Rochester : New Transportation Routes

When the Canal was built towns all along the route from Buffalo to Albany prospered from the revenue and the attraction the Canal brought with it. Whether the Canal was being used for business people, immigrants, settlers of the region, or tourists, the border-towns all had some appeal to these persons. After some time the state was continually asked to expand the Canal from the original route to include connecting canal routes. However, the same towns along the route from Buffalo to Albany had already been established along the lines of the original canal. These towns would need to be relocated in order to obey these new requests. This presented a major problem because the people in these towns had formed a life around the Canal and many of them made their income based of the Canal. The inhabitants of the towns changed their mentality from not wanting the Canal to invade on their lives, to it being an essential part of their lives they depended upon.

During “the 19th century, when the Industrial Revolution triggered a series of radical changes national cultural fabric of state societies, the pressures of modernization were also transforming the way of life in traditional communities of peasant and other rural folk” (Haviland et al. 349). One of these transformations brought about by the Industrial Revolution is the invention of the factory. The factory, like capitalism, originated in England, but eventually made its way to America, specifically the region of New England. The factory caused artisans to lose autonomy, now forced to work

In The Artificial River, Carol Sheriff describes how when the digging of the Erie Canal began on July 4, 1817, no one would have been able to predict that the canal would even be considered a paradox of progress. One of the major contradictions of progress was whether or not triumphing art over nature was even considered progress. People were not sure during the nineteenth century if changing the environment for industrialization was necessarily a good thing. Another contradiction to progress that resulted from the Erie Canal was when people started holding the state government responsible for all their financial misfortunes. An additional contradiction to progress that the Erie Canal displayed was how many of its workers were either

During the rise of wage labor stunted working people in new ways. In 1824 the textile workers protested and the factory conditions and the mills model of Lowell faced large clashes in the 1830s. Another improved transportation system was essential for raw materials to be able to reach factories and to manufacture good that went to consumers. This improved transportation system was known as the market revolution.

As workers moved to cities to work in factories, and progress in medical and sanitation practices improved, urban crowding became a huge issue. Additionally, where industry was taking over production in markets that had previously been dominated by small business owners, these skilled workers, weavers and the like, were now being forced to take jobs working for capitalist ventures-- often working in the industry coinciding with their master skill, but

The Market Revolution can be described as an early manifestation of capitalism, an era associated with a new sense of individual rights, equality, and freedom. The Market Revolution took place in the early 19th century, and it drastically changed not only the market and commerce of Americans but their personal lives as well. Before the Market Revolution America hadn’t seen any new life changing innovations, most of their goods, such as clothing and farming tools, were still being made from home, and trade was limited by poor roads and little means of transportation. In addition, the poor road system meant that there was little interaction and movement between each state. It wasn’t till the creation of new ways of communicating, steamboats, and the building of canals, railroads, and turnpikes that prompted American expansion. As a result, the United States began to see a movement of settlements westward and the rise cities. The Embargo of 1807 and the War of 1812, led to the cutoff of British imports and the need to establish the first large –scale factories; the rise of factories then led to new employment and a boom in domestic manufacturing (Foner 331). The changes led by the advances in the society of the Market Revolution evidently gave women the opportunity to gain a level of equality in both domestic and work environments, it also gave Americans the

They would trade it with wheat since it was a mill town. Until the coming of merchant capitalism, most Rochester wage earners lived with employers and shared in their private lives. As the working men moved out of their employers’ houses, they created residential areas of their own. Business-owing families were in retreat from the world of work, and from the increasingly distinct world of workingmen. (p.52) By 1835 the social geography of Rochester became class-specific: master and wage earner no longer lived in the same household. The working men experienced new and different kinds of harassment on the job, at home though they were with their people, and could do whatever they wanted. The masters tried to make up new kinds of work discipline, the two classes always argued, mostly about alcohol which started to be a middle-class addiction. As an outcome, work men made an independent social life, and the heavy drinking was still part of it. The alcohol was the main source of the conflict between the culturally autonomous working class and entrepreneurs, who considered the rightful protectors of the

