Lecture 8- The American North
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This document summarizes key aspects of northern society in the 19th century, including: - The transition from an agricultural to industrial economy and the rise of wage labor. Strikes increased over working conditions. - Rapid urbanization and the growth of cities led to problems with infrastructure, poverty, and crime. Immigrants, especially Irish fleeing the potato famine, comprised a large part of the urban population. - Racial tensions increased as African Americans faced discrimination and job disadvantages. Nativist groups attacked immigrants and Catholics. - The Second Great Awakening saw a revival of evangelical Protestantism but divisions emerged along class lines in approaches to reform. - The Democratic and Whig parties emerged
Lecture 8- The American North
- 1. Lecture 8 – Northern Society in the Nineteenth Century
- 2. Part I – From Farm to Wage Labor, ~1790-1830s o Republican Ideology o Rural Society in the North o Towns and Commerce & wage laborers o The Industrial Revolution & Strikes o The Second Awakening
- 3. “Venerate the Plough” – Plowing his way to prosperity Republican Ideology- in order to preserve the republic, voters should be politically and economically “independent,” i.e. own property – North and South shared assumption
- 4. Idealized Representation of an Eighteenth-century Farm Edward Hicks, The Residence of David Twining, 1787. Thomas Jefferson - “Farmers” were “the chosen people of God” John Adams - “best men” Jefferson - “natural aristocracy”
- 5. Rural Society in the North Land Ownership – dream Small farms, family farms Economic independence Husbands & sons – worked the fields Women & girls • picking, spinning wool, • making chairs, braiding baskets, • milking cows • Raising children, • nursing the sick, caring for the elderly Farm families linked – kinship, religion, ethnicity
- 6. The United States at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century Towns and Commerce - Northern merchant elite – transatlantic commerce & importers of trade with China
- 7. Erie Canal (1817-1825) 364 mile Erie Canal links the Great Lakes & Ohio Valley to the Hudson River, NYC & transatlantic trade 3K laborers to build, 8K men employed in moving goods along the canal
- 8. The Mobility of Goods and People, 1800 1800 – NYC – Western NY – 1 week of travel
- 9. The Mobility of Goods and People, 1857 1850s – NYC – Chicago 1 day
- 10. Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad, 1855 10K miles of railroad tracks George Inness, The Lackawanna Valley (Western Railroad), 1855
- 11. Wage Labor force – U.S. 1800 – 12% 1860 – 40%, majority in the north U.S. President Jefferson - $25K Seamstress - $55
- 12. New Technological Inventions o Sewing machines o The telegraph o Railroads o The Clock: Eli Terry’s 1816 invention of a new box or shelf clock (only 20 inches tall) transformed the clock industry and the notion of a clock.
- 13. Urban Crafts under Siege – Tailor hierarchy
- 14. Hundreds of unions, hundreds of strikes… over wages, hours, rent, conditions… for mostly white men 1820s & 30s – Lake Erie Canal workers – nonpayment – federal troops suppress 1824 – Pawtucket weaver strike – piece rates & workday hours 1827 – workingmen’s parties movement spread from Philadelphia to other regions 1827 – Philadelphia Journeymen Carpenters struck – 12 – 10 hour work days 1831 – New York Tailoresses’ Society – 1600 women to fight a series of wage cuts 1833 – NY Journeymen carpenters strike for better wages – with 15 other unions joining in. 1834 – NY’s General Trades Union – wages & conditions among bakers, hatters, ropemakers, sailmakers, weavers, and leatherworkers… 1834 & 1836 – Lowell mill strike – women operative wages/rents 1834 – National Trades Union representing 25K workers started. Strikes and Protests
- 15. Lecture 8 – Part II Immigration, Urban Life, & Social Reform in the Free-Labor North 1840–1860 •Urban Cities •The Second Great Awakening •Immigrants
- 17. Sunshine and Shadow Matthew Hale Smith, Sunshine and Shadow in New York, 1868. Sunshine & Shadow
- 18. Urban Trash Sites - Dumping Ground at the Foot of Beach Street Harper’s Weekly, September 26, 1866
- 19. The Killers. A Narrative of Real Life in Philadelphia (1850) Urban gangs
- 20. Revivalist Meeting – Pennsylvania artist Jeremiah Paul. c. 1815
- 21. The Second Great Awakening Strong resurgence of evangelical Protestantism. Sources? • Democratic thought and economic development • Changes in family life Evangelicals wanted to bridge widening social divisions • Perfecting the individuals, rather than reforming society • Important to the antislavery movement • Class distinctions shaped evangelical activism • Employers pushed church attendance for worker discipline • Middle-class women should stay at home
- 22. Immigration to the United States, 1820–1860 1840-1860 1.7 million Irish 1.35 million Germans
- 23. Sources of Immigration, 1840–1860
- 24. The Irish Harvest 1845 potato fungus starts the Irish famine, 1 million Irish died & 1-2 million others emigrated to the U.S. or Canada “Evidence of prosperity”?
