hi everybody today we'll start looking at the decades that followed the end of the war of 1812. the beginnings of what some refer to as the antebellum period of american history leading up to the civil war it was a time that witnessed dramatic advances revolutions in the fields of transportation manufacturing and commerce this is a painting of the erie canal which opened for business in 1825. the purpose of the canal was to connect new york city to the rapidly developing interior lands of the northwest territory it was a project of the state of new york and its governor dewitt clinton who we see here in this oil painting from the period the impact of the erie canal and nearly all the others that followed at an exploding pace in the years after was to greatly reduce the cost of moving goods to and from the coasts to the interior regions of the country with the result that profits increased for both merchants and small farmers the success and profitability of the erie canal led to a frenzy of canal building across the nation as other states look to duplicate new york strategy artistic renderings of the canal were numerous here are just a few more examples from the period other than canals the development of the country's first paved roads for example the cumberland or national road as it was better known from maryland to illinois greatly reduced travel times and just as canals did expanded the commercial links between various parts of the nation here we have a map of the national road showing its original route from baltimore to the pennsylvania ohio border part of the original construction started in 1818 and the rest of the route to illinois completed after 1825. here are a couple of illustrations of the national road from the time the first showing it here in the building process and the second depicting the movement of people and goods that it generated of course what made the biggest impact of all were the railroads people of the early decades of the 19th century marveled at the first steam engines like the ones we see in these color illustrations of the period canals froze over in winter but railroads operated year round and could be built almost anywhere daguerreotype photographs made their first appearance in the united states at the end of the 1830s allowing us to see some of the early steam engines such as this one and the rapid pace of commercial development that they ushered in captured in this photograph of a train moving lumber the railroad both followed and led people to the west and everywhere that it passed through new towns popped up places that were built in anticipation of its arrival became known as ghost towns when rail routes failed to materialize and people abandoned them seemingly overnight here we have a sketch and a couple of photographs that demonstrate the way that towns railroads and people blended in the rapid development and settlement of the western territories in these years this map shows where railroad construction in the united states stood as of about 1850 notice that the overwhelming majority of track was laid across the northeast and midwest where manufacturing and commerce were most advanced and growing the south based in agriculture and slave labor took much longer to develop technologically and commercially the advent of steam power led not just to the first trains but also steam boats which like the steam engine became an iconic symbol of america in the early and middle decades of the 19th century the appearance of steamboats on the nation's waterways like the one that we see in this sketch added immeasurably to the country's ability to move goods and people in all directions north south east and west just like railroads steamboats inspired numerous artistic works here are a few more examples also like trains with the advent of the daguerreotype steamboats became one of the most photographed objects of the period here are some taken in the 1840s and 1850s the steamboats all had names like the lookout or the war eagle that we saw in the first couple of photographs and here we can see in this one how business and commerce moved with the vessels as there was always bustling activity anywhere that they came into port this photograph here shows us a early view of cincinnati in the 1840s beyond the ohio bell and cincinnatus steamboats the town looks a mess but it's not because it was just dirty or in a state of disrepair it was in a state of rapid development being built from the ground up steam technology also powered the first textile factories in places like lowell massachusetts that we'll talk more about in a moment all of these changes and improvements work together to rapidly increase commercial ties between various sections of the country to promote the development of the western frontier and ultimately to threaten the last autonomous indian cultures in north america with subjugation and annihilation while most people welcomed the innovations and improvements in technology and transportation americans remain divided over the role the federal government should play in the process of developing the country not a few feared that ties between the national government and business interests would lead to political and economic corruption and a government run on behalf of commerce rather than the people people of course referring to the white men of the united states proponents of what came to be known as internal improvements what we call infrastructure projects today insisted that it was the federal government's duty to foster the nation's progress and prosperity first and foremost and that the constitution's necessary and proper clause as alexander hamilton had argued provided authorization for such action politicians promoted government-sponsored projects building canals roadways and railroads while opponents insisted that the constitution said nothing about things like banks much less canals and railroads they argued that although internal improvements were desirable they should be engineered by the states individually rather than by the national government in washington dc as much as many americans considered the commercial prosperity of the antebellum decades to be a blessing they were in for a shock when what came to be known as the panic of 1819 introduced the country for the first time to the so-called boom and bust cycles of a market-based capitalist economy the causes of the crash were linked to an overproduction of cotton and rampant speculation in the sale of western lands by the federal government the second bank of the united states or the bus as it was more commonly known followed a policy of loose credit to state banks in order to spur economic growth after the war of 1812 and those state institutions in turn followed their own policy of loose credit extension to anyone willing to develop and settle public lands in the west but when cotton prices suddenly bottomed out at the end of 1819 the united states debt-ridden national economy was in for a shock the bus fearing for its own solvency began