The Rise In Manufacturing

I. Industrialization came to the US after 1790 as American merchants increased productivity by reorganizing work and building
factories. These innovations in manufacturing boosted output and living standards to an unprecedented extent. Goods that had
once been luxury items were now part of everyday life.
Division of Labor and The Factory
I. The impressive gain in output stemmed primarily from the way in workers made goods.
A. Since the 1790s American merchants had broadened the scope of the outwork system, which made domestic manufacturing
more efficient than before—even w/o technological improvements.
B. Some of these improvements made the master employer and eroded workers’ control over the pace and conditions of labor.
However, they also dramatically increased output while cutting the price of goods.
II. For tasks that were not suited for the outwork system, entrepreneurs created an even more important organization, the modern
factory, which used power-driven machines and assembly-line techniques to turn out large quantities of well-made goods.
A. Manufacturers made use of newly improved stationary steam engines to power their mills. This new technology enabled
them to build factories in large cities, taking advantage of urban concentrations of cheap labor, good transportations
networks, and customers.
B. Manufacturers concentrated as many of the elements of production as possible under one roof and divided the work into
specialized tasks.
III. Eventually factory owners extended the use of power-driven machines and assembly lines from the processing of agricultural
goods to the manufacturing of other machines made of metal.
The Textile Industry and British Competition
I. The most dramatic gains in productivity occurred in the textile industry, where manufacturers combined the new technology w/the
new organization of labor.
A. It was difficult for Americans to take production ideas from England b/c British law prohibited the export of textile
machinery and the emigration of mechanics who knew how to build it. However, thousands of British mechanics snuck into
America.
B. The most famous was Samuel Slater, who brought Arkwright’s spinning technology to America. The opening of Slater’s Mill
in 1790 marks the advent of the American Industrial Revolution.
American and British Advantages
I. In competing w/British mills, American manufacturers had one clear advantage: an abundance of mineral resources.
A. Southern plantations produced a wealth of cotton, northern farmers developed a wool industry, and rivers from Maine to
Delaware provided a cheap source of energy.
B. All along these waterways, industrial villages and towns sprang up—especially in New England, where the relative lack of
good farmland promoted the growth of manufacturing.
II. However, the British producers easily undersold their American competitors. Thanks to cheap shipping and low interest rates in
Britain, it was profitable to import raw cotton from the US, manufacture it into cloth, and then ship the textiles back.
A. B/c British companies were better established, they could engage in ruthless competition, cutting prices briefly but sharply to
drive the American firms out of business.
B. The most important British advantage was low-cost labor. Since unskilled American workers could obtain good pay for farm
or construction work, American manufacturers had to pay higher wages.
III. To offset these British advantages, American entrepreneurs sought assistance from the federal government.
A. In 1816 Congress imposed a small tax on imported cloth, giving American manufacturers of cotton and wool modest
protection.
B. More stringent protective legislation in 1824 levied a tariff of 35% on imported iron products, woolen and cotton textiles, and
various agricultural products, and the rate rose to 50% in 1828.
 C. In 1833, under pressure from southern planters, western farmers, and urban consumers—all of whom wanted to keep down
the price of manufactured goods—Congress began to reduce tariffs.
D. W/o governmental assistance many American textile manufacturers failed, unable to compete w/the British producers.
Improved Technology and Cheap Labor
I. American producers adopted 2 strategies to challenge their British rivals. First, they improved on British technology. The 2nd was
to lower the cost of labor.
A. The Boston Manufacturing Company took the lead in both these regards, pioneering a manufacturing system that became
known as the Waltham Plan.
B. The company recruited thousands of girls and women as textile operatives. Although the wages were low, they were higher
than those paid to maids, cooks, or outwork laborers.
C. To attract female workers to the new mills, the owners provided boardinghouses and cultural activities. They also enforced
strict curfews, forbid alcohol, and required church attendance.
D. Many operatives sent their savings home to help their fathers pay off farm mortgages, defray the cost of schooling for their
brothers, or accumulate a dowry for themselves.
