HISTORY 1DD3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 11: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Calvert Vaux, Sylvester Graham
22 Jun 2018
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Chp 11 Identifications
Wheat in the Mid-Northwest
● Background Info: Settlements edged westward after 1830 into parts of IN, MI, and
IL. These areas had flat grasslands (prairies) which alternated with with forests.
● The prairie’s matted soil was difficult to break for planting, but the invention of John
Deere’s steel-tipped plow in 1837 halved the labor required to clear land for
tilling.
● With this and timber readily available from nearby woods, settlements grew rapidly.
● Wheat became the cash crop of the Northwest, just like cotton in the South.
● Since the 18th century, Europe had experimented with horse-draw machines to
replace sickles. Cyrus McCormick improved previous designs from 1837, opened a
factory in Chicago in 1847, and began producing reapers which harvested grain 7x
more rapidly with half the labor force.
● Ironically, just as Eli Whitney, a Northerner, had stimulated the Southern economy,
McCormick, a proslavery Southerner, helped the North win the Civil War by providing
the North with reapers which required less labor force.
Agricultural Advancement in the East
● Although resourceful at inventing, many farmed wastefully and were more inclined to
search for new land than to improve used soil. In an effort to compete with the
western soil, easterners increasingly experimented with new agricultural techniques.
● Orange County, NY, fed their cows the best clover and bluegrass and emphasized
cleanliness. In return, they were able to sell butter at double price.
● Other eastern farmers resorted to fertilizers to try and close the gap created by the
superior western soil.
American System of Manufacturing
● Background Info: Early attempts at using interchangeable parts, such as by Eli
Whitney in the early 1800s, stalled because of the absence of machine tools which
were near strangers to Americans until the 1830s.
● By the 1840s precise machine tools were being applied to manufacture of firearms,
clocks, and sewing machines. By 1851, Europeans started referring to manufacture
by interchangeable parts as the American System.
● The American System allowed for replacement parts to be obtained and mass
production to be performed. After touring American factories in 1854, a British
engineer concluded Americans willingly resorted to machines as a substitute for
labor.
Samuel F. B. Morse and the telegraph
● After Morse transmitted the first telegraph message from Baltimore to Washington in
1844, Americans enthusiastically formed telegraph companies and, by 1852, more
than 15,000 miles of lines connected distant cities. A British engineer noted in 1854
that “no private interests could oppose the passage of a line through any property”.
● Telegraph lines usually transmitted political and commercial messages, while some
cities adopted them for reporting fires. By the early 1850s, Boston had an elaborate
system of telegraph lines that could alert fire in any neighborhood.
The Railroad Boom
● Background Info: In 1790, no European could travel faster than 14mph. In the early
19th century, sparks often showered passengers in open cars, while absence of
brakes forced passengers to pull trains to a stop. Before 1840, scheduling was awful
and delays were frequent. Trains rarely ran at nights due to a lack of light.
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● From 1840 to 1860, the size of the US rail network increased from 3k to 30k miles.
● Flat-roofed coaches replaced open cars, lamps made night travel possible, and
powerful engines allowed trains to climb steep hills.
● With the telegraph, communication was also improved and reduced delays.
● By 1850, an ordinary American could travel in considerable comfort three time as
fast as any European in the 1790s. Nonetheless, sleeping remained crude, and
schedules erratic. Also, frequent changes of train were necessary and interrupted
journeys.
● Yet nothing slowed the advance of railroads in the US, and by 1860, the US had
more track than the rest of the world.
● Gradually, railroads overtook canals, which was slower and froze during winters.
● By 1860, railroads had spread throughout land east of the Miss.R., and helped
develop new commercial hubs, such as Atlanta in the South, and Chicago in the
North.
● Most importantly, railroads connected the Midwest to the East, and farmers could
ship merchandise directly rather than via New Orleans, thereby stimulating
settlement and agricultural development in the Midwest. In turn, population growth
triggered cities.
● Railroads also propelled the growth of small towns near stations. Purchasing land for
stations along its path, the Illinois Central Railroad laid out towns near stations.
New York City and the New York Stock Exchange
● Background Info: During the early 1830s, railroads, like canals, depended on
financial aid from state governments.
● With depression in the late 1830s, state governments scrapped overly ambitious
railroad projects. Voters turned against state aid and several states amended their
constitutions to bard state funding for railroads and canals.
● The federal govt. gave some aid, but did not provide stimulus till after 1860. Part of
the burden passed to city govts. in agricultural areas. But the dramatic expansion of
railroads in the 1850s required a turn toward private investment. But even then, the
large railroads of the 1850s needed more capital than small investors could
generate.
● Gradually, the center of railroad financing shifted to NYC. The railroad boom helped
make Wall Street the nation’s greatest capital market, the NYSE.
