Introduction

Chapter 8 portrayed the new Republic as a nation divided between the semi-subsistence economy of the interior regions and the older commercial economy of the east. By contrast, "The Opening of America" depicts an era of opportunity and inclusion in a national market economy. One of the powerful integrating forces linking the isolated interior with the eastern seaboard was the new transportation system. Canals, steamboats, and eventually railroads, transformed the rural landscape and enabled inland farmers to move goods cheaply across land. Led by the Marshall court the Federal government promoted commercial risk taking, and the appearance of factories transformed the work place and workers' lives.

The new economic order reflected a more mobile and competitive society, defined primarily by materialism and wealth. Though many Americans experienced the benefits of a single market, wealth was more unevenly distributed and sectional tensions increased. 

Web activities explore the new transportation system and the consequences of the Canal Age, take you to Lowell, Massachusetts, the center of textile manufacturing, and introduce foreign visitor's impressions of this new restless society. 

Web Activities

1. In 1825 the Erie Canal, connecting the great lakes with New York City, became an essential part of the economic revolution. The canal transformed the pastoral landscape pictured in the painting above and revolutionized the way goods moved across the land. What impact did the canal have on the region? What technologies made construction possible? How did the canal change the social map of the region? Find answers at these links.

• History of the Erie Canal at the National Canal Museum. 
• History of the Erie Canal maintained by the University of Rochester Department of History.
• The Erie Canal a Brief History at The New York State Canal System. 

Although the Erie Canal is the most famous, other regions promoted canal building. Study the map on page 259 of your text. Identify the region with the largest concentration of canals. Make a list of the states outside that region that built canals. Tour the following sites. Compare the information you find with your list. What states can you add? Why do you think some states were more willing to fund internal improvements projects?

• Pennsylvania Canals (follow internal links to other state canal systems).
• Illinois & Michigan Canal Virtual Tour 
• Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park 
• Building the Commonwealth  ~ Virginia's Board of Public Works (1816) promotes canal construction (magnify the images).

2. While canals transformed the landscape, the Lowell mills transformed the environment by harnessing the power of the Merrimack River. Lowell became the symbol of the textile industry in the United States. Based on paternalism and profits, and promoted as a model community, Lowell became the showplace of American industry. The factory town connected to the rural farm by recruiting the daughters of New England families as workers. Take an historical Web excursion to Lowell.

• First use the Early Industrialization Timeline to situate major turning points in American industrialization in an international perspective. 
• Next read the essay "Seeds of Industry" (begin with the Prologue) at Lowell National Historic Park. 
• Visit Early Industrialization in Lowell a virtual museum of Lowell images. Go to "Maps of Lowell" to note what changes occurred between 1821 and 1832.
• Go to Lowell Mills, read the first section "Factory Rules from the Handbook to Lowell, 1848," scroll down and read "Boarding House Rules." Now, visit a reconstructed Boardinghouse. 
• Next, read excerpts from the account of a female factory worker, Harriet Robinson: Lowell Mill Girls. How accurate was the idyllic picture mill owners advanced?
• As competition increased conditions in the mills deteriorated. Return to Lowell Mills(scroll down) and read the two sections "Massachusetts Investigation into Labor Conditions" and "A Description of Factory Life by an Associationist in 1846." According to Lowell Mill Girls and the Rhetoric of Women's Labor Unrest how did the mill girls react?
• Finally, read Counterpoint: Workers and Industrialization, in your text p. 315. Did mill work improve women's status in the new market economy or make them victims? Did benefits out weigh hardships as Counterpoint suggests?

3.  Taking a barge on the Erie Canal and visiting Lowell became obligatory for Europeans touring the United States in the 1830's.  European travelers -- scientists, writers, diplomats, artists -- came from all over Europe as tourists and observers. They provide important clues about what the American Republic represented to outside observers. Take notes as you follow links documenting the traveler's observations. Make a list of similarities and differences in routes taken, observations made, criticisms stated.