E. Although women often found mill work oppressive, many gained a new sense of freedom and autonomy.
II. By using improved technology and cheap female labor, the Boston Manufacturing Company finally achieved competitive
superiority over their British rivals in American markets. They also had an advantage over textile manufacturers in NY and PA,
where agricultural workers were better paid than in NE and textile workers earned better wages.
A. Producers in those states used a different strategy, modifying traditional technology to produce better quality cloth.
American Mechanics and Technological Innovation
I. By the 1820s American-born craftsmen had replaced British immigrants at the cutting edge of technological innovation. Although
few of these men had formal education, they now claimed respect.
A. The manufacturing Sellars family formed the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. It published a journal; provided high-school
level instruction in mechanics, chemistry, mathematics, and mechanical drawing; and organized annual fairs to exhibit the
most advanced products. As an institution, it fostered a sense of personal identity.
B. Craftsmen in other states soon established their own mechanics institutes, which played a crucial role in spreading technical
knowledge and encouraging innovation.
II. During these years American mechanics pioneered the development of machine tools—machines for making other machines. This
technical advance was crucial b/c it facilitated the rapid spread of the Industrial Revolution.
III. Technological innovation swept through the rest of American manufacturing.
A. The most important advances in machine building came in the firearms industry. To fill large-scale contracts from the federal
government, Eli Whitney developed machine tools that produced parts that were not only interchangeable but also precision-
crafted. Thereafter, manufacturers could use those machine tools to produce complicated machinery w/great speed, and at
low cost, and in large quantities.
IV. Through this expansion in the availability of machines, the Industrial Revolution in the US came of age. American manufacturers
now produced goods that were comparable in quality and in price w/British imports, enabling to compete in the rapidly expanding
domestic market.
V. Northern manufacturers easily met the growing demand for goods. They not only expanded production in the fall-line towns but
also used the coal-powered stationary steam engine to set up factories in older seaports and the new cities of the interior—Buffalo,
Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis.
A. The sheer volume of output caused some products—Remington rifles, Singer sewing machines, Waltham watches, as Yale
locks, Colt handguns, and McCormick reapers—to become household words.
Wage Workers and the Labor Movement
I. As the Industrial Revolution gathered momentum, it changed the character of the American social order. Each decade, more and
more white Americans gave up their economic independence and took work as wage-earning employees, hired for a specific job
or for a specific time. Seeking security of employment and a good measure of control over their working conditions, they banded
together to form labor unions.
II. Some wage workers labored in traditional crafts and found it relatively easy to form unions and bargain w/the master artisans who
employed them.
A. Stonecutters, masons, and cabinetmakers had specialized skills that were much in demand, and other wage-earning
journeymen—carpenters, housepainters, roofers—often followed the same occupations as their fathers and had a strong sense
of craft identity.
B. A main concern of their labor unions was the increasing length of the workday, which deprived workers of time to spend
w/their families and improve their education.
C. Rapid urbanization during the 1820s and the building of homes, stores, and factories had triggered strong demand for
construction, leading many bosses to demand more work and longer hours. Despite this increase in the length of their
workday, employers paid journeymen the old daily rate.
D. In response, building-trade workers formed unions and went on strike. In Philadelphia, striking workers formed the
Mechanics’ Union of Trade Associations.
E. In 1828 the Philadelphia artisans founded the Working Men’s Party, which campaigned for the abolition of banks, equal
taxation, and universal education. For many workers, the advancement of public education was the most important goal.
They wanted publicly founded schools and would provide their children w/the skills needed to move quickly into the ranks of
the propertied classes.
F. The Working Men’s Party won the expansion of public schooling in Philadelphia and, in 1834, persuaded the PA legislature
to authorize a system of universal, tuition-free, tax-supported schools.
III. By the mid-1830s, skilled building-trade workers in many cities had forced employers to accept 10 hours as the standard workday.
This victory was significant, giving skilled American workers the same hours that British building-trade workers had enjoyed
since the 1750s and enabling many artisan families to live comfortably.
