Answer the following questions based on the information watched or read.
The answer to each question should be 1-2 pages. Use examples and specifics.
You can answer each question individually or write the responses as one essay.
- What was the significance of the Louisiana Purchase?
- How did Jefferson view the future of the American Economy?
- What was the relevance of John Marshall as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?
- What were the Lowell factories and what were their impact on the country?
- What was the pluses and minuses of the invention of the Cotton Gin?
- What was the Monroe Doctrine and how did it affect the United States?
resources:
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/the-early-republic
Era of Good Feelings
American Nationalist Spirit
·
Begins after Battle of New Orleans
· Includes American System
· Americans see themselves as new chosen people
Patriotic culture
· Fourth of July became popular
· Folk art, songs, verses
· Americanization of language
Inspirational Reading
· Biographies of early patriots exploded
· Mason Weem’s biography of George Washington
· Created a national hero although not all true
· Noah Webster 1783 American Spelling Book
· Created an American language
· Dictionary 1828
· James Fenimore Cooper one of first American writers and used American themes
Henry Clay
· Lawyer, planter, speculator, politician
· Westerner with a national perspective
· Speaker of the House (1810-1821)
· Worked to create compromise
· Most everyone liked him
· Called for internal improvements
· Wanted to create system to bind all sections of nation together
· Make him indispensable man
American System
· Starts with a Bank of the US (BUS)
· Holds government deposits from sell of western lands
· Original BUS had died in 1811
· 1816 another Bank was chartered
· Internal improvements in west help everyone
· Industrials have greater demand for goods
· Westerners have greater demand for food
· Southerners have greater demand for cotton
· Wants to pay with a high tariff
· This was least popular part of the system
Transportation Revolution
· Roads
· Most became impassable in rain
· John McAdam developed an all-weather road
· National Road
· Government funded
· Cumberland, Maryland to Wheeling, Ohio
· Made Henry Clay popular with many small farmers
Erie Canal
· Slashed transportation costs
· Paid for by New York state
· Hudson River to Lake Erie
· Expensive
but paid for itself in first year
· Navigators guided flatboats
· Pulled by mules
· Erie Canal success leads to canal building boom
· Mainline canal in Pennsylvania
· Over 4,000 miles of canals
· Economic bust left states with debts from public projects
River traffic
· Old man river – Mississippi River
· Drained central U.S.
· But hard to bring cargo upriver
· Queens of the Mississippi
· Flat bottomed steamboats
· 1807 Robert Fulton’s Clermont
· Built a paddle wheeler for Mississippi
· Paddleboat operations grew
· Frequent boiler explosions
· Very shallow drafts were needed
·
Early Railroads
· 1825 first railroads
· Could be built more places, cheaper to operate and hardly ever stopped running
1827 first two U.S. railroads
· Built by mining companies
· Other railroads built by entrepreneurs
· Could be expensive to build
· Best for long hauls
· Baltimore & Ohio RR
James Monroe
· Virginia disciple of Jefferson
· Good diplomat and administrator
· Presided during political calm
· Federalists rapidly dying out
· Monroe easily wins in 1816
· Monroe faces no opposition in 1820
· “Era of good feeling”
Politics of Calm
· Little interest in national politics
· People focus on expansion, economics
· Secretary of State John Quincy Adams
· Monroe, Adams focus on foreign affairs
Foreign Affairs
· Oregon
· Rush Bagot Agreement 1817
· Demilitarized Great Lakes
· Set boundary between Canada-US at 49th parallel
· Join occupation of Oregon Territory
Florida
· Spain losing New World empire
· Jackson invades Florida
· Jackson ignores Spanish authority
· Adams buys Florida in Adams-Oñis Treaty
· Pays $5 million
· Set western boundary
Monroe Doctrine
· J. Quincy Adams main author
· U.S. would not intervene in Europe
· Ends colonization in Western Hemisphere
· U.S. not intervene in existing colonies
· European intervention deemed act of war
Why the Monroe Doctrine?
· Spain wants to regain colonies
· Britain wants them independent for trade
· Britain wants alliance with U.S.