• Fanny Kemble, a British actress, married southerner Pierce Butler. Read selections from Kemble's detailed look at plantation slavery, Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation.  
• Swiss artist Karl Bodmer traveled across three-quarters of the North American continent, and was one of the most important artists to paint the American Indian. Study Mandan Village and Mandan Chief (magnify each) and read the companion text. 
• An English lady, Frances Trollope, wrote Domestic Manners of the Americans during her stay in America, 1827-1831, scroll down to chapter 32. Begin reading at the exchange between passengers on an Erie Canal boat. How does one passenger predict the area will be altered in five years? Skim through other excerpts from Domestic Manners of the Americans in order to include some of the other subjects considered on your list.
• Alexis de Tocqueville is the best know traveler of the era. The Democracy in America de Tocqueville project by American Studies Students at the University of Virginia is designed to give you insights on American life in 1831. It includes both primary and secondary materials. Go to Everyday Life and read a few paragraphs on each of the topical links. Follow the same procedure for Red, Black & White: Race in 1831. To travel with de Tocqueville go to Virtual Tour. 
• Novelist Charles Dickens wrote American Notes: Observations made during a tour of the United States, 1842. Scroll down through the site to list the variety of topics Dickens' addresses. Read the entry for Lowell, Massachusetts, Winter 1842. How does he depict life in the mill community?
• English journalist Harriet Martineau became involved with the women's anti-slavery movement during her visit to America. Society in America, is both in the tradition of travel narrative and part of the reform literature of the era. Read the entries from Montgomery, Alabama, and from Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Compare Martineau's choice of subjects and observations with those of Dickens and Trollope.
• Finally, the comprehensive European Travelers in America: 1830-1840, will help you answer questions that cropped up as you investigated various travelers

Review your list. What did European travelers think of Americans as reflected in the Websites examined in this activity? What common themes are found in their observations? Would the people they observed have agreed? Do You?

Additional Research Links

The Transportation Revolution

• An efficient transportation system was an essential component of the national system of markets that developed after 1815. Roads, steamboats, and railroads connected the nation. Maps like the 1826 Map of Reconnaissance charting the country between Washington and New Orleans were intended to promote internal improvements. Note the caption. 
• The Road through the Wilderness: the Making of the National Road examines the roads' development from conception through construction and completion of the 113 mile stretch from Cumberland to Wheeling in 1811, and to Vandalia, Illinois by the 1830s. For more information visit The National Road a National Park Service site. 
• Robert Fulton demonstrated his ship, the Clermont, in 1807, but The Invention of the Steamboat  had the greatest effect on transportation on western rivers. View the Mississippi River at New Orleans, 1845. 
• The Steam Engine Library at the University of Rochester includes a collection of historical documents relating to the history of the steam engine. See Makers of America, Robert Fulton: His Life and its Results (1891) by Robert H. Thurston. 
• The First Meeting of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, 1827, provides an eyewitness account of the ceremony opening the construction project. Such events symbolized the growth of the market economy and ritualized civic participation.

Technological Advances

• Visit the Eli Whitney Museum and follow the contents links. Read about Whitney's struggles for patent protection. His failure led him to turn to musket manufacturing and the process that became the famed "American System of Manufacture." See also Inventing Change: The Whitney Legacy. 
• The Industrial Revolution explains the process and its consequences in Europe and the United States.
• Samuel F. B. Morse's telegraph did for communications what rail and steam did for transportation. The Morse Papers are at the Library of Congress and offer access to the letterbooks, diaries, scrapbooks, clippings, and drawings of the inventor. View the six part Samuel F. B. Morse Preview. 

The New Nationalism

• Chief Justice John Marshall continued to use the power of the court to promote risk taking and economic growth. Go to Historic Supreme Court Decisions. The Cornell Law School site lists cases in alphabetical order. You will find the texts of Chief Justice John Marshall's celebrated decisions in McCulloch v. Maryland, Gibbons v. Ogden, Fletcher v. Peck. For the Dartmouth College v. Woodward case go to The Marshall Cases Index. 
• Now return to the Tax Museum and read the entries for 1816, 1819, and 1820, to understand the fiscal policies the Marshall court advocated.

Prosperity and Anxiety

• For another view on the issue of slavery in the new territories see Missouri Compromise at PBS "Africans in America" (link to full text of the document).

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The Postal System

• The development of the postal system had a profound social impact, promoting commerce, mass communication, and new forms of transportation. To explore this phenomenon first visit the United States Postal Service Web site tracing the postal service from colonial times to establishment under the Articles of Confederation. The Postal Role in U.S. Development describes the systems early years as one of the most advanced in the world in the early nineteenth century.