IV. Artisans whose occupations were threatened by industrialization were less prosperous. As machines and factory discipline
changed the nature of their work, many faced declining incomes, unemployment, and loss of status.
A. To avoid the regimentation of factory work, some artisans moved to small towns or opened specialized shops that catered to a
limited market.
B. The coming of the new industrial system had divided the traditional artisan class into 2 groups: self-employed craftsmen and
wage-earning workers.
C. In many industries these wage-earning workers banded together to form craft unions. To prevent wage cuts, they went on
strike repeatedly until 1806, when their leaders were convicted in criminal conspiracy in the case of Commonwealth v. Pullis.
D. Despite such legal setbacks, unions sprang up whenever wages fell and working conditions became intolerable. Because of
their appeal to workers, these societies spread quickly among cities and other craft unions and labor federations. Many
combined their resources into National Trades’ Union, the 1st regional union of different trades.
E. 2 years later, 37 unions in various northern cities demonstrated the potential of labor solidarity, providing financial support
that enabled striking journeymen to hold out while on strike.
F. Leaders in the new union movement mounted a critique of the industrial order. They condemned the new organization of
production. To restore a just society, they advocated a labor theory of value, arguing that the price of a product should reflect
the labor required to make it and should be paid primarily to the producer. Appealing to the spirit of the American
Revolution, they called for a new revolt to destroy the aristocracy of capital.
V. This agitation for workers’ rights drew support from women operatives in cotton and woolen textile mills.
 A. As competition among cloth producers cut profit margins and threatened bankruptcy, employers reduced the pay of their
workers and imposed increasingly stringent work rules.
B. Most strikes by factory operatives failed. Employers often fired the leaders, and the rest of the workers either returned to
work or went to other factories.
C. Even the more successful strikes by building-trade workers and shoemakers did not alter the inferior position of wage
laborers in the new industrial order. They lacked access to financial capital, business know-how, and a broad education.
VI. Exploiting their advantage over workers, manufacturers continued to upgrade their factories to increase productivity and output.
To pay for machinery, they cut wages; and to use the equipment most efficiently, they increased the pace of work, which
employees resisted.
VII. By the 1850s, workers faced yet another threat to their jobs. As mechanization caused the output of manufacturers to increase, the
supply of goods often exceeded the demand, prompting the laying off or dismissal of workers.
A. One episode of overproduction preceded the Panic of 1857—a financial crisis sparked by excess railroad investments—and
resulted in a full-scale depression.
B. Unemployment remained at about 10% until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, reminding Americans of the social costs
of the new—and otherwise very successful—system of industrial production.
The Expansion of Markets
I. As American factories turned out more manufactures, merchants and legislators sought faster and cheaper ways to obtain raw
materials and get their finished products to consumers. As early as the 1820s, they promoted the construction of a massive system
of canals and roads to link eastern manufacturers and markets to the trans-Appalachian West, where hundreds of thousands of
farm families had settled.
A. By 1860 nearly 1/3 of the nation’s people lived in the Midwestern states, where they created a complex society and economy
that increasingly resembled that of the Northeast.
Migration to the West
I. In the generation after independence many men and women left the seaboard states, taking w/them their savings, personal
property, and skills. Abandoned farms and homes dotted the countryside.
A. Some families wanted to acquire enough land to settle their children on nearby farms, re-creating traditional rural
communities. Others were more entrepreneurial and hoped for greater profits from the fertile soil of the West.
II. These pioneers migrated in 3 great streams. In the south plantation owners moved their slaves into the, Old Southwest, where they
hoped to prosper by meeting the voracious demand of British and NE factories for raw cotton. They established Cotton Kingdom
in the new states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Missouri, and Arkansas.
A. Small-scale farmers from the Upper-South, especially Virginia and Kentucky, created a 2nd stream as they crossed over the
Appalachian Mountains and settled in the Ohio River Valley. Many of these migrants were seeking better lands, others were
simply fleeing the planter-dominated slave states.
