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An Industrializing Nation

Early Industrialization

Reading 1:

The operatives work thirteen hours a day in the summer time, and from daylight to dark in the winter. At half past four in the morning the factory bell rings, and at five the girls must be in the mills....So fatigued...are numbers of girls that they go to bed soon after their evening meal, and endeavor by a comparatively long sleep to resuscitate their weakened frames for the toil of the coming day.

The Harbinger, 1846

Reading 2:

Rule first: Each one to enter the house without unnecessary noise or confusion, and hang up their bonnet, shawl, coat, etc., etc., in the entry.

Rule second: Each one to have their place at the table during meals, the two which have worked the greatest length of time in the Factory, to sit on each side of the head of the table, so that all new hands will of course take their seats lower down, according to the length of time they have been here.

Rule three: It is expected that order and good manners will be preserved at table during meals--and at all other times either upstairs or down.

Rule fourth: There is no unnecessary dirt to be brought into the house by the Boarders, such as apple cores or peels, or nut shells, etc.

Rule fifth: Each boarder is to take her turn in making the bed and sweeping the chamber in which she sleeps.

Rule sixth: Those who have worked the longest in the Factory are to sleep in the North Chamber and the new hands will sleep in the South Chamber.

Rule seventh: As a lamp will be lighted every night upstairs and placed in a lanthorn, it is expected that no boarder will take a light into the chambers.

Rule eighth: The doors will be closed at ten o'clock at night, winter and summer, at which time each boarder will be expected to retire to bed.

Rule ninth: Sunday being appointed by our Creator as a Day of Rest and Religious Exercises, it is expected that all boarders will have sufficient discretion as to pay suitable attention to the day, and if they cannot attend to some place of Public Worship they will keep within doors and improve their time in reading, writing, and in other valuable and harmless employment.

Rules at a mill boardinghouse

Reading 3:

There is no class of mechanics in New York who average so great an amount of work for so little money as the journey shoemakers....There are hundreds of them in the city constantly wandering from shop to shop in search of work, while many of them have families in a state of absolute want....We have been in more than fifty cellars in different parts of the city, each inhabited by a shoemaker and his family. The floor is made of rough plank laid loosely down, the ceiling is not quite so high as a tall man. The walls are dark and damp, and a wide desolate fireplace yawns in the center to the right of the entrance. There is no outlet back and of course no yard privileges of any kind. The miserable room is lighted only by a shallow sash, partly projecting above the surface of the ground and by the little light that struggles down the steep and rotting stairs. In this...often live the man with his work-bench, his wife and five or six children of all ages, and perhaps a palsied grandfather or grandmother and often both. In one corner is a squalid bed and the room elsewhere is occupied by the work-bench, a cradle made from a dry-goods box, two or three broken, seatless chairs, a stew-pan and a kettle.

New York Daily Tribune, 1845

Reading 4:

We...agree to work for such wages per week, and prices by the job, as the Company may see fit to pay....We also agree not to be engaged in any combination, whereby the work may be impeded, or the company's interest in any work injured....

Work contract, Cocheco Manufacturing Company, Dover, New Hampshire

Reading 5:

Just as there is sun at noonday, capital, under its present hostile and unnatural state, is fast reducing labor to utter dependence and slavish beggary....This talk about the continued prosperity, happy condition, and future independence of the producing class of this country...is all fiction, moonshine.

Voice of Industry, 1845

Reading 6:

Are you an American citizen? Then you are a joint-owner of the public lands. Why not take enough of your property to provide yourself a home? Why not vote yourself a farm?...Are you tired of slavery--of drudging for others--of poverty and its attendant miseries? Then vote yourself a farm?...Join with your neighbors to form a true American party, having for its guidance the principles of the American revolution, and whose chief measures shall be-

1. To limit the quantity of land that any one man may henceforth monopolize or inherit; and
2. To make the public lands free to actual settlers only, each having the right to sell his improvements to any man not possessed of other land.

These great measures once carried, wealth...would consist of the accumulated products of human labor, instead of a hoggish monopoly of God's labor; and the antagonism of capital and labor would forever cease.

True Workingman, 1846

1. What conditions did early l9th century factory operatives work and live under?

2. How was the status of craftsmen changing during the early l9th century?

3. What solutions did workers propose?

Education

School Enrollment, Whites ages 5-19 (1861)
	Percent Enrolled In School	Percent Actually Attending	Days in School Year
Northeast	62 %	59 %	150
South	76 %	57 %	116
West	30 %	45 %	80

1. Why do you think school enrollment was higher in the West than in the South?

2. What difference do you think it meant that children in the Northeast were more likely to attend school than those in other regions of the country?

Immigration

Reading 1:

Americans must rule America; and to this end, native-born citizens should be selected for all state, federal, or municipal offices of government employment, in preference to naturalized citizens.