- 25. Bridget Murphy & Patrick Kennedy Poor Irish Immigrants arrive in Boston, 1849 Two generations later, produce President J.F. Kennedy & Presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy
- 26. “Let the Public Look at These Plague-Spots” New York Illustrated News, February 11, 1860
- 27. National Origins and American Jobs o Irish – unskilled and temporary – day laborers & domestic servants & textile factories (women) o Germans – skilled revolutionaries – farmers, shopkeepers, & skilled tradesmen (pianos, furniture, printing, cigars, baking, brewing beers & butchering). o Swedes, Norwegians – farmers o English, Scottish & Welsh - farmers & industrial workers – skilled, English language – integrate to American society o Small numbers of Chinese - railroad workers, gold rush seekers, laundry mat & restaurant owners
- 28. Steinway & Sons (Steinwig) – NYC – 1860s Donation to the White House under President Roosevelt
- 29. A German Beer Garden on Sunday Evening
- 30. Lecture 8 – Part III Racial Discord & Politics in the North •African Americans in the Free- Labor North •Class Conflicts – “high” and “low” cultures or Immigrant or Native American cultures •Racial Discord & Nativist Attacks •Politics
- 31. African Americans in the Free-Labor North • Immigration affected African Americans the most – job disadvantages & discriminations • Higher standards of residency & property qualifications • Segregated educational facilities, theaters, churches, housing • Trade unions excluded Blacks • Churches offered community & solace
- 32. Black Churches: African Methodist Episcopal o First independent denomination in the U.S. o Nurtured distinctive African American forms of worship o Provided education for black children o Burial sites for families excluded from white cemeteries 1794 – first Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Philadelphia
- 33. A Black Joke- 1854 racist cartoon from Yankee Notions
- 34. Frederick Douglass A skilled caulker, but struggled as a common laborer, a coachman, waiter, until 1847, when he became an abolitionist editor in Rochester, NY
- 35. Barnum on Broadway Shows all levels of society, a variety of characters
- 36. The Voting-Place, a Bar in Irish “Five Points” New York
- 37. Nativist Attacks on Immigrants, African Americans, and Workers • American Party – “Know-Nothings” – secret anti-immigrant & anti-Catholic party • Open challenges to Irish American citizenship papers and voting privileges • Burning of Ursuline Convent in Charlestown, MA – August 1834.
- 38. 1840s New York Herald ad “Wanted, a Cook, Washer and Ironer; who perfectly understands her business; any color or country except Irish.”
- 39. Chicago Advertisement: “Wages of whiteness…” Irish counterattack, against African Americans Roediger, David R. Working Toward Whiteness: How America's Immigrants Became White : the Strange Journey from Ellis Island to the Suburbs. New York: Basic Books, 2006.
- 40. St. Patrick’s Day – Irish Attacks Harper’s Weekly, April 1867
- 41. Communal Experiments & Cooperative Enterprises, Christian Utopians Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, pencil drawing, Nashoba, April 19, 1828. Started by Frances Wright, an interracial utopian community, near Memphis, Tennessee Most famous & controversial, Oneida, NY, John Humphrey Noyes, 1848 Shared labor, equal wages & sexual reform
- 42. Two political parties emerge? Jacksonian Democrats & Whigs
- 43. Two political parties? Whigs • Northern commercial farmers, financiers and industrial craftsmen and proprietors • Middle class ideal, rooted in urban and rural property holder interests • Expand the federal government, encourage industrial commercial development, promote temperance & education Democrats • Rural planters, proprietors in the South and Southwest, urban poor, and some Northern businessmen • attacked “privilege” and the threat of “aristocracy” • Appeal to wage earners and immigrants • Favored using state power to expand economic opportunities, but wanted westward expansion