to call in all the loans that it made over the previous years and state banks with little or no hard currency to pay the debts in turn called in their extensive loans to individual farmers business owners developers with the result that countless numbers of people had to completely liquidate their assets or face ruin across the country unemployment soared land prices plummeted and businesses failed here are a couple of political sketches that captured the public anxiety of the time the panic of 1819 forced a dramatic reassessment of the forces involved in a market-driven capitalist economy and the crashes and depressions that too often followed in the wake of rapid commercial growth americans first dose of the boom and bust cycles of market capitalism caused many to start looking at banks and bankers as inherently corrupt and as threats to the liberties of common people many could not understand why they faced ruin and yet the banks and bankers were able to skate on their own debt obligations losing nothing corporate privilege was a novel idea at the time one that many americans openly rejected is inherently undemocratic and a lethal corruption of power with new transportation technologies like canals and railroads and the introduction of steam power american cities began to expand rapidly economic growth was felt most intensely in the already established cities of the eastern seaboard in places like new york boston philadelphia and baltimore but new cities also emerged like chicago and illinois and cincinnati and ohio three distinct types of cities appeared in the antebellum period commercial centers mill towns and transportation hubs some large cities like new york represented all three at once this painting captures new york city as it looked from battery park around 1850 it was in these years between 1820 and 1860 that new york surpassed philadelphia as the nation's largest city with the population that for the first time began to number in the millions of residents rather than the hundreds of thousands the erie canal gave new york its preeminence and trade and commerce connecting it to markets far on the frontiers of settlement in the old northwest places like lowell massachusetts trenton new jersey and wilmington delaware became mill towns centers of textile production set up next to waterfalls and rapids that could power their factories these towns grew exponentially in the antebellum years they were initially built in the countryside to avoid comparison with the deprivation associated with british textile towns and factories noted for their exploitation of wage workers high rates of crime and homelessness here we have a sketch of the lowell mills and the town of lowell massachusetts and the period and a couple of paintings that show it as it looked in the 1830s and 1840s this is a color sketch of the boot cotton mills and lowell and a modern photograph of them today no longer functioning obviously but operating as a historical tourist site protected under the national park service another early method of attempting to avoid comparison with the exploitation of british factories was that american mill towns like lowell started out by hiring single new england farm girls and young women for temporary stents of no more than a few years this that was believed would help prevent the advent of a permanent disadvantaged and discontented working class in the united states here we have a couple of sketches from the time of women at work in the cotton mills lowell became a completely self-contained community of women workers for a while they were provided with company housing a church library and a variety of recreational outlets designed not just to occupy the female laborers time away from work but to prevent the example of great britain repeating itself in american cities the local planners considered their blueprint a model for industrial production throughout the world the women workers even produced their own publication the lowell offering which was filled with things like poetry the women had written but the newspaper also contained reports of their grievances against management for such issues as poor treatment by mail managers poor working conditions and pay cuts more than once the women workers at lowell went out on strike and although unsuccessful in winning their demands for things like a 10-hour work day the women demonstrated a consciousness of themselves as workers and even citizens with rights that should be respected look inside the factories of the time is enough to demonstrate how anxieties could run high among laborers here we have a couple of images that show how terrifyingly large and intimidating the work spaces were the machines were extremely loud and often unreliable prone to breaking and they were dangerous the presence of cotton veils alongside the oil used to lubricate machines made fire a constant threat in textile factories workers hands and fingers were maimed or severed when they were caught in the devices in some cases their limbs or entire bodies were crushed workers who did not die from such injuries lost their jobs and no compensation was provided so why did they risk it no doubt the motivation was chiefly economic but it cannot be overlooked that for many of the women factory work meant a chance to be independent for the first time in their lives away from their families and on their own while most would leave the factories after a few years and get married their experiences at lowell shaped many of them for years to come unfortunately the idea of places like lowell becoming models of industrial production for the rest of the world went by the wayside within it only within only a decade or so once factory owners found that the waves of irish immigrants entering the country in the 1840s could be employed far more cheaply than young new england farm women it was only a matter of time before the idealistic vision of early lowell disappeared outside of commercial centers like new york city and mill towns like lowell and the northeast beyond the appalachian mountains to the west lay transportation hubs such as st louis missouri cleveland ohio and louisville kentucky these were cities known for distributing goods to the nation's interior sections and fostering the rapid and continuous growth of the western frontier of settlement before about 1840 most people moving to the cities came from the countryside but after this time a veritable flood of irish and german immigration primarily irish accounted for the soaring population numbers of urban centers here we have a sketch of irish men women and children fleeing their country during the great potato famine which began in 1845 and continued through almost the end of the decade and here we have a real photograph from the 1850s showing a ship literally full of irish immigrants making their way to america by 1860 for example half of new york's population was composed of irish immigrants with this increase in immigration came another permanent feature of urban life namely