1856 Platform of the American (Know Nothing) Party

Reading 2:

Popery is a system of mere human policy; altogether of foreign origin; foreign in its support; importing foreign vassals and paupers by multiplied thousands; and sending into every state and territory in this union, a most baneful foreign and anti-republican influence....

Every Roman Catholic in the known world is under the absolute control of the Catholic Priesthood....And it is this...political influence, this power of the Priesthood to control the Catholic community, and cause a vast multitude of ignorant foreigners to vote as a unit, and thus control the will of the American people, that has engendered this opposition to the Catholic Church.

William G. Brownlow, 1856

Reading 3:

It is a notorious fact that the Monarchs of Europe and the Pope of Rome are at this very moment plotting our destruction and threatening the extinction of our political, civil, and religious institutions....The Catholics in the United States receive from abroad more than $200,000 annually for the propagation of their creed.

Texas State Times, 1855

1. How would you explain the prevalence of anti-Catholic sentiment in pre-Civil War America?

2. Why do you think anti-immigrant sentiment declined sharply in the mid-1850s?

Transformation of American Law

Reading 1:

It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases must of necessity expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each.

So if a law be in opposition to the constitution; if both the law and the constitution apply to a particular case, so that the court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the constitution; or conformably to the constitution, disregarding the law; the court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is the very essence of judicial duty.

Marbury v. Madison, 1803

Reading 2:

You seem...to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy....They have with others, the same passions for party, for power, and privilege of their corps....Their power [is] the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and are not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control.

Thomas Jefferson, 1820

Reading 3:

The government proceeds directly from the people; it is "ordained and established" in the name of the people....It required not the affirmance, and could not be negatived by the State governments. The constitution, when thus adopted, was of complete obligation, and bound the State sovereignties....

The government of the United States, though limited in its powers, is supreme; and its laws, when made in pursuance of the constitution, form the supreme law of the land....

Although, among the enumerated powers of government, we do not find the word "bank," or "incorporation," we find the great powers to lay and collect taxes; to borrow money; to regulate commerce; to declare and conduct a war; and to raise and support armies and navies....The power being given, it is the interest of the nation to facilitate its execution....The government which has a right to do an act, and has imposed on it the duty of performing that act, must, according to the dictates of reason, be allowed to select the means....

Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional.

McCullough v. Maryland, 1819

1. What is the proper role of the judiciary in the American system of government? Should the courts be subservient to the other branches of government?

2. Should the Constitution be interpreted strictly or loosely?

The Roots of American Economic Growth

Per Capita Levels of Industrialization
	1750	1800	1860	1900	1928	1938
Great Britain	10	16	64	100	122	157
United States	4	9	21	69	182	167
Germany	8	8	15	52	128	144
Russia	6	6	8	15	20	38

100 = Great Britain in 1900

1. How does the rate of increase in the level of U.S. industrialization compare with that of other countries? Was it faster or slower?

2. What barriers may have impeded industrialization in the United States in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries? What factors may have encouraged rapid industrialization?

Share of World Manufacturing Output
	1750	1800	1860	1900	1928	1938
Great Britain	1.9	4.3	19.9	18.5	9.9	10.7
United States	0.1	0.8	7.2	23.6	39.3	31.4
Germany	2.9	3.5	4.9	13.2	11.6	12.7
Russia	5.0	5.6	7.0	8.8	5.3	9.0

1. Describe the growth in America's share of world manufacturing output.

2. How does America's growth compare with that of other countries?

American Land Policy

U.S. Land Policy
	Price per acre	Minimum purchase
1796	$2.00	640 acres
1800	$2.00	320
1804	$2.00	160
1820	$1.25	80
1832	$1.25	40
1854	$0.125	40
1862	free	160

Peak Land Sales
1816	1.7 million acres
1817	1.9 million acres
1818	3.5 million acres
1819	3.0 million acres
1820	0.8 million acres
1833	3.9 million acres
1834	4.7 million acres
1835	12.6 million acres
1836	20.1 million acres
1837	5.6 million acres
1853	3.8 million acres
1854	12.8 million acres
1855	12.0 million acres
1856	5.2 million acres
1857	4.2 million acres

1. How did American land policy change over time?

2. Did land sales occur evenly over time? At what points during the early 19th century were land sales greatest?

Agriculture

Age Distribution of Wisconsin Farmers, 1860
Age	Proportion owning no land	Land worth $1,000 or more
20-29	44	15
30-39	13	39
40-49	6	39

1. How likely were young men in Wisconsin to own land?

2. How likely were older men in Wisconsin to own no land?

Cost of Making a Farm, Western New York State, 1821
Clearing 30 acres at $10 per acre	$300
Fencing	$70
Log house and frame barn	$200
Outhouse, well, orchard	$150
1 pair oxen	$50
1 horse	$50
2 cows	$40
2 hogs	$10
10 sheep	$50
Plow, harness, tools	$50
Purchase 50 acres at $2 per acre	$100
Essentials for family consumption before first crop	$75
Total	$1,145

1. Western land has sometimes been considered a "safety valve" for American workers. Do you think that a laboring American could afford to start a farm?