B. The 3rd stream of migrants came from the over-crowded farms of NE. They wanted to maintain their traditional life as
yeomen farmers and keep their children on the land, sparing them from industrial work. These settlers established wheat
farms and small towns throughout the Great Lakes Basin.
III. To meet the demand for cheap land, in 1820 Congress reduced the price of federal land from $2/acre to $1.25—just enough to
cover the cost of surveying and sale through government land offices.
A. W/huge quantities of public land available at this price, the market price of all undeveloped land remained low. Many
American families saved enough in a few years to make the minimum purchase and used money from the sale of their old
farm to finance the move.
B. After 1830 wealthy southerners quickly snapped up low-priced federal land, carrying their slaves and the Cotton Kingdom
across the Mississippi.
C. Taken together, these migrations of farmers, planters, and enslaved African Americans brought a dramatic westward shift in
 the population center of the US.
The Transportation Revolution
I. Extending the market economy into the interior required a revolution in transportation. Previously most overland trade routes had
been local, consisting of an exchange of goods b/w towns and nearby rural areas. More distant trade was virtually impossible b/c
there was no system of well-maintained roads.
II. To enhance the “Common-wealth” of its citizens, the federal and state governments tried to create a larger market.
A. Beginning in the 1790s, they chartered private companies to build turnpikes in well-populated areas and subsidized road
construction in the West.
B. The most significant feat was the National Road, which started in MY, and reached IL in 1850.
C. At first these interregional highways mostly carried migrants and their heavily loaded wagons to the West and herds of
livestock to the East, but gradually they became conduits for manufactured goods and farm products. Merchants in the
Northeast exchanged textiles, clothing, boots, and shoes, muskets, and farm equipment for wheat, corn whiskey, and hogs
from the Great Lakes Basin and the Ohio Valley.
III. By facilitating regional specialization, improved transportation greatly increased the overall productivity of the economy and
contributed to the rapid progress of the American Industrial Revolution.
Canals and Steamboats
I. To get bulky and heavy goods to market, Americans replaced slow and expensive trade w/a water-borne transportation system.
A. The 1st major American canal project was the building of the Erie Canal in 1817. This project had 3 things in its favor: the
vigorous support of NYC merchants, who wanted access to western markets; the backing of NY’s governor, who persuaded
the legislature to finance the waterway from tax revenues, tolls, and bond sales to foreign investors; and the relative
gentleness of the terrain b/w Albany and Buffalo.
B. The Erie Canal altered the ecology and economy of the entire region. Some areas were deprived of the water needed to
sustain wildlife and settlers. As towns sprang up along the waterway, millions of trees were cut down to provide wood for
building and land for farms.
C. It quickly generated enough revenue to pay for the cost. It accelerated the flow of goods and lowered transportation costs. It
brought prosperity to central and western NY, carrying wheat and meat from farming communities to eastern cities and
foreign markets.
II. The success of the Erie Canal sparked a national canal boom. Civic and business leaders in Philadelphia and Baltimore proposed
their own waterways to compete for trade with the West. They persuaded their state governments to allocate tax money to canal
projects, making it easier to raise the needed capital.
A. Some state governments invested directly in canal companies or forced state-charted banks to do so; other states guaranteed
repayment of the bonds issued by canal companies and thus encouraged British and Dutch banks and wealthy financiers to
provide ¾ of the $200 million invested in canals by 1840.
B. Canals soon became the most important part of the inland American transportation system.
III. The steamboat, another product of the industrial age, ensured the success of this vast water transportation system.
A. The 1st steamboats were too expensive to run b/c their engines consumed large amounts of coal or wood and they couldn’t
navigate shallow waters.
B. During the 1820s engineers broadened the hulls of these boats, which increased their cargo capacity, facilitated loading and
unloading, and gave them a shallower draft. The improved design cut the cost of upstream river transportation, dramatically
increasing the flow of goods into the interior—especially the south, where there were many navigable rivers.
C. Steam-powered shipping also sped the transit of people and news, both on inland waterways and along the coasts.
Railroads and Regional Ties
I. The rapid emergence of this national system of transportation was encouraged by the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John
Marshall. The supreme court decided in Gibbons v. Ogden that the federal government had paramount authority over interstate
 commerce.
