canals as the main technology linking regions for trade and manufacture, expanded rapidly with government support
• Innovations in industrial technology

  1. New patent laws protecting inventions

  2. Eli Whitney's interchangeable parts technology revolutionizing manufacturing

  3. Birth of the factory system in the 1820s
• Interchangeable parts


  • Allowed for mass production of discreet parts that could be assembled by unskilled workers
• Innovations in agriculture


  1. Eli Whitney's cotton gin speeding up cotton processing

  2. Shift from subsistence farming to commercial farming focused on cash crops
• Cotton gin


  • Significantly sped up the process of separating cotton seeds from cotton fibers
• Commercial farming


  • Focused on growing cash crops like cotton or tobacco for trade, not for family survival
• The Market Revolution increasingly interconnected the different regions of America economically, and increased economic ties internationally