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Women
Employment and Roles:
Urban and Industrial Impact: Women no longer worked alongside their husbands on family farms.
Employment Opportunities: Limited to domestic service or teaching; factory jobs (e.g., Lowell System) were rare.
Single Working Women: Predominantly unmarried; married women typically focused on household duties.
Cult of Domesticity: Women became moral leaders in the home as men worked away from home.
Marriages and Family Size: Fewer arranged marriages, some women chose to have fewer children.
Legal Restrictions: Women could not vote and faced other legal limitations.
Economic and Social Mobility
Wages and Wealth Gap:
Real Wages: Improved for most urban workers in the early 1800s.
Wealth Gap: The disparity between the wealthy and the poor increased.
Social Mobility: Possible from one generation to the next, with more opportunities in the U.S. compared to Europe.
Extreme Wealth: Few instances of poor individuals becoming millionaires.
Population Growth and Change
Population Dynamics:
Growth Rate: U.S. population doubled every 25 years from 1800 to 1850.
Birthrate and Immigration: High birthrate supplemented by European immigration (mainly from Great Britain and Germany).
Westward Expansion: By the 1830s, nearly one-third of the population lived west of the Alleghenies.
Immigration:
Increase: Post-1832 saw a surge in immigration, peaking at 428,000 in 1854.
Causes: Cheap ocean transportation, European famines and revolutions, U.S. economic opportunities and political freedom.
Settlement: Mostly in northern cities and the Old Northwest; few went to the South.
Economic Contribution: Provided labor and increased demand for consumer goods.
Urban Population:
Growth: Urban population increased from 5% in 1800 to 15% by 1850.
Challenges: Expansion of slums, crowded housing, poor sanitation, infectious diseases, and high crime rates.
Opportunities: Continued to attract both native-born Americans and European immigrants.
New Cities:
Development: Small towns at key transportation points grew into thriving cities (e.g., Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis).
Role: Served as transfer points for farm products and manufactured goods.
Organized Labor
Labor Conditions:
Shift to Wage Labor: Independent farmers and artisans became factory workers.
Common Problems: Low pay, long hours, unsafe working conditions.
Labor Unions: Formed to protect workers' interests; notable victory in Commonwealth v. Hunt (1842), affirming the right to organize and negotiate labor contracts.
Challenges for Labor:
Depressions: Periodic economic downturns.
Hostility: Employers and courts often opposed unions.
Immigrant Labor: Abundant supply of low-wage workers limited union effectiveness.
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