A. This decision meant that no local or state monopolies—or tariffs—would impede the flow of goods and services across the
nation.
II. The free movement of goods over a growing transportation system created a national economy, linking the manufacturing
Northeast to the cotton producing South and the wheat-growing Midwest.
A. To cultivate their fields, many Midwestern farmers used the cast-iron plow invented in 1819 by Jethro Wood, which cut
cultivating time in half, allowing farmers to till larger fields.
B. The production of farm implements consumed ½ of the nation’s output of iron.
III. Soon Midwestern inventors and entrepreneurs copied the technology and mass-production techniques of northeastern
manufacturers and began to produce farm machinery.
A. B/c their farms were large and laborers were in short supply, Midwesterners led the way in using modern agricultural
technology, increasing their productivity by 20% in the 1850s.
IV. Another product of industrial technology-the railroad—cemented the union b/w northeast and Midwest.
A. Railroads became the main carriers of freight by 1859. They hastened the settlement of areas that canal and river transport
could not serve and made western farming more profitable by lowering the cost of transporting farm goods to market.
B. This national market in wheat forced some eastern farmers out of business and prompted others to turn to market gardening.
C. Railroad construction facilitated the modernization of the iron industry, a critical component in northeastern manufacturing.
V. Although separated by geography, the Midwest and the northeast increasingly resembled each other in ethnic composition,
cultural values, and technical skills.
A. However, the commercial links bw the northeast and the south did not produce similar types of economies. Southern
investors concentrated their resources in cotton and slaves, so that the percentage of southerners who lived in towns and
worked in manufacturing remained small.
B. Moreover, the south didn’t develop a well-educated work force. Wealthy planters wanted compliant workers who would be
content with agricultural work, so they trained most of their slaves as field hands. They made few efforts to provide blacks, or
ordinary whites, w/elementary schooling.
C. Lacking cities, factories, and educated workers, the south could not provide a majority of its people w/a rising standard of
living. Prosperity was limited to those families who owned plantations and slaves.
The Growth of Cities and Towns
I. Industrialization and the expansion of interregional trade caused a dramatic increase in the urban population in the US.
A. The most rapid growth occurred in the new industrial towns that sprang up along the fall line.
B. W/I a few decades western commercial hubs became manufacturing centers as well. As key junctions for railroad lines and
steamboats, these cities’ manufacturers and entrepreneurs established flour mills, packing plants, and docks, and provided
work for hundreds of artisans and laborers.
II. In 1817 NY merchants founded the New York Stock Exchange, which soon became the nation’s chief market for securities. NY
became the center of the ready-made clothing industry.
A. NY’s growth stemmed primarily from its control of foreign trade and immigration. NY merchants gained an unassailable lead
in commerce w/the newly independent Latin American regions of Brazil, Peru, and Venezuela.
B. NY agents offered finance, insurance, and shipping to cotton exporters and won for NY a dominant share of the cotton that
passed through northern harbors.
Changes in the Social Structure
I. The industrial and market revolutions transformed the material lives of many Americans, allowing them to live in larger houses,
cook more easily, and wear better clothes. But the new economic order also widened social distinctions among a wealthy
industrial and commercial elite, a substantial urban middle class, and a mass propertyless class of wage earners who included
immigrant laborers.
The Business Elite
I. Bf industrialization, white Americans had been divided into various ranks, w/a group of notables at the top ruling over the lower
orders. But in rural areas the different ranks shared a common culture. In the south needy tenants and aristocratic slaveholders
shared common amusements. In northern towns rich and poor attended the same churches.
A. The Industrial Revolution shattered the traditional order and created a society of classes, each w/its own culture.
B. The new economic system pulled many farm youth into small towns and large cities and made some merchants,
manufacturers, bankers, and landlords very rich.
C. Inequality was greatest in the cities, where the richest 1% of the population held more than 40% of all tangible property—
such as land and buildings—and an even higher share of intangible property—such as stocks and bonds.
