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The Antebellum Era (1781-1860):

The Market Revolution

The Market Revolution

-The Market Revolution started when people began to rapidly buy and sell goods, rather than make them for themselves.

-Free Enterprise, the freedom of private businesses to operate for profit with minor forms government regulation (rules), played a major role in this movement.

-Entrepreneurs, people who invested their own money in the new industries, made great profits by selling various items made in factories.

Inventions Change America

-In 1837, Samuel Morse invented the telegraph and changed the world.

-It could send messages over great distances using Morse Code.

-Now, businesses, railroads, governments, and other entities could communicate virtually instantaneously within this USA.

A telegraph could send beeping signals over great

distances that could be interpreted through Morse

Code.

Transportation Advances-In 1807, Robert Fulton helped to bring in the epoch of the steamboat when he successfully used a steamboat to travel up the Hudson River from New York to Albany.

-Railroad companies started using the telegraph to make travel more coordinated and efficient.

-By the 1850s, the USA had over nine thousand miles of railroad tracks.

Steamboats radically changed transportation

with the ability to travel upstream.

The Market Revolution and Workers

-In Lowell, Massachusetts, and other places, entrepreneurs built many textile (clothes) factories.

-They hired women and children and paid them low wages and worked them for long hours. Workers fought for better working condition in various factories.

-In Commonwealth vs. Hunt, the Supreme Court ruled workers could go on strike to negotiate with their employers through organizing unions.

Women working in a

Textile Mill Factory

Immigration Surges-Immigration from Europe increased a great deal in the mid-1800s.

-About three million immigrants came to the USA in this era. Around one third were from Ireland and were fleeing a severe potato famine.

-Those who came from Ireland faced discrimination due to their religious affiliation with Catholicism. Likewise, many Irish worked for lower wages and this caused resentment and hostility with native workers.

THE

END

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