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    Economic Growth and The Early Industrial Revolution

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    HIS22067 SUHANI TANDON
    The early American Industrial Revolution began in the late 18th century and was spearheaded by Samuel Slater, who opened the first textile mill in 1790. The factory system that centralized work became widespread, such as in the mills of Lowell, Massachusetts that employed many young female workers. State governments played a key role in supporting the Industrial Revolution through funding transportation infrastructure projects like canals and establishing banks to provide capital, though economic downturns still occurred. The Erie Canal connecting the Hudson River to Lake Erie was particularly important for expanding commerce.

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    Economic Growth and The Early Industrial Revolution

    Uploaded by

    HIS22067 SUHANI TANDON
    20 views2 pages
    The early American Industrial Revolution began in the late 18th century and was spearheaded by Samuel Slater, who opened the first textile mill in 1790. The factory system that centralized work became widespread, such as in the mills of Lowell, Massachusetts that employed many young female workers. State governments played a key role in supporting the Industrial Revolution through funding transportation infrastructure projects like canals and establishing banks to provide capital, though economic downturns still occurred. The Erie Canal connecting the Hudson River to Lake Erie was particularly important for expanding commerce.

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    American history early industrial revolution

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    Economic Growth and the Early Industrial Revolution

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    The early American Industrial Revolution began in the late 18th century and was spearheaded by Samuel Slater, who opened the first textile mill in 1790. The factory system that centralized work became widespread, such as in the mills of Lowell, Massachusetts that employed many young female workers. State governments played a key role in supporting the Industrial Revolution through funding transportation infrastructure projects like canals and establishing banks to provide capital, though economic downturns still occurred. The Erie Canal connecting the Hudson River to Lake Erie was particularly important for expanding commerce.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    20 views2 pages

    Economic Growth and The Early Industrial Revolution

    Uploaded by

    HIS22067 SUHANI TANDON
    The early American Industrial Revolution began in the late 18th century and was spearheaded by Samuel Slater, who opened the first textile mill in 1790. The factory system that centralized work became widespread, such as in the mills of Lowell, Massachusetts that employed many young female workers. State governments played a key role in supporting the Industrial Revolution through funding transportation infrastructure projects like canals and establishing banks to provide capital, though economic downturns still occurred. The Erie Canal connecting the Hudson River to Lake Erie was particularly important for expanding commerce.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Economic Growth and the Early Industrial Revolution

    The transition from an agricultural to an INDUSTRIAL ECONOMY took


    more than a century in the United States, but that long development
    entered its first phase from the 1790s through the 1830s.
    The INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION had begun in Britain during the mid-
    18th century, but the American colonies lagged far behind the
    mother country in part because the abundance of land and scarcity
    of labor in the New World reduced interest in expensive investments
    in machine production. Nevertheless, with the shift from hand-made
    to machine-made products a new era of human experience began
    This drawing depicts men working the where increased productivity created a much higher standard of
    lock on a section of the Erie Canal. Find living than had ever been known in the pre-industrial world.
    more lyrics like this "I've got a mule,
    her name is Sal, Fifteen years on the
    The start of the American Industrial Revolution is often attributed
    Erie Canal" on this New York State
    Canals website.
    to SAMUEL SLATER who opened the first industrial mill in the United
    States in 1790 with a design that borrowed heavily from a British
    model. Slater's pirated technology greatly increased the speed with
    which cotton thread could be spun into yarn. While he introduced a vital new technology to the
    United States, the economic takeoff of the Industrial Revolution required several other elements
    before it would transform American life.
    Another key to the rapidly changing economy of the early
    Industrial Revolution were new organizational strategies to
    increase productivity. This had begun with the "OUTWORK
    SYSTEM" whereby small parts of a larger production process
    were carried out in numerous individual homes. This
    organizational reform was especially important for shoe and
    boot making. However, the chief organizational breakthrough of
    the Industrial Revolution was the "FACTORY SYSTEM" where work
    was performed on a large scale in a single centralized location.
    Among the early innovators of this approach were a group of
    businessmen known as the BOSTON ASSOCIATESwho recruited
    thousands of New England farm girls to operate the machines in
    their new factories.
    New York Governor DeWitt Clinton pours a
    The most famous of their tightly controlled mill towns bucketful of Lake Erie into the Atlantic Ocean
    was LOWELL, MASSACHUSETTS, which opened in 1823. The use of to mark the opening of the Erie Canal in the
    female factory workers brought advantages to both employer autumn of 1825.

    and employee. The Boston Associates preferred female labor


    because they paid the young girls less than men. These female workers, often called "LOWELL GIRLS,"
    benefited by experiencing a new kind of independence outside the traditional male-dominated family
    farm.
    The rise of WAGE LABOR at the heart of the Industrial Revolution also exploited working people in new
    ways. The first strike among textile workers protesting wage and factory conditions occurred in 1824
    and even the model mills of Lowell faced large STRIKES in the 1830s.
    Dramatically increased production, like that in the New England's textile mills, were key parts of the
    Industrial Revolution, but required at least two more elements for widespread impact. First, an
    expanded system of credit was necessary to help entrepreneurs secure the capital needed for large-
    scale and risky new ventures. Second, an improved transportation system was crucial for RAW
    MATERIALS to reach the factories and manufactured goods to reach consumers. State governments
    played a key role encouraging both new banking institutions and a vastly increased transportation
    network. This latter development is often termed the MARKET REVOLUTION because of the central
    importance of creating more efficient ways to transport people, raw materials, and finished goods.
    Alexander Hamilton's Bank of the United States received a special national charter from the U.S.
    Congress in 1791. It enjoyed great success, which led to the opening of BRANCH OFFICES in eight
    major cities by 1805. Although economically successful, a government-chartered national bank
    remained politically controversial. As a result, President Madison did not submit the bank's charter
    for renewal in 1811. The key legal and governmental support for economic development in the early
    19th century ultimately came at the state, rather than the national, level. When the national bank
    closed, state governments responded by creating over 200 state-chartered banks within five years.
    Indeed, this rapid expansion of credit and the banks' often unregulated activities helped to
    exacerbate an ECONOMIC COLLAPSE IN 1819 that resulted in a six-year DEPRESSION. The dynamism of a
    capitalist economy creates rapid expansion that also comes with high risks that include regular
    periods of sharp economic downturns.
    The use of a STATE CHARTER to provide special benefits for a PRIVATE CORPORATION was a crucial and
    controversial innovation in republican America. The idea of granting special privileges to certain
    individuals seemed to contradict the republican ideal of equality before the law. Even more than
    through rapidly expanded banking institutions, state support for internal transportation
    improvements lay at the heart of the nation's new political economy. Road, bridge, and especially
    canal building was an expensive venture, but most state politicians supported using government-
    granted legal privileges and funds to help create the INFRASTRUCTURE that would stimulate economic
    development.
    The most famous state-led creation of the Market Revolution was undoubtedly New York's ERIE
    CANAL. Begun in 1817, the 364-mile man-made waterway flowed between Albany on the Hudson
    River and Buffalo on Lake Erie. The canal connected the eastern seaboard and the Old Northwest.
    The great success of the Erie Canal set off a canal frenzy that, along with the development of the
    steamboat, created a new and complete national water transportation network by 1840.

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