a working-class population consisting of the poorest and most disadvantaged immigrants african-americans and native-born poor whites all competing often violently for the same jobs at the very bottom of the economic ladder this is a painting of the notorious neighborhood in new york city known as the five points an intersection where five different parts of the city merged into one spot it was the red light district of its time in addition to the poverty these were days before municipal services like plumbing and garbage pickup were common even for the wealthy a regular bath was still atypical for most americans the result was widespread susceptibility to illnesses of all varieties vulnerability to things like fires that could and sometimes did destroy entire cities and smells the likes of which we cannot imagine today desperation generated high rates of crime making cities especially large ones like new york just as dangerous as they were wealthy a reality captured in this painting also of the five points around half a million irish immigrants came to the united states between the end of the war of 1812 and the outbreak of the potato famine in the 1840s nearly 3 000 irish were employed in digging for the erie canals construction they occupied the lowest paying jobs and initially were not even seen as white a point made clear in these newspaper sketches from the period which also emphasized the violence and public drunkenness frequently attributed to the irish from the perspective of white middle class native-born protestants the irish brought chaos and disorder to american cities they were widely viewed as having suspect political loyalties as well because of their catholicism in an overwhelmingly protestant country a notion captured in these two political cartoons the irish in america had to organize themselves in defense of their rights both as citizens and his workers with the outbreak of the potato famine in 1845 irish immigration to the us exploded between 1845 and 1855 some one and a half million irish arrived on american shores more people left ireland in that decade alone than in the country's entire previous recorded history smaller in number and different in makeup german immigration to the u.s and the annie bellomeres also made an impact this is a sketch of an ornate german beer garden of the period unlike the irish most germans were not poor when they arrived but middle class and possessed of skills in agriculture and various manufacturing trades and they were master brewers a little over a million germans came to the united states between 1820 and 1860. most ended up settling in the midwest of the country on small farms and in cities like chicago cincinnati and later milwaukee wisconsin which they largely built mostly protestant but including a fair number of catholics too the germans were never viewed as the threat to social order that the irish were perceived as although although they also were lampooned in the press of the time while some complained about the music and festivities at german beer gardens on sundays those annoyances paled in comparison with the disorder and crime attached to irish immigrants in the nation's cities here we have a painting of the beautifully ornate winter beer garden built by germans in new york's bowery district along with a sketch and painting of the old german brewery and the five points as it looked around the middle of the 19th century in the 1850s as the gap between the wealthiest and poorest continued to grow from year to year and decade to decade the nation's craftsmen and skilled tradesmen also found themselves in a bind to which there was no ready solution here we have a sketch of a cobbler a shoemaker applying his avocation throughout the period of the early republic master craftsmen and trades like carpentry and shoemaking for example frequently started out as what were called apprentices learning from men who ran their own shops taking on workers whom they could train to become skilled tradesmen in their own right when apprentices had learned the arts of their craft they became known as journeymen and when they finally managed to go into business for themselves and open their own shops they were known as master craftsmen this cycle of taking on apprentices training them up to journeymen who could become their own masters and perpetuate the trades went on for generations it assured the integrity and quality of the trades whatever the craft involved in the years after the war of 1812 however as the economy expanded and became more tied to market forces and industrialization journeyman found it more and more difficult to compete with larger businesses mass production and cheaper prices within only a couple of generations journeymen virtually disappeared driven downward into the ranks of wage workers the dream of self-employment and control of one's own fortunes gone up in smoke literally at the end of james monroe's second term of office as president four major candidates emerged in hopes of succeeding him monroe's secretary of state who we see again here john quincy adams from massachusetts was the odds on favorite in 1824 also running were william crawford of virginia who we have in this oil painting a small government jeffersonian republican of the time then there was henry clay of kentucky the sitting speaker of the house of representatives captured here and finally there was the war hero from tennessee andrew jackson seen here in one of the most famous portrait paintings made of him of all the candidates jackson had the least political experience having served only one undistinguished term in congress but he was the hero of the battle of new orleans and many successful indian wars and because of this stood as the most famous and popular american of the period clay offered the most specific and detailed vision of how he hoped to lead the country into the future during the campaign he defined his vision of the nation's progress in a speech where he defended the need for a national tariff on imports to protect the country's young manufacturing businesses clay acknowledged that americans were essentially an agricultural people but he argued that domestic manufacturers would promote all interests providing incentive to industry freedom from foreign dependents work for the unemployed a home market for farmers and planters and in the end greater profits for everyone clay called his plan the american system internal improvements like roads canals and railroads fostered domestic exchange and federal tariff revenues could be used for just such improvements clay appealed to doubters and foes alike especially the southern states to suppress local objections in the name of compromise concession and union the election of 1824 proved to be incredibly close a fact captured in this political cartoon of the time that called it a foot race to the finish when the ballots were counted jackson held a majority but not a plurality of both the popular and electoral college results according to the constitution