ANTEBELLUM INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

1^st Industrial Revolution in America – Pre Civil war

1^ST INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN AMERICA

• In the early 1700’s in America, most people made everything by hand.
• Female family members made all the families clothing, male family members made the furniture and most of the times the house.
• Anything extra was sometimes sold in town or to neighbors
• Most people were farmers and grew their own food.
• Some skilled jobs existed: blacksmiths, carpenters, shoemakers, merchants etc.

1^ST INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN AMERICA

• There was a greater demand for manufactured goods that started in Great Britain, caused by population and life style changes that started the “Industrial Revolution” – it soon will spread to America.
• The Industrial Revolution is: a period of rapid growth in using machines for manufacturing and production that began in the mid-1700’s.
• It will start in the textile industry – or the cloth industry.
• In 1769 the Englishman Richard Arkwright invented the Water Frame – this was a large spinning machine that could produce dozens of cotton thread at the same time and lowered the cost of cotton cloth and increased the speed of textile production.

After several improvements to Arkwright’s design, Britain will soon have the most productive textile industry in the world.

The factories HAD to be by fast moving rivers or waterways in order for them to work and be powered.

BRITAIN’S SECRET

• This new machine allowed Britain to produce more cloth than any other country in the whole world.
• To protect this secret – the British Parliament passed a law that made it illegal for any British mechanic or engineer to carry the plans outside the country. In fact the plans of these machines were very heavily guarded at all times.
• So, disguised as a farmer, “Super-Spy” Samuel Slater who was a skilled British mechanic, memorized the plans of the water frame textile mill, hopped on a boat and came to America.
• He wrote to moses Brown upon arrival, who owned a textile mill in New England. Brown had one of his works test Slaters knowledge and Brow, his son, and son-in-law, formed a partnership with Slater and opened up their first mill in Pawtucket Rhode Island.

MILLS IN NEW ENGLAND

• Slater’s mill worked and mills began being built all over New England whose geography of fast moving rivers allowed for them to have a steady supply of power.
• Fewer mills were built in the south because they were still focusing on expanding their agriculture industry but also supplying the cotton for the now booming textile industry would be necessary.
• In 1798, Slater formed his own company to build a mill – by the time he died in 1835, he owned all or part of 3 mills. His wife even invented a new cotton thread for sewing.
• Workers no longer needed any skills to work in these types of factories – this will forever change work in America!!!
• However, factories needed to convince people o work in these factories
• At first they tried using the old apprenticeship program – however apprenticeships were designed for young men to learn a SKILL – not a monotonous, unskilled job that was easily learned in a few hours and very replaceable.
• 2 systems were created to get people to come and work in these New England factories…

THE 2 STRATEGIES OF HIRING FACTORY WORKERS

Rhode Island System

• Created by Samuel Slater
• Strategy of hiring entire families to work in the mill
• Filled his labor needs at a low cost
• Children as well as adults worked in the mill together – some tasks in the mill were easy enough a child could do them, and then all members of the family could be bringing in money
• On most farms children were working and helping the family anyway, so this idea was not anything new for American families at the time
• To attract families, Slater built n site housing for families to live in together and had a company store to buy everything they needed in.
• Adults were paid in a day what children were pain in a week.

Lowell System

• Created by Francis Cabot Lowell
• Lowell employed only young, unmarried women
• He recruited them from local farms and completely changed their lives by giving this entire group of people in America a chance to work and bring in money for their families.
• The first Lowell factory was built in Waltham, Massachusetts in 1814. in 1822, after the success of this factory, a larger factory was built in a new town named Lowell.
• The girls lived in company boarding houses and were watched over by older women.
• The young women who worked here became known as “Lowell Girls” and women from all over the area wanted to work in the prestigious workplace. They wanted a chance to make their won money and do something on their own for once.

THE 2 STRATEGIES OF HIRING FACTORY WORKERS

Rhode Island System – Cont’d

• Many mill owners throughout New England copied the Rhode Island system.
• Slater would send recruiters out in to the rural areas and look for families who were struggling to pay for their farms and then offer them to come work in his factories.
• He started offering credit to these families to pay for items in the company store in small increments over time so they were constantly indebted to the company store and always buying more items than they needed.
• One of the earliest mills of this kind was Slatersville – names after Samuel Slater – built by Samuel and his brother John.
• Slatersville eventually became its own town that included dressmakers, butchers and other small shops in addition to the company store and the mill and company housing.

Lowell System

• Lowell girls made between $2 and $4 each week and paid $1.25 for room and board. This was much better pay then girls this age could get from any other kind of work, like domestic work, at the time.
• Lowell girls were encouraged to use their free time to take classes or form women’s clubs. These girls even created and published their own magazine called “The Lowell Offering”
• These girls worked here for about 4 years at time before moving on
• Lowell factories also included a loom that could both spin thread and weave cloth in the same mill
• Mill life was hard for all though, you worked for about 12 to 14 hours a day with short breaks for lunch.
• You had to work harder and faster to keep up with the fast equipment and the cotton dust caused breathing problems like chronic cough for workers.

