Bamfo 1

Andrea Bamfo

Professor Rachel

HIST 200

3 August 2017

The Market Revolution

In the early nineteenth century, the United States experienced a huge overhaul. Many

different movements, economic changes and political changes happened all at the same time.

Though the reformations and Jacksonian democracy were also important, the Market Revolution

managed to transform the United States on a massive scale due to the expansion of

transportation, the creation of new jobs, and the newfound prevalence of slavery.

Prior to the Market Revolution, transportation was an issue. Whether it was the

transportation of goods, the transportation of people, or the transportation of ideas, Americans,

particularly those in the North, thought the transportation was too slow and came up with ways

to combat the grueling speeds. From 1800 to 1830, a road stretching from Maryland to the

Mississippi River was built.1 Canals, waterways built for transportation, were also built for the

shipment of goods and with the creation of the steamboat, canals could be used effectively.

Another totally new form of transportation, the railroad, was created and by the time the 1860s

hit, more than 30,000 miles of railroad tracks had been set down.2 Lastly, the telegraph came to

light. This meant that people could almost instantaneously relay messages to each other, instead

of waiting months to receive letters. These new modes of transportation also made it easy to

continue westward expansion.

Consequently, these new modes of transportation also created new jobs. Now people

could get jobs building roads, digging canals, setting down railroad tracks, and stringing

1
Rachel Walker, The Market Revolution (2017)
2
Rachel Walker, The Market Revolution (2017)
telegraph wires. In the North, factories began emerging. Many people, including women, make

the shift from farming to working in factories. Children from families in the rural backcountry

also joined the factory life. With these new jobs came new systems of payment. Beforehand,

people were generally paid based on their finished product. Now, they were paid set wages.3

New jobs for the middleman sprung up as well. With the creation of factories, new jobs had to be

made to help regulate production. Instead of working with their hands, these people worked with

their heads. They were jobs like bookkeeping, office work, and clerical work. Many middle-class

citizens held these jobs, different from the people doing factory work who were usually poor.

This created a strict demarcation between middle-class people and poor people.

As for women, they became important to factory culture. Many unwittingly joined the

workforce through the Lowell Mills as teenagers and young adults. The Lowell Mills company

framed itself as a boarding school where young ladies would learn improve their reading and

writing, as well as make money for their families, which were most likely poor farmers.4

However, it turned out that these Lowell Mills were not as beneficial as the Mill Girls, as they

were affectionately called, and their families thought they would be. One Mill Girl compares her

factory job to slavery: I refer to the female operatives of New England the states where no

colored slave can breathe the balmy air and exist as such; -- but yet there are those who are

nothing more nor less than slaves in every sense of the word!5 She wonders how New England

touts itself as a being slavery-free, while she and other girls are engaged in exploitative labor.

Slavery was part of American culture for long before the Market Revolution even began.

However, it was during this time that it was revitalized. Even though the Atlantic Slave Trade

had been declared illegal in 1808, slaveholders in the deep South, also known as the Cotton
3
Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty!: An American History (2016) pg. 341
4
Rachel Walker, The Market Revolution (2017)
5
Anonymous, Complaint of a Lowell Factory Worker (1845)
Kingdom, found ways to either smuggle some slaves in or buy them from those in the

Chesapeake. This was to make sure they had enough slaves to either pick cotton or man the

cotton gin. The cotton gin was crucial to the expansion of slavery. After the decline of tobacco

farming, many Americans were under the impression that slavery would end. But the cotton gin

made cotton much easier to work with, therefore making cotton an extremely popular cash crop.

By the 1820s, 170 million pounds of cotton were produced.6 Since the North consisted of mainly

textile mills, they relied directly on the cotton production from the South in order to keep up with

production. Never before had the economies of the North and South been so intertwined.

Overall, the Market Revolution was the most transformative for American culture in the

nineteenth century. The Market Revolution made way for Americans to reimagine transportation

in ways they never thought possible, leading to the construction of railroads, telegraphs, and

canals. The entire job market changed, leading to a divide between poor and middle-class, as

well as shifting from farming to factory work and office work. Slavery also regained popularity

in the South. In fact, it became more popular and profitable than ever.

6
Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty!: An American History (2016) pg. 337