2. How would a family acquire the money to start a farm?

Percentage of American Labor Force in Agriculture
1800	83 percent
1810	84 percent
1820	79 percent
1830	71 percent
1840	63 percent
1850	55 percent
1860	53 percent

Agricultural Productivity
	1800	1970
Wheat
worker-hours per acre	56	3
yield per acre	15	31
Cotton
worker-hours per acre	185	24
yield per acre	147	438

Occupational Distribution
	1820	1860
Agriculture	79 percent	53 percent
Mining	0.4 percent	1.6 percent
Construction	--	4.7 percent
Manufacturing	3 percent	14 percent
Trade	--	8 percent
Transport	1.6 percent	6.4 percent
Service	4.1 percent	6.4 percent

1. Why do you think the proportion of Americans working in agriculture declined?

2. What kinds of work might non-agricultural workers do for a living?

Growth of Western Cities

Growth of Western Cities
	1830	1840	1850	1860
Chicago	5,000	30,000	109,000
Cincinnati	25,000	46,000	115,000	161,000
Cleveland	1,000	6,000	17,000	43,000
Detroit	2,000	9,000	21,000	46,000
Milwaukee	2,000	20,000	45,000
St. Louis	6,000	14,000	78,000	161,000

1. Why do you think western cities grew so rapidly?

2. What functions did western cities serve?

Growth of the Midwest: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin
Year	Percent of U.S. Population
1800	1.0 percent
1810	3.8 percent
1820	8.2 percent
1830	11.4 percent
1840	17.3 percent
1850	20.3 percent
1860	24.7 percent

1. What factors may have contributed to the rapid growth of the Midwest?

2. What political consequences might the growth of the Midwest have had?

Pre-Civil War Society

Immigration as a Source of Population Increase
Year	Percent of Total Population Increase
1820s	4 percent
1830s	13 percent
1840s	23 percent
1850s	34 percent
1860s	25 percent
1870s	27 percent
1880s	41 percent
1890s	28 percent

1. During which decades was immigration the greatest source of population increase?

2. Where did most pre-Civil War immigrants come from?

From Rags to Riches: The Distribution of Wealth and Income in Industrializing America

Economic Growth and Stratification of Wealth
Year	Population in millions	Nonfarm Labor Force	Per Capita Wealth	Wealth Owned By Top l0 Percent
1800	5.3	21.0	64.4	45 percent
1820	17.4	17.1	67.7	50 percent
1840	9.6	36.6	100.0	55 percent
1860	31.4	46.8	137.0	60 percent

Distribution of Wealth
City	Year	Proportion of wealth owned by:
		Richest 1 Percent	Richest 3 Percent
Boston	1848	42 percent	64 percent
Brooklyn	1841	37	--
New York	1845	40	66 percent

Per Capita Wealth: 1840 = 100.0

Concentration of Wealth in Farming Areas, 1860
Place	Proportion of Property Held by Richest 10 Percent of Farmowners
Southern black belt counties	64
Trempealeau County, Wisconsin	39
11 Vermont counties	38

Concentration of Wealth in a northeastern and a western town, 1860
Place	Proportion of adult males	Proportion of real property
Jacksonville, Illinois	69	80
Northampton, Massachusetts	68	72

With no real estate held by richest 10 percent

1. Did the distribution of income and wealth grow more or less equal during the decades before the Civil War?

2. A famous Frenchman named Alexis de Tocqueville said that the defining characteristic of pre-Civil War America was "equality of condition." Others have called this era the "age of the common man." Do statistics on the distribution of wealth support or contradict these views? In what sense, if any, might these observers have been correct?

Urban Growth 

Number of Towns and Cities
	1800	1860
Towns 2,500-5,000	30	357
Cities 25,000-250,000	3	32
Cities 250,000 or more	0	3

Proportion of Population in Urban Areas
	1800	1860
Northeast	9	36
West	0	14
South	2	7

Declining Birth Rate
Year	Birth Rate
1800	7.0
1810	6.9
1820	6.7
1830	6.6
1840	6.1
1850	5.4
1860	5.2

Number of children under 5 per 1,000 women aged 15-50
	1830	1860
Illinois	1,165	737
Indiana	1,112	733
Michigan	945	627
Ohio	933	644

This site was updated on 09-Feb-10.