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