Lowell Mill girls

INTERCHANGEABLE PARTS

• Despite all of these great changes, most of this only applied to the textile industry.
• In the 1790’s the US government was worried about a possible war in France we might have to help with, but we had hardly any muskets for our army.
• Guns were made by skilled workers making every gun individually, each piece by hand – every part for every weapon was made by hand and no part or piece was exactly alike. This took much time and skill.
• In 1798, Eli Whitney came up with the solution, using watered powered machines to mass produce weapons for our government using interchangeable parts.
• Interchangeable parts are parts of a machine that are identical – they use molds of the parts to make an identical part that can be used over and over again

INTERCHANGEABLE PARTS CONT’D

• Whitney came to the government and said he could build 10,000 muskets in 2 years.
• The government gave him money to build his factory and in 1801, he was sent to Washington DC for a demonstration of this new idea.
• Whitney stood before President John Adams and his Secretary of War.
• Whitney had 10 guns laid out in front of him, he took all 10 guns apart and mixed up all the pieces. Then he took random pieces from all 10 guns and put all 10 guns back together again using whatever pieces from all the different guns – proving it didn’t matter what pieces came from what gun.
• He then repeated this process several times.
• Whitney proved that Americans can improve upon British technology and this idea was then being used by other products and industries besides guns.
• Created mass production – the efficient production of large numbers of identical goods.

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INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION COMPARISON

In America

• Industrialization grew slowly in America
• Land was fare more available and cheaper in America
• People would rather farm than work in factories – would rather own their own land than work in a monotonous, low paying job
• Also because Britain could produce goods at a lower cost (see Britain’s side 🡪) most investors were turned off to the idea of paying to open up factories.
• Because of this very few industries found a place in America’s factory economy – these included cotton goods, flour milling, weapons and iron production.

In Britain

• Industrialization grew rapidly in Britain
• Being a tiny island, Land was more scarce and more expensive in Britain so farming was not as attractive in Britain
• People were more willing to work in lower paying factory working jobs because it was all that was available
• Because of this, they had more workers and more factories so they could produce more manufactured goods than America, meaning they could charge lower prices for the same goods America was producing in their factories. American factories couldn’t compete.

THE WAR OF 1812

• Wars in Europe constantly were interfering with our ability to trade and buy things from European countries in the 1790s. Americans were unable most of the time to buys the manufactured goods they wanted from European countries.
• The war of 1812 made this worse. American goes to war with England in 1812 and England blockades the eastern coast of America, thus making it almost impossible to buy things or sell things from European countries.
• This forced Americans to buy the things they needed from American manufacturers in stead of foreign suppliers.
• Profits began to rise and more investors began to invest in American manufacturing because of this.
• Americans also began to realize, they may have been too reliant on foreign goods. Maybe now was a good time to start relying more on ourselves.
• When the war was over, Northern politicians passed higher tariffs (taxes on imports and exports) to try and force people to continue this trend of buying American goods.

WORKERS ORGANIZE

• Skilled crafts people who make items by hand, began to feel threatened by the low quality, low cost goods being produced by these factories.
• Factories were able to produce items way faster at a much cheaper price. Shop owners had to hire more workers but pay them less to try and compete.
• A shoemaker said that they sat around for 12-16 hours a day and maybe made $1 that day.
• As people were competing for jobs, factory workers began to be paid less, as workers were willing to come along and get paid less.
• The first wave of immigrants came from poorer countries and they were willing to work for less
• There was also a financial Panic in 1837 that resulted in a recession and many more people were unemployed and willing to work for less pay just to get a job (ex: 50,000 workers in NY City alone lost their jobs)

WORKERS ORGANIZE CONT’D

• Afraid of losing their jobs and low pay, skilled workers formed trade unions
• Trade unions are groups that tried to improve pay and working conditions within their specific trades.
• Eventually unskilled workers also formed trade unions to protect them from low pay and losing their jobs in factories.
• Employers did not want to hire people who were members of trade unions though, they were not worth the higher cost of employing them especially when trying to compete with other businesses within their field.
• Some labor unions stage strikes – this is where workers would refuse to work until their demands were met by their employers.
• Most early strikes were not successful because companies would just replace these workers on strike with workers who would not be as demanding.

WORKERS ORGANIZE CONT’D

• Sarah G. Bagley was a mill worker and formed the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association in 18 44
• She wanted to start an investigation in to the working conditions in factories by the Massachusetts State Legislature and to obtain a 10hour work day. (most people worked 12-14 hours a day, 6 days a week)
• The President at the time – Martin Van Buren had passed a 10 hour work day for most federal employees, Bagley just wanted tis to apply to all workers in other areas of privately owned businesses as well.
• By 1845 Sarah was elected to be the vice president of the New England Working Men’s Association – the first woman to hold such a high ranking job in the Labor Movement.
• Over time –Labor unions did win some victories –
• 5 states passed 10 hour work days for all businesses (CT, ME, NH, OH, PA)
• However, child labor and long hours were still common in all other states

QUESTIONS?