Industry and The North 1790-1840
Rural Life & the Family Labor System
The Springer Family
Yeomen existence Sold dairy products, wool,
livestock Raised crops for family use and
commercial sale Local bartering network and
mutual obligation – little to no cash
Entire family worked together Some in New England did another
skill like shoemaking
Urban Artisans and Workers
Pre-Industrial Society
Learned trade through apprentice system
Worked up to journeyman and then master craftsman
Worked as a family with father as boss and owner
Women had responsibility for management of the household and as informal assistants
The Social Order
Everyone had their place and most did not challenge that
Market Revolution is going to change the social order
Accumulation of Capital
Market Revolution
Rapid improvements in transportation, commercialization and industrialization
Merchants of Northern seaboard accumulated great wealth and invested in these new enterprises
Southern cotton produced by slaves bankrolled industrialization
The Putting-Out System
Shoemaking example but also occurred when making other goods.
Not uniform across the country – gradual change
Merchants “put out” raw goods to people’s homes
Journeyman cut leather and his wife & daughters sewed the uppers for shoes
Wages for piece-work replace bartering
Families bought more things instead of making them at home
British Technology & American Industry
What Jefferson wanted to avoid
British industry started with textile mills
Deplorable conditions for the workers
Slater’s Mill
British wanted to protect their technology and didn’t allow written plans so Slater had to memorize the entire factory works in his head while on a tour.
Brought plans for a cotton-spinning factory to America
Followed British custom of hiring women and children
The Lowell Mills
Francis Cabot Lowell
Mill provide foundation for school schedule we still use today.
Girls ages 15 – 21 sent money home to farm family
Helped invent power loom Built first integrated cotton mill
near Boston in 1814 Drove out smaller competition
and an entire town grew around his enterprise
Strict schedules run by bells Farm girls lived in dorms and
worked 6 days and attended church most of the day on Sunday
Family Mills
Influx of immigrants will cause friction between early mill workers and the immigrants
Nativism
Entire families worked in them and pooled their income
More common than mills like Lowell’s
Shift to a precise schedule a switch from farming
Shift from father being the boss to someone one else making decisions for them
American System of Manufactures
Eli Whitney and others developed this
Interchangeable parts – started with rifles
Standardization spreads to other things like sewing machines
Mass production Wide-spread availability of goods
changes American thinking about democracy and equality
Personal Relationships
Could break task into smaller parts and have unskilled women and children do the work formerly done by artisans
Putting-out system destroys apprenticeship and artisan production
Personal relationships between master worker and workers was replaced by impersonal wage system
Mechanization & Women’s Work
Had to work to pace of the machine
Not always safe
More women found work in mills or worked at paid tasks at home
Garment industry – women could sew ready-made clothing for piece rates
Women might work 15-18 hours a day because the pay was so low
Time, Work, and Leisure
Workers felt their interests were different from those of their employers and moved to new jobs
Used to long hours but not such a strict regimen
Absenteeism was common Separate work and leisure – not
all at home More taverns and spectator
sports develop Only contact with owner was
when paid – little loyalty
The Cash Economy
Women played a role in early labor protests since they were often working in the textile mills.
Decline of the barter system Severed ties between families
who had seen each other often and helped each other out
Impersonal relationships with factory owners led to strikes although most were unsuccessful
Wealth and Class
Needed managers and clerks in factories
New jobs for those looking to advance in life
Upper class stayed about the same
Others could rise up the ladder “Middling sorts” grew rapidly Changed attitudes and
emphasized sobriety, steadiness and separated from the working class
Religion also played a role
Religion and Personal Life
Evangelism became the religion of the new middle class
Second Great Awakening moved from frontier to market towns
Stressed salvation through personal faith
Charles G. Finney urged acceptance of self-discipline and individualism that religion brought
The New Middle-Class Family
Men were seen as steady, industrious, responsible
Women were seen as nurturing, gentle, and moral
Wife concentrated on domestic tasks
Attitudes about male & female roles and qualities hardened
Popularity of housekeeping Catherine Beecher – the Martha
Stewart of her time
Family Limitation
Birth control, abstinence, abortion
Physicians urged that sexual impulses be controlled
Since women possessed superior morality it fell to them to be strong
Children who did not work in middle class families were an economic liability
Needed to limit family size
Middle-Class Children
Family all contributed to the success of the husband
Children prolonged their education and professional training
Mothers were responsible for teaching children self-discipline
Networked and read advice books and magazines
Sentimentalism
Good Old Days!!
Backlash against competitive nature that was developing
Yearning for a simpler time Many novels written by women Became more concerned with
maintaining social codes
Transcendentalism & Self-Reliance
Walden Pond – so visited by Thoreau fans that at one point it had the highest urine content of any body of water in the U.S.
Ralph Waldo Emerson Henry David Thoreau
Of course he could live simply because once a week he went home to mom for food and laundry
Emphasized individualism and communion with nature
Live simply, be self-sufficient