AP U'S' HISTORY CHAPTER 12

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AP U.S. HISTORYCHAPTER 12

• WORKER WORLDS IN ANTEBELLUM AMERICA

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A Nation of Farmers

• U.S. primarily an agricultural nation.
• Jeffersons dream a nation of independent
  farmers
• Farm Life
• Responsibilities divided by gender, age
• Plows and Reapers
• From subsistence to commercial farming
• Cheap land and easy credit
• New markets thanks to canals and railroads
• New technology
• John Deeres steel plow
• Cyrus McCormicks mechanical reaper

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• The Processing of Food
• Relationship between farm and factory
• Farmers fed the workers in the cities, who in
  turn provided farm families with an array of
  mass-produced goods
• Rice and flour mills
• Pork packing in Cincinnati

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The Peculiar Institution

• South rural
• Cotton main crop, also tobacco, rice, and
  sugarcane
• Rapid expansion of slavery in Deep South
• Thanks to Eli Whitneys cotton gin (1793)
• From 1 million slaves in 1800 to nearly 4 million
  in 1860
• Three types of farms
• Small subsistence
• Middle-class
• Large plantations
• Masters and Slaves
• Wealth in south measured in terms of land and
  slaves
• Conditions varied from one plantation to the next
• Some humanely treated, others routinely beaten

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• Religion and Family Life of Slaves
• Some autonomy
• Families could be separated at any time by an
  owners decision
• Women vulnerable to sexual exploitation
• Strong sense of family and religious faith
• Slave Resistance
• Running away, Underground RR
• Work slowdowns, sabotage, faking illness
• Turners Rebellion (VA)- 1831
• Fear of future uprisings
• Gave hope to enslaved African Americans
• Called attention to evils of slaverymade
  northerners aware

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Industrial Labor and the Factory System

• Mills located in countryside (closely tied to
  agriculture, reliance on waterpower)
• Development of villages and larger communities
• A mill was a communitys largest employer
• Mill owners factory masters exclusively male
• One exception Rebecca Lukens, Brandywine Iron
  Works

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• Profits and Paternalism
• Successful work environment organization and
  control of labor
• Managers resorted to paternalistic practices
  (worker deference, compliance with employer
  commands)
• Brandywine Iron Works
• Demanded loyalty respect, kindness with
  firmness
• Mostly male workers
• Lived in company-owned housing
• Lowell Mills
• Formal rules
• Single women workers, housed in company
  dormitories
• Social and moral experiment
• Employee strikes b/c of wage cuts fee increases
  for room board
• Lowell Female Labor Reform Association

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• Beyond the Factory Gate
• Alternative community culture
• Churches, general stores, taverns focal points
• Extended kinship and friendship networks
• Helped each other attain jobs
• Womens roles
• Most stayed home to raise families, take in
  boarders, etc.
• Maintained a sense of social life
• Thousands found work in factories
• Illness and Injuries
• Workplace accidents, no health insurance
• Steamboat explosions lead to inspection laws

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Clock Time

• Availability of timepieces
• Eli Terry affordable clocks
• Railroads make people conscious of time
• delivered mail
• need for precise scheduling (to avoid accidents)
• Changes world of work
• factories run by the clock

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AP Lesson 16

• THE END OF HOMESPUN- THE EARLY INDUSTRAIL
  REVOLUTION

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Factors making the Early Industrial Revolution
Possible

• Govt protection of rights to inventions
• Govt support for developments in transportation
• Tariffs
• Development of corporations with limited
  liabiltity
• Improved educational system
• Improved markets cheap labor with the move from
  farm to city
• The Embargo and War of 1812 stimulated need for
  domestic manufacturing

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• Eli Whitney- Interchangeable Parts
• Samuel Slaters mill
• Evans steam engine
• Increased immigration to provide markets and
  cheap labor
• Govt control of interstate commerce govt
  protection of contracts
• New sources of investment capital during the War
  of 1812
• Stable currency over the second BUS

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AP Lesson 17

• THE EARLY INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION- MAINTAINING A
  SENSE OF COMMUNITY

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• Objective understand how early factories in
  America avoided the ugliness associated with
  those in England.

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• In Notes on Virginia, Thomas Jefferson explained
  his opposition to industrialization
• Industrialization created dependency and
  subservience, led to corrupt morals, and
  threatened republican govt
• European cities physically ugly
• Workers exploited

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• Mill towns sooty, crowded, ugly
• Whole families lived in single rooms
• family life deteriorated
• Children ran around the streets like animals
• Factory hours long and tedious
• Employment erratic
• Wages set on an individual basis

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• Early manufacturing done by artisans and their
  apprentices and by journeymen
• Troublemakers expelled from the town
• The artisan had control over his workers
  responsibility for their behavior
• In many instances, workers lived with their
  employer, drank with him, attended church with
  him
• Same ethnic background

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• Used schools, churches, workers in residence, and
  control of local govt to maintain social control
  in their communities.

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• Discontented workers were offered a measure of
  escape by moving west.
• Loss of workers created a labor shortage,
  necessitated wage increases, and improved working
  conditions to attract and retain workers.

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• Earlier restraints early family environment
  changed
• As factories became larger and more impersonal,
  they attracted a migratory and often foreign
  workforce and employers became more intent on
  increasing profits

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• Jefferson feared the effects of bringing together
  large numbers of workers in cities and making
  workers dependent on owners for their survival
• Saw many opportunities for exploitation of
  workers, too much focus on profits by owners, and
  danger to democratic principles