EARLY NATIONAL PERIODWHAT UNIFIED AMERICANS (1800-1830)?

US History & Government

CHANGES IN TRANSPORTATION

• 1807 – Steamships (Robert Fulton)– Helps farmers ship goods

• 1820’s & 30’s – Roads developed– Helps settlers move west

• 1825 – Erie Canal– Connects New York City with Lake Erie

• 1828 – B&O Railroad

World’s Largest Steam Boat, the American Queen, 1995

New Orleans to Louisville – One week (previously three months)1000 accidents 1811-1850 (30% of total number of boats

57% snags; 21% explosion; 17% fire…

Old Road

Erie Canal – 363 Miles long; 4 feet deepBuffalo to New York – 10 Days

"Gen. J. C. Robinson" classic 4-4-0 American-type locomotive of the U.S. Military

HENRY CLAY’S “AMERICAN SYSTEM”

• Senator Clay promotes this system to unite the nation:– Establish better transportation– Establish a protective tariff– Re-create the Bank of the United States

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NORTH

(1800-1860)

EARLY INDUSTRIALIZATION (1800-1860)

• 1800’s – New European technologies for manufacturing come to America

• Transportation revolution helps industrialization

• Factories begin to open in the North– Famous example: Lowell, MA – Use of female labor

• Northern states move from “household economies” to “market economies”

EARLY URBANIZATION

• 1860 – Largest US cities are in the North

• Distinction between rich and poor grows

• Cities were unsafe & dirty– beginning of police forces

NORTHERN SOCIETY

• Poor– Most women leave the home to work– Children often had to work too

• Middle Class– Women expected to stay home– Women had few career option (teaching)– Middle class supported public school movement

• African-Americans– Faced racism & segregation in the North

New York City 1860

THE FIVE POINTS, NEW YORK CITY

"This is the place: these narrow ways diverging to the right and left, and reeking every where with dirt and filth….. Debauchery has made the very houses prematurely old. See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes that have been hurt in drunken frays. Many of these pigs live here. Do they ever wonder why their masters walk upright in lieu of going on all-fours? and why they talk instead of grunting?" - Charles Dickens

“[The population of the Five Points are]...not paupers and criminals, but the Republic's most needed asset, the wealth of stout poor men [and we will add women] who will

work" - Walt Whitman

Five Points, New York City

Irish Tenement and Saloon

Yellow ware spittoon Stoneware beer bottles

clay pipes

Artifacts found at an archeological dig In the Five Points neighborhood

of New York City

EARLY IMMIGRATION (1800-1860)

• Source of immigration – Europe– Many came from Germany & Ireland

• Reasons for immigration:– Irish – Potato Famine– German – war in Europe– Others – financial opportunity

• Settlement:– Irish (big cities); Some others in the west

• Problems:– Discrimination – particularly Catholics & Jews– ‘Know Nothing Party’ – Nativism

• Contributions: – Cheap labor force for early industrialization– Brought new ideas & technologies

A starving Irish family from Carraroe, County Galway

Cartoon depiction of an Irish immigrant

Cartoon depiction of a German immigrant