AI Notes

I. Introduction: What Was the “Market Revolution”?

U.S. shifted from subsistence/barter to a commercial, cash economy in early 1800s.
Driven by steam power, factories, canals, railroads, and telegraph.
Created new wealth, urban growth, and a middle class, but also inequality, depressions, and harsh working conditions.
North and South became economically linked: free labor in factories depended on cotton from enslaved laborers.
Economy full of opportunity but also instability and exploitation.

U.S. exports rose rapidly during European wars (1790–1807), but internal transport costs were high.
After War of 1812, push for internal improvements: canals, roads, and later railroads. Madison and states promoted projects.
State-chartered banks expanded (1 in 1783 → 1,371 by 1860), and British investment supported U.S. growth.
Speculation and weak banking led to panics (1819, 1837, 1857).
Transportation Revolution: Erie Canal (1825), steamboats (1807+), railroads (B&O 1827 → 30,000 miles by 1860).
Telegraph (1843) sped communication, vital by Mexican-American War.
Agricultural innovation: McCormick reaper, John Deere plow boosted productivity.
Cities grew rapidly: NYC, Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis became key trade centers.
Corporations expanded with limited liability; Dartmouth v. Woodward (1819) upheld corporate protections.

Northern states gradually abolished slavery by early 1800s, but slowly—many enslaved people remained into the 1840s.
Free Black population grew, with some civil rights in New England.
Cotton gin (1793) transformed southern economy, making slavery central again.
Cotton exports exploded (150,000 bales in 1815 → 4.5 million in 1859).
Second Middle Passage forced ~1 million enslaved people southward (1790–1860).
Northern banks, insurers, and factories profited from slavery despite abolition in their own states.
Cotton and slavery deepened sectional divides.

Production shifted from putting-out system to mechanized factories.
Samuel Slater introduced British textile tech; Francis Cabot Lowell introduced power looms.
Waltham-Lowell System: centralized mills using young women as workers; strict, harsh conditions → strikes and petitions.
Crafts and apprenticeships gave way to wage labor; employers had fewer obligations, workers had less security.
Critics saw exploitation; elites defended system as rewarding hard work.

Separate spheres ideology: men in public/economic roles, women in private/domestic roles.
Coverture: married women legally dependent on husbands, with no independent property rights.
Domestic labor changed: women became consumers of manufactured goods; some earned wages in needle trades or boardinghouses.
Children in poor families worked early; middle-class children enjoyed education and “Romantic Childhood.”
Companionate marriage ideals (affection/compatibility) spread, but property and wealth still central.

Immigration surged: Irish (famine, unskilled urban labor) and Germans (skilled trades, farming in Midwest). Jewish immigrants established communities in commerce.
Nativism rose: anti-Catholic prejudice led to Know-Nothing Party in 1850s.
Early unions formed in trades; Commonwealth v. Hunt (1842) legalized peaceful unions.
Ten-Hour Movement: strikes and petitions for shorter workdays; partial success in some states and federal projects.
Women in Lowell mills led strikes and reform petitions; Sarah Bagley advocated for shorter hours.
Child labor reform laws passed in New England, limiting hours and mandating some schooling.
Free labor ideology stressed social mobility, but many remained trapped in low-wage cycles.

Market Revolution tied together northern industry and southern slavery, creating a truly national economy.
Transportation and communication breakthroughs integrated markets and accelerated westward expansion.
At the same time, inequality, labor unrest, child labor, and gender constraints left many questioning whether the Revolution’s ideals of liberty and equality were truly being realized.

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