· U.S. decides to act alone
Missouri
Missouri Crisis
· 11 slave states, 11 free states
· Missouri asks to become a state
· Proposal made to require abolition in Missouri
· South wants to keep balance of states
Missouri Compromise
· Brainchild of Henry Clay
· Missouri slave; Maine free
· No slavery in rest of Louisiana Purchase north of 36º 30’
· Congress admit states in pairs for 30 years
2nd Missouri Compromise
· State prohibited free blacks from emigrating in
· Violates U.S. Constitution
· Clay convinced Missouri to state did not override Constitution
Industrial Revolution
· Most people live on farms
· Produce goods and food themselves
· Purchase very little
· Small businesses
· Mechanization changes lifestyles
Industrialization
Textiles
· Basic necessity
· Time-consuming and difficult to make
· Expensive
· Most people had few clothes
How cloth was made
· Wool was king in Britain
· Sheep sheared
· Wool cleaned
· Wood was carded or combed
· Spin into yarn
· Yarn woven on looms into cloth
· Woolens versus cotton
· Woolen interests were powerful
· Imported cotton cloth from India competed
Individuals contract with cloth dealer
· Produce at home; work at own pace
· Does not alter social structure
England develops textile machines
· Produces cloth at fraction of cost
· Britain enjoys monopoly
· Cloth better than homespun
· Cloth cheaper than homespun
Machines
· Spinning jenny
Richard Arkwright’s water frame in 1768
· Increased volume of spun thread
· Powered by water
· Changes production as ends cottage industry
· Creates factories where workers come to work
Textile factories
· Machines need power
· Use water, later steam
· Creates need for factories
· Creates industrial working class
U.S. capital for industry
· Northeast merchants, shippers invest
· Convert wealth from ships into mills
· Encouraged by trade restraints during Napoleonic Wars
· Americans quickly industrialize
Inventors
· Oliver Evans: continuous-operation flour mill
· Eli Whitney: interchangeable parts
· Inventors become heroes
· U.S. offers technical education
First Factory Workers
First workers were children
· Cheap
· Climbed onto textile machines
Then Fall River used whole families
· But failed
· Turned to women and children
Lowell Girls
· Francis Cabot Lowell
· Hires young daughters of farmers
· Provides room, board, enrichment activities
· Girls save for dowry
· Most laborers women and children
· But over time became less paternalistic
John C. Calhoun
· “War Hawk” early in career
· First pushes for Southern industry
· Becomes defender of South
· Defends plantation system, slavery
Slavery declining in 1788
· Northern states abolishing slavery
· Southerners apologetic about slavery
· Tobacco production falling
· Congress outlaws importation of Africans
Revival of Slavery in the South
· Cotton gin revives one-crop economy
· Fertile “Old Southwest” ready to settle
· Rapid growth in southern territories
· Slaves now in big demand
Cotton Gin
· South can only grow short staple cotton
· Separating seeds too labor intensive
· Eli Whitney invents cotton gin and interchangeable parts
· Growing cotton now profitable
Western Population Explosion
· Land cheap and plentiful
· Lands equal opportunity
· Mississippi River no longer frontier
· People seem to have no roots
Population
· By 1820, Alabama at 75,000
· States north of Ohio River grew even faster
People who moved west
· Americans free to move around
· Some anti-social
· Some want to build better life
· Some are developers
· Some are town boosters
Cities in West
· Often develop around military fort
· Sometimes develop on rivers
· Cities include industry
Federal Land Policy
Rapid development leads to speculation
· Speculators hope to buy land cheap and sell it higher
· Some responsible developers
Land policy
· 1790s: must buy tracts of 640 acres
· 1800: can buy 320 acres at $2 acre and on credit
· Land Act of 1804 favors small farmers
· Land Act also favors speculators
Leads to wild speculation
· Drives up cost of land
· Paid for with paper money
· inflation
Panic of 1819
· Bank of U.S. calls in loans to wildcat banks
· Wildcat banks call in loans to speculators
· Speculators cannot pay, banks close
· Closed banks trigger Panic of 1819