Chapter 8 Perusall

Industrial Revolution

The shift of American economy from an old subsistence world to a new more-commercial nation.

Market Revolution

Americans integrated the technologies of the Industrial Revolution, such as steam power, which fueled the rise of American industry by powering mills and sparking new national transportation networks.

middle class

ballooned during the Market Revolution in which men and women worked in the cash economy and were freed from the bound dependence of servitude

panics

economic crisis or depressions caused by financial disturbances

Transportation Revolution

began with improved road networks and soon incorporated even greater improvements in the ways people and good moved across the landscape; opened the vast lands west of the Appalachian Mountains

Erie Canal

completed in 1825; 350-mile-long human-made waterway which linked the Great Lakes with the Hudson River and the Atlantic Ocean; launched a canal-building boom

steamboat

Robert Fulton established the first commercial _________ service up and down the Hudson River in New York in 1807; turned St. Louis and Cincinati into centers of trade

railroads

became the most visible embodiment of corporate capitalism; by 1860 Americans had laid more than thirty thousand miles of _________ and few cotton planters struggle to transport their products to textile mills in the Northeast and in England

telegraphs

In 1843 Samuel Morse persuaded Congress to fund a forty-mile ______________; carried news of battlefield events to eastern newspapers within days; redefined the limits of human communication

incorporation

protected the fortunes and liabilities pf entrepreneurs who invested in early industrial endeavors; been designed to confer privileges to organizations embarking on expensive projects explicitly for the public good

gradual abolition

brought emancipation while also defending the interests of northern masters and controlling still another generation of black Americans

manumission

the release from slavery

cotton gin

a simple hand-cranked device designed to mechanically remove sticky green seeds from short staple cotton; allowed southern planters to dramatically expand cotton production for the national and international markets

putting-out system

merchants or investors sent materials to individuals and families to complete at home; these independent laborers then turn over the partially finished goods to the owner to be given to another laborer to finish

Waltham-Lowell System

created the textile mill that defined antebellum New England and American industrialism before the Civil War; centralized the process of textile manufacturing under one roof.

separate spheres

set the public realm and displayed a distinct class bias; the husband alone was responsible for creating wealth and engaging in the commerce of politics (public), while the wife was responsible for keeping a good home, being careful with the household expenses, and raising children

companionate marriage

under the influence of Enlightenment thought, young people began to privilege character and compatibility in their potential partners

Irish immigration

In England, Parliament began revoking common land rights for these farmers: these policies targeted Catholics in the southern counties of Ireland and motivated many to seek greater opportunity elsewhere; the booming American economy pulled these immigrants toward ports along the eastern US

German Triangle

immigrants that migrated to the Old Northwest to farm in rural areas and practiced trades in growing communities such as St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Milwaukee

nativism

the sudden influx of immigration triggered backlash among many native-born Anglo-Protestant Americans who feared the growing Catholic presence; this movement sought to limit European immigration and prevent Catholics from establishing churches and other institutions

Know-Nothing Party

also known as the American Party; spawned from nativism; found success in local and state elections throughout the North; reflected widespread anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant sentiment, which slowed European immigration

antebellum unions

organized to assert themselves and win both the respect and the resources due to a breadwinner and a citizen; enflamed a dangerous antagonism between employers and employees; worked to protect economic power of their members by creating closed shops and striking to improve working conditions