II. Government policies encouraged the inequality of wealth by placing heavier taxes on the middling and lower classes than on the
rich.
A. The government raised most of its money through tariffs—hidden taxes that raised the cost of imported goods purchased
mostly by ordinary citizens.
B. The tax policies of state and local governments also favored the wealthier classes. They usually taxed real estate and tangible
property but almost never stocks and bonds owned by the rich or inheritances they passed on to their children.
III. The uncertainties of the new capitalist world doomed some wealthy men to financial disaster. Unprofitable investments, fraud, and
shifting markets took their toll even in times of prosperity, and increasingly frequent financial panics drove people into
bankruptcy.
IV. Over time families of wealth consciously set themselves apart from the rest of society. Such people dressed well, rode in carriages,
and lived in nice houses.
A. The women of the house no longer socialized w/those of lesser wealth, and the men no longer worked side by side w/their
journeymen but became managers and directors, issuing orders.
B. Merchants, manufacturers, and bankers chose to live in separate residential areas, turning away from traditional practices
such as boarding unmarried workers in their own homes.
C. By the 1830s most employers had moved their families to distinct upper-class enclaves, often at the edge of the city. The
desire for greater privacy by privileged families divided many American cities into class-segregated communities for the 1st
time.
The Middle Class
I. The economic revolution brought a dramatic increase in the size and prosperity of the middle class.
A. Thanks to expansion in industry, skilled mechanics easily found work; the growth of cities provided jobs and profits for
building contractors and shopkeepers. Commercial-minded farmers benefited from the rising demand for food and raw
materials, while lawyers and surveyors were swamped w/clients seeking assistance on legal matters.
B. Middle class business owners, employees, and professionals were most numerous in the Northeast, where they accounted for
30% of the population in 1840.
II. The size, wealth, and cultural influence of the middle class continued to grow, fueled by a dramatic increase in prosperity.
A. This surge in income, along w/the availability of inexpensive mass-produced goods, facilitated the creation of a distinct
middle-class culture, especially in the urban areas of the north.
The Character of Middle-Class Life
I. One of the defining features of the middle class was the character of family life. Unlike the situation in yeomen and artisan
households, where both husbands and wives worked, middle-class husbands had sufficient earnings to free their wives and
children from labor.
A. Middle class men saved about 15% of their income, putting it into banks and using it to buy nice homes.
B. W/ample free time, middle class wives were literate and accomplished.
C. Middle class parents had the means to provide their children with a high school education, thereby enhancing their chances
 for success in the new economic world.
II. Improvements in housing reflected this prosperity and gave middle-class life a distinctive character.
A. New building technology—the balloon frame—reduced the cost of housing.
B. The new house design helped change the character of family life. Larger houses allowed each member of the family to have
individual spaces.
C. Prosperous urban families not only lived in more space but in greater luxury. Most affluent urban house owners acquired
goods that eased the burden of domestic chores. They also bought packaged goods.
Middle-Class Culture and Values
I. The technology allowed the creation of a middle-class “book culture.” The middle class provided a virtually insatiable market for
new books.
A. Many novels and even more works of nonfiction engaged in moral instruction, placing particular importance on discipline,
hard work, and social mobility. Ambitious parents reinforced these values, for they wanted to pass their status on to their
children.
B. Puritans and American Protestants had long believed that work in an earthly calling was a duty people owed to God. In the
1820s and 1830s the business elite and the middle class gave this idea a secular twist: they celebrated work as the key to a
higher standard of living for the nation and social mobility for the individual.
II. Just as a rural-producer ethic had united the social ranks in pre-1800 America, the new goal of personal achievement and social
mobility tied together the upper and middle classes of the new industrialized society.
A. There might have been an enormous economic gulf b/w a wealthy factory owner and his middle-class clerks, but the 2 groups
increasingly shared the same values. Knowing that many affluent families had risen from modest beginnings, middle-class
men and women took them as models and shunned the rapidly increasing numbers of working families who owned nothing.
