Social Change From 1815 To 1860

Sean Lee. Ignoring the institution of slavery, look at the social change between 1815-1860, How did the US change socially and for what reason?

During the period from 1815 to 1860, the North began to modernize into a market society, a process that began during the War of 1812 and got along with the westward expansion. In doing so, the North became distinctly different from the South which, developed more clearly into a slave society during the same period. We first look how the US – typically the North change socially then turn to a discussion of for what reason it did so.

As the North began the transition from a society with markets to a market society, the lives of farmers and artisans began to change. The farmers became commercial

The Irish were refugees from disaster, fleeing the Irish potato famine. They filled many low-wage unskilled jobs in America. German immigrants included a considerably larger number of skilled craftsmen as compared to Irish immigrants. Many Germans established themselves in the West, including Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Milwaukee or the "German Triangle." The heterogeneity that had been a distinctive characteristic of American society since colonial times became more pronounced as some five million immigrants poured into the nation between 1830 and 1860. The Irish and Germans were numerically the two major immigrant groups during this period. These immigrants often faced the prejudice in American society. They were blamed for urban crime, political corruption, alcohol abuses, and undercutting wages. The growth of immigration caused the rise of nativism. The influx of Irish during the 1840s and 1850s led to violent anti-immigrant backlash in New York City and Philadelphia. Those who feared the impact of immigration on American political and social life were called "nativists."

A second group, free blacks, was allowed, unlike Native Americans, to remain within American society but was not allowed equality of economic, political, or social opportunity within that society. As they faced the daily assaults of white racism, African Americans, like Native Americans,

Manifest destiny in national myth and ideology long inspired the West to remain "the last home of the freeborn American. The West was vital for economic independence, the social condition of freedom. The transcendentalists like Ralph Waldo Emerson believed that freedom was an open-ended process of self-realization by which individuals could remake themselves and their own lives. Henry David Thoreau worried that the market revolution actually stifled individual judgment; genuine freedom lay within the individual. The Second Great Awakening added a religious underpinning to the celebration of personal self-improvement, self-reliance, and self-determination. The Reverend Charles Grandson Finney became a national celebrity for his preaching in upstate New York. Many believed the Second Great Awakening democratized American Christianity. Evangelical denominations (e.g., Methodists and Baptists) grew tremendously with the proliferation of ministers. The Awakening's impact promoted the doctrine of human free will. Revivalist ministers seized the opportunities offered by the market revolution to spread their message. The Limits of Prosperity Liberty and Prosperity Opportunities for the "self-made man" abounded. The market revolution produced a new middle class. Race and Opportunity Free blacks were excluded from the new economic opportunities. Barred from schools and other public