America grows up

 

 

  1. American literature – the mid 19th Century marked the emergence of an “American Voice”
    1. Ralph Waldo Emerson called for US writers to stop imitating Europeans.  He said tell the stories of ordinary Americans
    2. Writers of the 1850’s – Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman, and Thoreau: Transcendentalists who believed in the goodness of humanity.  They felt all men should follow their conscience even if it goes against the church or the state

                                                               i.      They were often denounced as being vulgar (Whitman), or were simply ignored by most Americans

  1. Imperialism?
    1. President Pierce in 1852 hinted that the US might expand into Canada or Mexico to complete Manifest Destiny
    2. Cuba looked inviting to the US – it belongs to a very weak Spain

                                                               i.      Had a strategic location for military endeavors

                                                             ii.      It would not belong to Britain or France

                                                            iii.      It would be another pro-slavery state for the south to offset the loss of CA and NM

                                                           iv.      Pierce wanted Cuba, but when the Onsted Manifesto (which said the US would be better off with Cuba, and might be justified in taking it from Spain) became public, the northern outcry was too great

    1. Central America

                                                               i.      The US signed an agreement with Colombia which allowed Colombia to rule Panama in return for giving the US transit rights across the isthmus.

                                                             ii.      In 1855 US businessmen had built a RR across Panama (the 1st transcontinental RR)

                                                            iii.      The US and Britain both moved to control an unstable Nicaragua

                                                           iv.      The 2 countries signed an agreement that neither would colonize Central America, and if a canal was ever built it must allow all nations to use it (Clayton-Bulwer Treaty)

    1. Gadsen Purchase – James Gadsen negotiated a deal with Mexico to buy a thin strip of land in case a transcontinental RR was built to the south.  This was the final addition of land in the continental US
  1. Trade and the Economy
    1. The US was in the midst of a tremendous expansion

                                                               i.      Britain relied on southern cotton for its clothing industry

1.      Production of cotton doubled between 1850 and 1860

2.      Fertilizer use and crop rotation made plantations more productive than ever

                                                             ii.      Britain imported more US wheat and lowered tariffs on US goods

1.      John Deere’s steel plow increased the wheat harvest

2.      Cyrus McCormick invented the mechanical reaper which cut the time to harvest a crop by a factor of 14x

                                                            iii.      Immigration was rising which kept US ships full on their return voyage

                                                           iv.      The percent of Americans working in factories went from 14 to 19 percent

1.      Factories were beginning to process American raw materials into finished products

2.      Inventions:  Goodyear and vulcanized rubber, Howe and Singer – the sewing machine

3.      The shortage of labor encouraged Americans to invent machines to increase production

    1. The canal system and the RR’s made the movement of goods easier

                                                               i.      More goods followed the Great Lakes and the Erie canal than went down the Mississippi for the first time

                                                             ii.      RR track mileage went from 2818 miles in 1840 to 30,627 in 1860 – tracks ran mainly from the upper Midwest (than known as the West) to the northeast

1.      In 1850 land grants were given to RR companies to encourage the building of rail lines

2.      By 1860 over 28 million acres had been given to the RR’s

                               iii.  The invention of the telegraph made the 2-year-old Pony Express obsolete, the RR finished it off

    1. The US relied on Europe to buy raw materials to offset the trade imbalance caused by the US purchase of European finished goods
    2. Trade with China expanded – the US negotiated trade rights with China equal to those of Britain
    3. Trade with Japan

                                                               i.      Japan had chosen to ignore the outside world

                                                             ii.      The US wanted to expand the Asian market outside of China

                                                            iii.      President Fillmore sent Commodore Perry to Japan – he arrived with a fleet of warships containing gifts (how is that for a mixed message)

                                                           iv.      The combination of flattery and force succeeded in opening up two Japanese ports to US trade

                                                             v.      Japan and the US agreed to trade in small amounts and the two countries created embassies and established a formal diplomatic relationship

    1. Clipper ships – US trading vessels, which were faster than any other type of ship in the world.

                                                               i.      They cut two months off of the trip around South America allowing for more trade between California and the east coast

  1. Immigration
    1. Between 1830 and 1860 the US population soared from 12.8 million to 31.4 million
    2. Labor was still in short supply and the west was still sparsely settled
    3. Most immigrants came from northern and western Europe and had little trouble assimilating to US society

                                                               i.      Ireland – famine from potato crop failure brought 1.5 million Irish to the US from 1845-1860

1.      Most were illiterate, unskilled, and poor

2.      Settled in east coast cities where enclaves were formed

                                                             ii.      Germany – were refugees from the suppression of the liberal Revolution of 1848

1.      Most were well educated professionals

2.      German refugees had enough money to buy farm land in the Midwest, or start businesses in Midwestern cities such as Milwaukee and St. Louis

    1. The number of immigrants started to alarm some in the US

                                                               i.      Nativism – anti-foreign sentiment began

                                                             ii.      Some Xenophobes blamed the immigrants for the deplorable conditions in the slums of eastern cities (blame the victim), and felt that European countries had dumped their undesirables in the US

                                                            iii.      The Democratic party started to use the immigrants to build political machines

                                                           iv.      Anti-Catholics were opposed the amount of Catholic immigration (especially from Ireland)

1.      Know-Nothing Party was established to oppose Catholic immigration

2.      The American party with Millard Fillmore as candidate received 22 percent of the vote in 1856, and the nativist parties controlled every state office in Massachusetts

3.      The secrecy surrounding the nativist parties eventually led to their downfall

  1. Discontent in the south
    1. Southerners felt their importance to the nation is not appreciated, and that their economic power has decreased
    2. Northern merchants sent southern crops to Europe, and southern imports had to come through northern ports
    3. Northern merchants would not provide capital to those individuals who did want to manufacture in the South
    4. Many Southerner felt their was a northern conspiracy to hold the south down, and was building the north up at the expense of the south