APUSH Chapter 14 & 15
Robert Fulton's invention
1807; steamboat; The success of the steamboat was sensational as people could now in large degree defy wind, wave, tide, and downward current. Population clustered along the banks of the broad flowing streams.
Reasons for German immigration
1830 - 1860; The bulk of the Germans that immigrated were displaced farmers, but the rest were liberal political refugees. Saddened by the collapse of the democratic revolutions of 1848, so they decided to leave the autocratic fatherland and flee to America.
Cyrus McCormick's invention
1830s; mechanical mower reaper; was to western farmers like the cotton gin to southern planters. A single person could do the same amount of work as 5 men with sickles and scythes.
The height of the 19th century immigration
1840 - 1860; Tides of immigration brought hundred of thousands of people to the American, mainly because Europe was running out of room. Mostly Irish and German immigrants.
Commonwealth v Hunt
1842; The Supreme Court of Massachusetts ruled that labor unions were not illegal conspiracies, provided that their methods were "honorable and peaceful." Did not legalize the strike overnight through the country, but it was a significant signpost of the times.
Samuel Morse's invention
1844; Telegraph; Tightened the sinews of an increasingly complex business world , and distinctly separated people in almost instant communication with one another.
Elias Howe's invention
1846; sewing machine; Became the foundation of the ready-made clothing industry which took root about the time of the Civil War. It drove many seamstresses from the shelter of a private home to the factory.
"Know-Nothing" party
1849; a political party formed by Nativists, its name derived from its secretiveness. Agitated for rigid restrictions on immigration and naturalization and for laws authorizing the deportation of alien paupers. They also promoted a lurid literature of exposure, much of it pure fiction.
Dorothea Dix
A New England teacher-author, reformer and wanted better treatment for the insane
Louis Agassiz
A distinguished French-Swiss immigrant, served for a quarter at Harvard College. A path-breaking student of biology insisted on original research and deplored the reigning overemphasis on memory work.
Factors contributing to the development of distinctly American literature
A genuinely American literature received a strong boost from the wave of nationalism that followed the War of Independence and especially from the War of 1812. By 1820 the older seaboard areas were sufficiently removed from the survival mentality of tree-choppers and butter-churners so that literature could be supported as a profession.
Herman Melville
Author of "Moby Dick." Was widely ignored at the time of publication as people were more accustomed to more straightforward and upbeat prose, but in the 20th century gained proper recognition.
Edgar Allen Poe
Author of the poems/stories: "The Raven," "The Gold Bug," "The Fall of the House of Usher." He reflected a morbid sensibility distinctly at the odds with the usual optimistic tone of American culture. Perhaps more prized by Europeans than by Americans.
Henry Wasdworth Longfellow
Author of the poems: "Evangeline," "The Song of Hiawatha," and "The Courtship of Miles Standish." All based on American tradition and widely popular in Europe.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Author of the stories: "The Scarlet Letter," and "The Marble Faun." Reflected the continuing Calvinist obsession of original sin and with the never-ending struggle between good and evil.
Unitarians
Began to gather momentum at the end of the 18th century in New England. Believed that God existed in one person and not in the orthodox Trinity. Stressed the essential goodness of human nature rather than its vileness; they proclaimed their beliefs in free will and the possibility of salvation through good works. Pictured God as a loving Father.
Causes and effects of Second Great Awakening
Cause: Deism, Unitarian faith, growing liberalism Effect: Encouraged an effervescent evangelicalism that bubbled up into innumerable areas in American life including: prison reforms, the temperance cause, the women's movement, and the crusade to abolish slavery. Widened the lines between classes and religions.
Challenges and Effects of canals
Challenges: Effects: the value of land around canals skyrocketed, new cities blossomed, industry boomed, new profitability of farming, easier passages
Challenges and Effects of railroads
Challenges: canal backers who opposed railroads, considered dangerous public menace, feeble brakes, arrival and departure times Effects: easier transportation no matter terrain or weather,
Challenges and Effects of roads
Challenges: expensive, states' righters who opposed federal aid to local projects, eastern states that protested that their population was bleeding into the west Effects: attracted rich trade, heralded a western advance
Challenges and Effects of the steamboat
Challenges: the boiler often exploded Effects: Population clustered around the banks of the broad flowing streams. Cotton growers and other farmers made haste to take up and turn over the non-profitable soil. Not only could they float their produce to the markets, they could ship in at a low cost their shoes, hardware, and other manufactured necessities
Ecological Imperialism
Each summer, traders ventured and waited for the trappers and Indians to arrive with beaver pelts to swap for manufactured goods from the East. This trade thrived for some two decades;beaver hats had gone out of fashion, the hapless beaver had all but disappeared from the region. Trade in buffalo robes flourished, leading eventually to the total annihilation of the massive bison herds. Still farther west, on the California coast, other traders bought up prodigious quantities of sea-otter pelts, driving the otters to near extinction. Some historians have called this aggressive and often heedless exploitation of the West's natural bounty "ecological imperialism.''
Characteristics of 19th century historians
Early American historians were almost without exception New Englanders, largely because the Boston area provided well-stocked libraries and a stimulating literary tradition. The writing of American history for generations to come was to suffer from an anti-southern bias perpetuated by this early "made in New England" interpretation.
Women and the 2nd Great Awakening
Encouraged women to pray aloud in public, made the majority of new church members, and leads to the women's rights movement.
