The Market Revolution: America's Economic Transformation

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In the middle of the nineteenth century, an economic transformation occurred in the United States. Historians refer to this event as the market revolution. Americans integrated technologies of the Industrial Revolution into a new profitable market economy. Steam power moved steamboats and railroads, fueled the rise of American industry by powering mills and sparking new national transportation networks. Alexis de Tocqueville said on his first visit to America: ”No sooner do you set foot on American soil and you will see how everything is on the move around you.” This is considered a bold term that conjures up images of radical transformation within the American economy. However, not everybody enthusiastically participated in the new market …show more content…

The economic transformation produced an explosive growth in the nation’s output and trade and a rise in the general standard of living, but in the Northeast it just grew the inequality between citizens. Alarmed at the threat of being reduced to the status of dependent wage earners, skilled craftsmen in the late 1820s created the world’s first Workingmen’s Parties, short-lived political organizations that sought to mobilize lower-class support for candidates who would press for social issues in favor of the country. In 1833, journeymen carpenters struck for higher wages and warned of more protest to come. Such actions and language were not confined to male workers; the young mill women of Lowell also walked off their jobs in 1834 to protest a reduction in wages. The mill women were active through the protests even two years later. Orestes Brownson said that “Emerson’s self-trust, self-reliance, self-control, self-culture- offered an adequate response to social inequality”. (p …show more content…

The Democrats believed that the states should have as much power as possible and that the federal government should only have the powers absolutely necessary for the nation to function. They were against the Protective Tariff and the national bank. They overvalued the individual and believed that anyone can be important. This message was well received by small farmers and factory workers. Slave owners also favored this message, fearing that the federal government might try to end slavery. Andrew Jackson also believed that the states should finance turnpikes, canals, and eventually, railroads. When he didn't support many Ohioans who wanted federal government assistance for roads and other forms of transportation, they went against him. In 1834 political opponents of President Andrew Jackson structured a new party to contest Jacksonian Democrats nationally and in the states. Guided by their most prominent leader, Henry Clay, they called themselves Whigs. Whigs united behind the American System, believing that via a protective tariff, a national bank, and aid to internal improvements, the federal government could lead economic development. They were strong in the Northeast, one of the most rapidly modernizing region of the country. Historians have interpreted the Whigs in strikingly different ways. They have been seen as champions of banks, business, corporations, economic growth, the positive liberal state,

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