Industrialization and Technology Early 1800s

• A shift from goods made by hand to factory and mass production

• Technological innovations brought production from farmhouse to factories– Invented in Britain in 1750; smuggled to U.S.– Beginning of US Factory System

• US slow to embrace factory system– Scarce labor– Little capital– Superiority of British factories

Workers & Wage Slaves

• With industrial revolution, large impersonal factories surrounded by slums full of “wage slaves” developed

• Long hours, low wages, unsanitary conditions, lack of heat, etc.– Labor unions illegal

• 1820: 1/2 of industrial workers were children under 10

Workers & Wage Slaves• 1820s & 1830s: right to vote for laborers

– Loyalty to Democratic party led to improved conditions

– Fought for 10-hour day, higher wages, better conditions

• 1830s & 1840s: Dozens of strikes for higher wages or 10-hour day– 1837 depression hurt union membership

• Commonwealth v. Hunt – Supreme Court ruled unions not illegal

conspiracies as long as they were peaceful

• Population shift because of westward expansion – the West demanded transportation.– The Land Act of 1820, gave the West its wish by authorizing a buyer to purchase

80 acres of land at a minimum of $1.25 an acre in cash

• Erie Canal started in 1817 and completed in 1825– NY Governor DeWitt Clinton built the Erie Canal– Connected New York City from Hudson River with the Great Lakes and the West

• Clinton’s Big Ditch--------Other canals follow

• Navigable rivers and the steamboat– the first steamboat on western waters was in 1811.

Erie Canal System

• Built first textile mill in 1793 in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

• Born in England on June 9, 1768 and worked in British factories. • Slater came to US to make his fortune in the textile industry.

• Slatersville Mill was the largest and most modern industrial cotton mill

of its day

Samuel Slater was the "Father of the American Factory

System."

The Lowell System Lowell, Massachusetts,

1832

• Young New England farm girls• Supervised on and off the job• Worked 6 days a week, 13 hours a day• Escorted to church on Sunday

Produced the first cloth in the US

Early Textile Loom

• 1830s, Industrialization

grew throughout the North…

• Southern cotton shipped to Northern

textile mills was a good working relationship.

Resourcefulness & Experimentation

Americans were willing to try

anything. They were first copiers, then innovators.1800 41 patents were approved.1860 4,357 “ “ “

• Eli Whitney’s cotton gin revolutionized the cotton industry.

• He is also noted for the concept of mass production and interchangeable parts by

creating dyes for pistols and rifles. • Very important early pioneer in America’s

industrial revolution.

Cotton Production

The invention which changed

the South, cotton and slavery.

Whitney Ends the Fiber Famine• Cotton gin invented in 1793

– 50 times more effective than hand picking• Raising cotton more profitable

– South needs slavery more than ever for “King Cotton”

New England factories flourish with Southern cotton

John Deere & the Steel Plow

Cyrus McCormick& the Mechanical Reaper

1807, Fulton's Clermont, was the first commercially successful and reliable

steamboat. Steam boat would revolutionize water travel.

The steamboat was often the only mechanical means of river travel and freight transportation

from 1808 through 1930.

Samuel F. B. Morse

1840 – Telegraph“WHAT GOD HATH WROUGHT”

Pioneer Railroad Promoters• 1800 to 1850: Roads, canals, navigable rivers with

steamboats were the main modes of transportation.

• 1850 to 1860, RR proved most significant development toward national economy

• Led to development of Time Zones• Competition between Railroads and Canals• Obstacles

– opposition from canal backers– danger of fire– poor brakes– difference in track gauge meant changing trains – to

combat this problem standard gauge was introduced meaning

all track was the same size

Cyrus Field & the Transatlantic Cable, 1858

Highways• Bad roads made transportation highly

unreliable

• The National Road begun in 1811 and completed by 1832– Connected Maryland to Illinois.– Built by US government

Cumberland (National Road), 1811

• Help unite the country as well as improve the economy and

the infant industry.

•Because of the British

blockade during the War of 1812, it was essential for

internal transportation improvements.

From left to right: Eli Whitney (cotton gin, interchangeable parts), Robert Fulton (steam boat), Thomas Edison (light bulb), Cyrus McCormick (reaper), Richard Hoe (automatic printing press)