Transcript The Growth of Industry

The Growth of Industry
• The Industrial Revolution began in the mid1700s in Britain then spread to the United
States. It made it cheaper and faster to produce
goods. Parts were made to fit other identical
parts on a large scale. This allowed different
types of factories to turn out many goods in a
short period of time. In addition, it was a period
during which machinery and technology
changed how people worked and produced
goods.
- Rivers and streams provided waterpower to run
machinery in factories.
- New England was near needed resources, such as coal
and iron from Pennsylvania and therefore had an
advantage.
• The Industrial Revolution could not have taken
place without the invention of new machines
and new technology or the scientific discoveries
that made work easier.
- Britain created machinery and methods that changed
the textile industry with inventions such as the
spinning jenny, the water frame, and the power loom.
- Most mills were built near rivers because the new
machines ran on waterpower.
- In 1785 the steam engine provided power for a cotton
mill.
Capitalism played a large part in the development of
different industries. People put up capital, or their own
money, for a new business in the hopes to make a
profit, too.
In 1793 Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. One worker
using the machine could clean cotton as fast as 50 people
working by hand.
The patent law passed in 1790 protected the rights of people
who created inventions.
A patent gives an inventor the sole legal right to the invention
and its profits for a certain period of time.
The technology of making interchangeable parts made it
possible to produce may types of goods in large quantities.
• It also reduced the cost of manufacturing
goods.
• In 1798 Eli Whitney devised this method to
make 10,000 rifles in two years for the United
States government.
• He was able to make huge quantities of identical
pieces that could replace one another.
In the South, cotton production greatly increased with the
development of the textile industry of New England and
Europe.
- Enslaved workers planted, tended, and picked
the cotton.
- With the invention of the cotton gin, cotton
could be cleaned faster and cheaper than by
hand, so farmers raised larger crops.
- Between 1790 and 1820, cotton production
went from 3,000 to 300,000 bales a year.
New England Factories
• Samuel Slater took over a cotton mill in Pawtucket,
Rhode Island, where he was able to copy the design
of a machine invented by Richard Arkwright of
Britain that spun cotton threads.
• Slater memorized the design while in Britain, came to
the United States in 1789, and established Slater’s
Mill. It was the first water powered cotton spinning
mill.
• Lowell’s Mill, another textile plant in Waltham,
Massachusetts, was established in 1814. It went
beyond Slater’s idea by confining all parts of cloth
making under one roof.
• Soon, the Lowell Mills in Massachusetts drew about
80% of their workers from young women who
worked long hours for very little pay. They were
known as Lowell Girls.
Economic Independence
• Large businesses, or corporations, began to develop
rapidly. The rise of these corporations made it easier
to sell shares of ownership in the company (Stock).
This allowed companies to finance improvements and
developments.
• Businesses that needed more money had to borrow it
from banks.
• The charter for the First Bank of the United States
expired in 1811.
• In 1816 Congress chartered the Second Bank of the
United States and had the same location in
Philadelphia.
• It helped strengthen the economic independence of
the nation and it had the power to establish a national
currency and to make large loans.
Moving West
• In 1790 most of the nearly 4 million people of the United States
lived east of the Appalachian Mountains and near the Atlantic
coast.
• In 1820 the population had more than doubled to about 10 million
with almost 2 million living west of the Appalachian Mountains.
Some people traveled along the rivers, loading all their
belongings onto barges.
Travel was more comfortable by boat than on bumpy
roads.
Some difficulties were that:
traveling upstream, against the flow of the current, was
slow and difficult
most major rivers flow in a north-south not east-west
direction
In 1807 Robert Fulton built the Clermont, a steamboat
with a newly designed powerful engine.
• The 150-mile trip from New York to Albany was
shortened from 4 days to 32 hours.
• Steamboats improved the transport of people and
goods. Shipping became cheaper and faster.
CANALS:
• Traveling the existing river system would not tie the
East with the West, so a New York business and
government group planned to link New York City
with the Great Lakes region by building a canal.
• This artificial waterway across New York State
would connect Albany on the Hudson River with
Buffalo on Lake Erie.
Canals
• The 363-mile canal, called the Erie Canal, was
built by thousands of workers.
• A series of locks to raise and lower ships to
different water levels was used to move ships
along the canal where water levels changed.
• Early on, steamboats could not use the canal
because their powerful engines might damage
the embankments
• Teams of mules and horses on the shore pulled
the boats and barges.
• In the 1840s, the canal’s banks were reinforced
to accommodate steam tugboats.
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