The New Urban Poor
I. In large cities and small towns there were more and more factory districts and working-class neighborhoods, where laborers lived
in cheap rooming houses.
A. In this new urban and industrial world, a yeoman-like society made up of independent families no longer seemed possible or
even desirable.
B. By 1840 as many as ½ the nation’s free workers were working for others rather than themselves.
C. The bottom 10% of the work force were casual workers—those hired on a short-term basis. They often owned little and
during business slumps they bore the brunt of employment, and even in the best of times their jobs were unpredictable,
seasonal, and dangerous.
II. Other laborers had greater security of employment, but few were prospering. After paying for rent for housing and for food they
were broke—unable to take advantage of rapidly falling prices of manufactured goods.
A. Only the most fortunate working families could afford to educate their children, pay the fees required for apprenticeship in a
trade, or accumulate small dowries so that their daughters could marry men w/better prospects.
B. Most had to send their children out to work to help support the family
III. By the 1830s most urban factory workers, journeymen, and unskilled casual laborers resided in well-defined neighborhoods.
Certain blocks were dominated by large boardinghouses where single men and women lived, often in unhealthy conditions.
A. Living in such distressing conditions, many wage earners turned to the dubious solace of alcohol. During the 1820s urban
wage earners led Americans to new heights of alcohol consumption.
B. Drinking patterns changed as well. While some workers swore of alcohol, others began to drink on the job. Saloons became
focal points for urban disorder and crime, which police were often unable to control.
The Benevolent Empire
I. The disorder among urban wage earners sparked concern among many well-to-do Americans. Inspired by the religious ideal of
benevolence, they created a number of reform organizations that were linked by overlapping membership and shared ideals.
II. During the 1820s Congregational and Presbyterian ministers united w/like-minded merchants and their wives to launch a program
 whose purpose was to restore the “moral government of God.” The reformers included new forms of moral discipline into their
lives and the lives of working people.
A. They would regulate behavior—by persuasion if possible, by law if necessary.
III. Although the Benevolent Empire targeted age-old evils, its methods were new. Instead of relying on church sermons and moral
persuasion by community leaders, the reformers set out to institutionalize charity and combat evil systematically.
A. They established large-scale organizations. Together these groups set out to improve society.
B. First, by campaigning for temperance in drinking habits and the end of female prostitution, they encouraged individuals to
lead well-disciplined and moral lives. As part of this effort, they persuaded local governments to ban drinking and dancing.
C. 2nd, they created new institutions for people who were considered to be threats to society or were unable to handle their own
affairs.
III. Women played an active role in the Benevolent Empire.
IV. Not everyone agreed with the program of the Benevolent Empire. Men who labored 12 hours/day for 6 days in a row refused to
spend one day of leisure in meditation and prayer.
A. Shipping company managers demanded that the Erie Canal provide lock keepers on Sundays and joined antitemperance
advocates in arguing that laws enforcing morality were contrary to individual liberty.
B. When the reform-minded evangelical Baptists in the South proposed to teach Christianity to slaves and extend church
membership to African Americans, many white planters were outraged.
C. Such indifference or resistance limited the success of the Benevolent Empire.
Revivalism and Reform
I. Beginning in cities along the Erie Canal, Finney conducted emotional revival meetings that ignored deep instruction in church
doctrine; what counted was the individual’s will to be saved.
A. Finney’s ministry drew upon—and greatly accelerated—the Second Great Awakening.
B. Finney’s message that God made each man a moral free agent appealed to propertied farmers and merchants of the middle
class who had already chosen to improve their material lives. But he became famous for converting those at the ends of the
social spectrum: the haughty rich, who had placed themselves about God; and the poor, who seemed lost in drink and
misbehavior.
C. His goal was to humble the pride of the rich and relieve the shame of the poor by celebrating their common fellowship.
D. Conversion changed not only people’s eternal fate but also their moral standing, identifying them spiritually w/pious middle-
class respectability.