Hudson River School
Excelled in the paintings of romantic mirroring of local landscapes. At the same time, unwelcome competition arose from the invention of the crude photograph known as the daguerreotype.
Beliefs of Nativits
Feared foreign groups would overwhelm and outvote the "native" Americans. Had great prejudice to these "foreign" groups and would even be called racist.
Oneida Community
Founded in New York 1848; practiced free love ("complex marriage"), birth control (through "male continence," or coitus reservatus), and the eugenic selection of parents to produce superior offspring. Flourished for more than 30 years mostly because its artisans made superior steel traps.
John J. Audobun
French-descended naturalist who painted wild fowl In their natural habitat. He illustrated "Birds of America," and attained considerable popularity. The Audobun Society for the protection of birds was named after him.
Differences between German and Irish immigrants in the US
Germans: Protestants, many wealthy and left for political reasons, possessed a modest amount of material goods Irish: Roman Catholic, poor farmers that left their country to escape famine
"the cult of domesticity"
Glorified the traditional role of women as homemakers.
"Civil Disobedience"
Henry David Thoreau's essay; Exercised a strong influence in furthering idealistic thought, both in America and abroad. His writing later encouraged Gandhi to resist British rule in India and inspired the development of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.'s thinking about nonviolence.
Colleges and Educational Reform
Horace Mann campaigned effectively for more and better schoolhouses, longer school terms, higher pays for teachers, and expanded curriculum. Education advances were aided by textbooks, notably Noah Webster.
Interchangeable parts
Idea by Eli Whitney. Widely adopted in the 1850s, and ultimately became the basis of modern mass-production, assembly line methods.
Effects of urbanization
Intensified the problem of smelly slums, feeble street fighting, inadequate policing, impure water, foul sewage, ravenous rats, and improper garbage disposal. Boston in 1823 pioneered a sewer system, and New York in 1842 abandoned wells and cisterns for piped in water supply.
Life on the Frontier
Late 1700s; Life was downright grim for most pioneer families, many poorly fed, ill-clad, housed in hastily erected shanties. They were perpetual victims of disease, depression, and premature death and unbearable loneliness haunted them.
Mormons
Leaders: Joseph Smith, Brigham Young Characteristics: "The Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-Day Saints," moving from New York to Ohio to Missouri to Illinois and finally to Utah
Factors contributing to national market economy
More and more Americans linked their economic fate to the burgeoning market economy. Store-bought fabric, candles, and soap replaced homemade products. Revolutionary advances in manufacturing and transportation.
George Catlin
One of the first Americans to advocate the preservation of nature as a deliberate national policy. His idea later bore fruit to the creation of the national park system, beginning with Yellowstone Park in 1872.
Deism
Relied on reason rather than revelation, on science rather than the Bible. Rejected the idea of the original sin and denied Christ's divinity. Believed in a Supreme Being who had created a knowable universe and endowed human beings with a capacity for moral behavior.
Gilbert Stuart
Rhode Islander painter who produced many portraits of George Washington, all somewhat idealized and dehumanized.
"Father of the Factory System"
Samuel Slater; A skilled British mechanic that memorized the plan for machinery and brought it with him to America. With the help of a blacksmith and a carpenter, he put into operation the first efficient American machinery for spinning cotton thread in 1791.
Attempts at Prohibition/Temperance Movement
The American Temperance Society was formed at Boston in 1826. Within a few years about a thousand local group sprang into existence. They implored drinkers to sign the temperance pledge and organized children's club, known as the "Cold Water Army." The so-called Maine Law of 1851 prohibited the manufacturing and sale of intoxicated liquor.
Regional Economics
The South: raised cotton for exports to New England and Britain. The West: grew grain and livestock to feed factory workers in the East and in Europe. The East: made machines and textiles for the South and the West.
Charles Grandison Finney
The greatest of the revival preachers and held huge crowds spellbound with the power of his oratory and the pungency of his message. Denounced both alcohol and slavery.
Transcendentalism
The transcendentalism movement of the 1830s resulted in part from a liberalizing of the straight-jacket Puritan theology. It also owed much to foreign influences, including the German romantic philosophers and the religions of Asia. The transcendentalists rejected the prevailing theory derived from John Locke, that all knowledge comes through the senses.
Values of Utopian Communities
Various reformers, ranging from the high-minded to the "lunatic fringe," set up more than 40 communities of a cooperative, communistic, or "communitarian" nature.
19th century American Medicine
Was primitive by modern standards. Bleeding remained a common cure, smallpox plagues were still dreaded, and the yellow fever epidemic of 1793 took several hundred lives. Life expectancy was about 40 years for a white person born in 1850, and less for blacks. The use of medicine by regular doctors were often harmful. In the early 1840s, several American doctors and dentists successfully employed laughing gas and ether as anesthetic.
Gender Differences
Women: were thought to be physically and emotionally weak, but also artistic and refined. Men: were considered strong but crude, always in danger of slipping into some savage or beastly way of life if not guided by the gentle hand of their loving ladies.
Reasons for Irish immigration
mid 1840s; Ireland was already groaning under the heavy hand of British overlords. A terrible rot attacked the potato crop, on which the people became terrible dependent, and about 1/4 of them were swept away by disease and hunger. Tens of thousands left the "Land of Famine" to the "Land of Plenty."