this meant that the house of representatives would decide the outcome henry clay who received the least votes in the electoral college quickly withdrew from the running but his position as speaker of the house gave him enormous influence in terms of shaping the outcome of the election william crawford had fallen ill and was also out this left only adams with 84 electoral votes and jackson with 99. clay feared jackson's political inexperience and his military background worrying that the general's success might lead to an american version of julius caesar in the white house clay also knew that jackson was no supporter of federal investment in internal improvement projects something he himself had begun to build a reputation around promoting john quincy adams on the other hand was the most experienced politician in the country and he did support clay's vision for a so-called american system of internal improvements in the end clay used his influence as speaker of the house to convince enough state delegations to support adams much to the displeasure and outrage of jackson supporters adams was elected president on the first ballot of votes taken in the house general jackson himself called the outcome a corrupt bargain a charge that seemed more legitimate when adams turned around and offered clay the post of secretary of state seen as a stepping stone to the presidency and clay accepted the idea of the corrupt bargain comes across in this political cartoon about the 1824 election adam's administration was viewed from the outset as illegitimate by many americans and four years later in 1828 jackson was swept into power with a landslide victory after the corrupt bargain election an entire political movement and ultimately a new political party formed around andrew jackson what became known as the jacksonian democracy or the democratic party the general had the most infamous inaugural ball ever held at the white house where the so-called common rabble or mob was invited in and trashed the residents in a drunken celebration of epic proportions this sketch of the time captured the relatively calm beginning of the event as people first arrived and this famous painting shows what it devolved into one of the things that made jackson such a formidable candidate and then an extremely powerful and influential president was the fact that by the time he ran for office many states throughout the union had begun to drop property qualifications as a prerequisite for voting it was during jackson's time in office that the process of extending the vote universally to all white male citizens was completed because of his attacks on special interests and economic privilege as well as his aggressive efforts at indian removal working class and common white men supported jackson's democratic party and especially the general himself as president jackson became most popular for the action that defined the philosophy of his administration his personal war against the second bank of the united states here we have a sketch of the building located in philadelphia the bus wielded more financial power and leverage than the federal government itself at the time jackson came to office it managed the government's funds paid its debts and provided the national currency it was impossible to touch the bank without shaking the nation's credit and commerce its very system of value and exchange to their foundations but jackson did not hesitate he assailed the bus from the beginning of his presidency this political cartoon of the time shows jackson attempting to slay the bank represented as a many-headed hydra the bank's congressional charter was due to expire in 1836 but jackson's attacks goaded the bank's president who we see here nicholas biddle into seeking an early renewal of the charter in 1832 while jackson was standing for re-election to a second term of office henry clay was the president's opponent that year and he guided the recharter bill through congress which approved it only months before the election jackson responded by vetoing the measure in his veto message the president proclaimed the core of his grievance against the bus although it performed public functions it was a privately owned and managed profit-making institution jackson stressed the advantages bank stockholders reaped from their official connection the conjoining of public and private purposes was in jackson's view inherently corrupting as he declared in his own words distinctions in society will always exist under every just government but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions to grant titles gratuities and exclusive privileges to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful the humble members of society the farmers mechanics and laborers who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors unto themselves have a right to complain of the injustice of their government jackson's political opponents declared his bank veto message an invitation to class warfare and for certain no american president before or since has made such a blatant statement on the realities of economic social and political power in a capitalist society this cartoon depicted the veto as signaling the death knell of the bus the bank's president nicholas biddle was so positive that the veto message would be unpopular that he had many thousands of copies printed up and distributed as pro clay campaign pieces but biddle and clay badly misjudged public sentiment overwhelmingly the nation's white male electorate supported the president and his veto they approved wholeheartedly of his attack on the corruption of vested economic and political interests which became known as the money power jackson was easily reelected in 1836 when he secured a second term in office the political opposition to his new democratic party started to become more organized led by henry clay the old jeffersonian republican party faded away replaced by what became known as the wig party named after the british anti-monarchical party during the time of king george iii and the american revolution the whigs often referred to jackson pejoratively as king andrew by the 1834 midterm elections the united states had evolved into its second iteration of a two-party political system instead of jeffersonian republicans and federalists people now supported either jackson's democratic party or the opposition wig party the president confirmed his monarchical reputation with the whigs when he followed up his re-election by withdrawing all the federal government's deposits from the national bank it precipitated within just a few years another financial panic in 1837 just as he left office the extreme partisanship of the era marked a new age in american politics the bitterness and division did not disappear instead it grew more vitriolic in the years ahead even to the point of threatening the perpetuity of the union itself okay that does it for today next time we'll take a look at the issues of religion reform and the idea of utopia and the antebellum period