During the late 1700’s, the United States was no longer a possession of Britain, instead it was a market for industrial goods and the world’s major source for tobacco, cotton, and other agricultural products. A labor revolution started to occur in the United States throughout the early 1800’s. There was a shift from an agricultural economy to an industrial market system. After the War of 1812, the domestic marketplace changed due to the strong pressure of social and economic forces. Major innovations in transportation allowed the movement of information, people, and merchandise. Textile mills and factories became an important base for jobs, especially for women. There was also widespread

Immigrants came flooding into the United States in hope of finding work. However, the canal did not attract just immigrants; it also brought visitors and tourists. Bringing in a sea of people, America was soon growing economically and nationally. “I have no doubt it is correct; for that I know was my early opinion, and many, I dare say still think with me that N. York has anticipated by a full century the ordinary progress of improvement.” More cities were established in the Midwest. Because the canal was such an attraction for people all over the world, the United States began to function and expand on using ships and relying on ships to transfer products to other parts in America.

At the same time, as we learned in class, America’s population grew because of labor mobility. People began to migrate from rural to urban areas, and from Europe to North America, in search of better economic opportunities, and to improve their lives. The job market became more and more competitive Hubert Gutman’s “Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America 1815-1919” sheds light on the struggle of farmers and tradesmen who were forced into unskilled labor positions during the industrial revolution and the many new immigrants that were finding their way to America Gutman states, “A factory worker in New

New York City is the largest and one of the oldest cities in the United States, having been 'rediscovered' by Henry Hudson in 1609 while working for the Dutch East Indies Company. New Amsterdam, as it was then known, was settled in 1614 by Dutch fur traders and became the most important port in America. (Reed, 2011) The two rivers flowing on each side of Manhattan grant easy access to the ocean, and Henry Hudson remarked that the harbor was the best natural harbor he had ever seen in the world. For hundreds of years the city has been at the epicenter of world trade, and immigration to the new world. Millions of immigrants have filled the streets of New York, from Europe, Africa, South America, Asia, and elsewhere.

A new work culture emerged, The Tyranny of the Clock: under the domestic system, workers could set their own pace and hours of work and but in the factory system workers were ruled by the dictates of the machinery and the factory owners. We can look at a primary source which shows the working hours and conditions for a child in a factory in the late 1700's. Charles Aberdeen first started work in a cotton factory when he was twelve years old, he was sent to one in Hollywell by the Westminster Workhouse. In 1832 he was sacked from a cotton Factory in Salford at age fifty three for signing a petition in favour of factory reform. He was interviewed by Michael Sadler and his House of Commons Committee on 7th July 1832 when he told about life as a scavenger in the mill, and how he had to work under the machine whilst it was running.

Industrialization in the North caused social upheaval with the assistance of transportation innovation and the commercialization of agriculture. Paul E. Johnson uses Rochester, New York in the Antebellum period as a microcosm of the changes occurring in the North. He explains, “The loss of social control began, paradoxically, with the imposition of new and tighter controls over the process of labor.” This control over the process of labor sparked from the need to manufacture more goods

The market revolution of the early 19th century brought about commercialization and industrialization. At the time before the surge of industrialization, there were artisans, who specially hand crafted goods. They took time and put love and hard work into everything they made. This was the case until the factories started booming and workers were needed to run these factories. This brought about a dilemma between the artisan and factory worker.

The Power of Revivals in Rochester, New York Paul Johnson, professor of history at the University of South Carolina, addresses the issue of rapid capitalization and connects it with politics, economy and religion in the small, rural town of Rochester, New York. In his book, The Shopkeepers Millennium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, New York, 1815 – 1837, he poses the question, “What precisely were the links between revivals and the transformation of politics and reform in the 1830’s?” Furthermore, he gives his interpretation to the revivals’ powerful affect in Rochester. Johnson’s argument addresses four spheres of social experience, life, politics, community relations, and work, to understand the revivals converts. Johnson creates his argument by starting with the founding of Rochester and the creation of its economy. Rochester was built on the shoulders of wealthy families who bought and sold land to newcomers to increase their fortune. With the engineering of the Erie Canal, Rochester became the first inland boom town in the United States. Inside of a decade, the population became the fastest growing in the country. The wealthy families took advantage of this and intertwined their economic prowess with extended relatives and trustworthy friends. It was common practice for prominent families in Rochester to marry in order to create business opportunities and expand their wealth. In 1827, 42 percent of the richest property owners were in business with relatives. It is