● Securities of all the leading railroads were traded. Investment firms evaluated the
securities and found buyers for these securities from major cities around the world.
● Investment bankers began to exert influence over the railroads’ internal affairs.
Rising living standards
● The American System improved lives of consumers by driving down prices.
● Widening use of steam power (not river-water power) contributed to longer working
times, notably in the winter, which in turn increased real income.
● The growth of towns and cites allowed for many alternative jobs and more people
found year-round work, which also in turn increased real income.
● Towns and cities also provided women and children with new opportunities for paid
work. Many families depended on the wages of children and sometimes women too.
● A landowning farmer was better off than most wage-earning families in cities, but
most rural farmers did not have the capital to become successful and were in many
respects worse off than urban wage workers.
● Urban areas in the 1840s and 50s provided a range of comforts and conveniences.
Urban and Rural Housing
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● Unlike 18th century housing, houses in the 1800s was most likely to be narrow and
long brick row houses. Row houses were a response to rising urban land values.
● Some praised row houses as democratic; others criticized their extreme sameness.
● The middle class row houses were larger and taller than working class row houses.
● Land values forced many families to subdivide row houses with other families.
Tenements, the worst of the subdivided row houses, often housed Irish and blacks.
● Most fashionable houses were surrounded by small parks and were “Place” or
“Square” rather than “Street”. The wealthy also had elegant doors, staircases, and
more.
● Technological advances put these luxuries within the reach of the urban middle class,
levelling furniture and houses between the middle and upper classes while distancing
the two classes from the urban poor.
● In rural areas, the date of settlement played as big of a role as social class. Small
log cabins at first, rural houses gradually became frame houses as a community
matured.
● Balloon-frame houses had a skeleton of thin-sawn timbers nailed together so that
every strain ran against the grain of the wood. The simplicity and cheapness
attracted these houses to western builders with neither the time or skill.
Urban Waterworks
● Background Info: Contemporaries in the 1840s were struck by how good everyday
life was becoming. Where wood was expensive, coal-burning stoves were becoming
widely used. Stoves which allowed for the cooking of many dishes simultaneously
and railroads which brought in fresh vegetables improved American diet.
● Contemporaries were also struck by new systems of pipes and aqueducts which
brought fresh water from rivers or reservoirs to street hydrants.
● NYC completed the Croton aqueduct in the 1840s, and by 1860, there were 68
public water systems in the US.
● But improvements still left a lot to be done. For example, coal burned longer and
hotter than wood, but polluted the air and blackened the snow. A faulty stove could
fill the air with poisonous carbon monoxide. Diets were also affected because of the
seasons, and because there was few ways of preservation.
● Likewise, public waterworks’ impact was exaggerated. The incoming water often
only reached the street hydrant, and only a fraction of the population lived near
hydrants.
● Houses rarely had running water and taking a bath required heating the water pot by
pot on a stove, causing pungent body odors. A England physician claimed not 1 in 5
patients took 1 bath a year.
● Street cleaning was often lax, so urbanites often relied on hogs. Roaming freely,
hogs became tasty dinners if they made a wrong turn! Manure added to the stench.
● Flush toilets were rare outside cities and out of reach to many inside cities as sewer
systems lagged behind water systems. Expensive conveniences such as running
water and flush toilets set the upper and middle class apart from the poor.
● Conveniences also sharpened gender differences. Catherine Beecher, in her widely
popular A Treatise on Domestic Economy, told women to make every house a
“glorious temple.” Women who no longer made goods for home consumption
obsessively swept floors and polished furniture.
Disease and Health
● Despite rising standard of living, Americans remained vulnerable to disease.
● The transportation revolution increased the spread of epidemics. The cholera
epidemic of 1832, the first national epidemic, followed shipping routes from NYC
across the Erie and down the Ohio and Miss. Rivers, as well as down the East Coast.
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Document Summary
Background info: settlements edged westward after 1830 into parts of in, mi, and. These areas had flat grasslands (prairies) which alternated with with forests. The prairie"s matted soil was difficult to break for planting, but the invention of john. Deere"s steel-tipped plow in 1837 halved the labor required to clear land for tilling. With this and timber readily available from nearby woods, settlements grew rapidly. Wheat became the cash crop of the northwest, just like cotton in the south. Since the 18th century, europe had experimented with horse-draw machines to replace sickles. Cyrus mccormick improved previous designs from 1837, opened a factory in chicago in 1847, and began producing reapers which harvested grain 7x more rapidly with half the labor force. Ironically, just as eli whitney, a northerner, had stimulated the southern economy, Mccormick, a proslavery southerner, helped the north win the civil war by providing the north with reapers which required less labor force.
