U.S. History / Unit 3: The Early Republic and Expansion
3.7 The Market Revolution
Notes
Between about 1800 and 1850, new technology and transportation changed how Americans worked and traded.
- Eli Whitney's cotton gin (1793) made cleaning cotton fast and profitable, which greatly expanded slavery in the South.
- Interchangeable parts made mass production possible.
- Lowell mills in Massachusetts hired young women ("mill girls") to make textiles in factories.
- Transportation: the Erie Canal (1825) linked the Great Lakes to New York City; steamboats and railroads cut shipping costs.
- Regions specialized: the North grew industry and cities, the South relied on cotton and slavery, the West grew food.
- Example: after the Erie Canal opened, the cost of shipping goods from Buffalo to New York City fell by about 90 percent.
Practice
How did the cotton gin affect slavery?
Cotton became the South's leading crop, and slavery expanded into new lands.
The Erie Canal was important because it:
It made New York City the nation's leading port.
A young woman from a New England farm moves to Massachusetts in 1835 to work in a textile mill. She is most likely working in:
The Lowell system employed young farm women in textile factories.
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