Transcript The Market Revolution - St. John's High School

The Market
Revolution, Part I:
Economic Change
1790s-1850s
The US in 1800
Jefferson’s republic – rural and agrarian
• 93% lived in rural areas (<2500 people)
• 84% were farmers
o large majority: semisubsistence farmers
• limited access to markets
• produced little more than necessary
• neighborhood interdependence
o local division of labor
o barter
• labor provided by families
o large families
o need for abundant land
• Exceptions
o cities & towns
o areas near coasts & waterways
o Southern plantations
Clash of Cultures
Subsistence Culture
• Communal cooperation
o emphasis on extended
family ties
• Fierce independence
Market Culture
• Individualism/competition
o immediate family over extended
family
• Stability/social order
 strong embrace of
Jeffersonian republicanism
 favored Hamilton’s worldview
over Jefferson’s
• distrust of outsiders &
distant authority
• celebration of equality
• scorn for luxuries
• stronger central government
• accepting of social
distinctions/hierarchy
• pursuit of material gain
• Patriarchy
o manliness based on physical
abilities/courage
o ironclad authority over
family
• Paternalism
o manliness based on family
responsibility
o more egalitarian, loving
relationships
The View from the Country
• The outside, market-oriented world was
threatening
o commercial agriculture required credit & depended on markets
 a downturn could lead to ruin, even loss of land
o market values seemed foreign & immoral
• materialism, no sense of family/community
• Yet the market was also inviting
o extra income  manufactured goods
• labor-saving tools and machines
• pre-woven cloth, premade clothes
• variety in foods & food preparation
• “nice things”
Market Expansion
• Began in southern New England in the 1790s
o market economy & culture already more widespread there
• “Yankee” values
o land crisis
• by 1790s, too little land to continue to subdivide among
children
o eroded patriarchal authority
 smaller families
• farmers tried to buy more land
o increased debt
o brought more & more families into a cash economy
• commercial farming
• employment
• large-scale migration
o New Hampshire & Vermont, upstate New York
The Industrial Revolution
• Meanwhile, industrialization was
beginning
o the “Rhode Island System”
• Samuel Slater
• employed many farm families, housed them
nearby
• spinning at the factory, everything else “put
out”
o the “Lowell System”
• 1807-1814: with trade cut off, Boston’s
merchant elite invested in factories
o first true factory (all under one roof) –
Waltham, 1813
o Lowell mill was founded in 1823
• employed local farm girls
o these “mill girls” lived in strictly run
dormitories
o sent most of their pay home to the
farm
Westward Migration
• By the 1810s, cheap land was
unavailable in upstate New York
o migrants  Ohio, Indiana, Illinois
o by 1830s, Mich., Wisc., & Minn.
• Migration was fueled by a
Transportation Revolution
o commercial expansion &
transportation innovations were
mutually intensifying
o 1780s-1820s: roads
• macadamization
o 1790s-1820s: steamboats
o 1820s-1840s: canals
• Erie Canal, 1825
o 1840s-1930s: railroads
Westward Migration
• Westward migration accelerated
expansion of the market into the
interior
o cheaper goods became available to
more areas
o more people bought household &
farm items once made at home
o more and more farmers involved in
commercial agriculture
• NE: dairy, vegetables
• NW: corn, wheat, cattle
• By 1850,
o the large majority of farming was
commercial
o the Northwest was fully integrated
into a national commercial
network
• tied especially strongly to the
Northeast
Negative Consequences
• For many, the market revolution
meant instability
o In cities, the traditional artisan
system was seriously disrupted
• mass-production devalued
skilled labor
o apprentices & journeymen 
unskilled wage workers
 first labor unions
• economic downturns 
strikes, riots
o Farmers required credit to produce for market
• had to sacrifice their independence
• could become wealthy, could lose their land
• those unwilling to enter market economy were left behind
o rising land values, inability to barter for services
Positive Consequences
• widespread access to manufactured
goods
o labor-saving tools and machinery, luxury items
• growth and spread of cities and towns
o ever-increasing economic opportunities
• professions, service industries, merchants
• rapid growth of an urban middle class
o expansion of education
• rapid technological advancement
o constantly improving industrial machinery,
transportation technology
• Whitney & interchangeable parts – the “American
system”
• farm equipment – e.g., McCormick reaper,
automated thresher
o communications
• telegraph – Samuel Morse, 1844
• the “penny press”