II. The attempt to create a harmonious community of morally disciplined Christians in Rochester was somewhat effective. During the
1830s many workers, often led by their wives, followed their employers’ example and became converts and church members,
receiving raises and promotions.
A. Skilled workers who belong to strong craft organizations resisted the message arguing that workers needed higher wages and
schools more urgently than sermons and prayers.
B. Finney’s revival seldom moved poor people, especially the Irish Catholic immigrants who had recently begun arriving in
American cities and who thought of Protestants as their religious oppressors.
C. This resistance only heightened the converts’ zeal for rebuilding society into an evangelical Christian order. In farming towns
and villages younger ministers adopted Finney’s techniques and pushed the revival forward.
III. The temperance movement proved to be the most effective arena for evangelical reform on a national scale.
A. In 1832 evangelicals gained control of the American Temperance Society, which grew quickly. The society adapted the
methods that had worked so well in the revivals—group confession and prayer, a focus on the family and the spiritual role of
women, and sudden emotional conversion.
B. Evangelical reformers reinforced the traditional foundations of the American work ethic. According to their philosophy, even
the poorest family could look forward to a prosperous new life.
 C. Through such means, evangelical Protestantism reinforced the sense of common identity between the business elite and the
middle class and spread the values of individual enterprise and moral discipline among wage earners.
Immigration and Cultural Conflict
I. During the 1840s and 1850s the influx of hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Ireland, the German states, and GB created
new strains in the American social order. There was no federal legislation regulating immigration and state laws were generally
ineffective.
A. There were no legal barriers to immigrants fleeing poverty and famine or seeking a better life.
B. Most immigrants avoided the south because they disliked slavery, shunned blacks, or feared competition from enslaved
workers.
Irish Poverty
I. The economic situation of immigrants varied greatly. The wealthiest were British, many of whom were professionals, landowning
farmers, and skilled workers. The majority of German immigrants came from farming families and could afford to buy land in
America. The poorest immigrants were peasants and laborers from Ireland, who were fleeing from famine.
A. The Irish found new homes in the cities of NE and NY, where they took low-skilled jobs in factories, construction projects,
docks, warehouses, and homes. B/c they were willing to work long hours for low wages, Irish workers gave a competitive
edge to industrialists in NY and Boston.
II. Many Irish immigrants lived in poverty. Crowded living conditions threatened their health.
Catholicism and Nativism
I. Many Germans and virtually all Irish were Catholics, and they fueled the growth of the Catholic Church. The Irish built a network
of institutions: charitable societies, orphanages, militia companies, parochial schools, newspapers, social clubs, and political
organizations.
A. These community organizations had few equivalents in Ireland, for they had sprung up in America to help immigrants.
B. Through these institutions, the Irish and Germans would maintain their cultural identity and attain political power.
II. When the first Irish immigrants arrived in America in the 1830s, they were greeted by a rash of anti-Catholic publications. Many
believed that Catholic immigration would threaten their liberal political reforms, which were disapproved of by the pope.
A. To resist the perceived threat, Morse advocated the formation of an “Anti-Popery Union.” Republican-minded Protestants of
many denominations shared Morse’s fears.
III. The social tensions stemming from industrialization intensified anti-Catholic sentiment. Unemployed Protestant mechanics and
poorly paid factory workers joined mobs that attacked Catholics, blaming immigrant labor for their economic woes.
A. They organized Native American clubs, which called for increasing the waiting period for citizenship, restricting public
office to native-born Americans, and using only the Protestant version of the Bible in public schools.
B. Other native-born citizens supported the anti-Catholic movement for reasons of public policy. They wanted a strong system
of public schools and therefore opposed proposals from Catholic clergymen and Democratic legislators in many northeastern
states that the local taxes paid by Catholics be reserved for religious schools.
C. Evangelical ministers and temperance advocates were alarmed by the abuse of alcohol on the part of some Irish men and
called for an end to immigration.
IV. In almost every city w/a large immigrant population, religious and cultural conflicts resulted in violence.
A. Rioting escalated in the 1840s as the Irish began to acquire political influence in northeastern cities.