Wage Workers and the Labor Movement

The Industrial Revolution changed the nature of work by giving employees minor control over their working conditions. Wageworkers such as carpenters, stonecutters, and cabinentmakers had specialized skills and worried about their increasing length of their workday. Their employers demanded even longer days during the summer and in result 600 carpenters went on strike in Boston. Although this strike failed, carpenters in Philadelphia won a similar strike and founded the Working Men's Party, which wanted the abolition of banks, equal taxation, and universal public education.
Artisans such as shoesmakers, printers, furniture makers, and weavers, were in danger of unemployment due to industrialization in factories. The new industrial system divided the artisan class into self-employed craftsmen and wage-earning workers. Wage earners merged together to form unions to protest for better working conditions and higher pay. Union leaders proposed a labor theory of value which stated that the price of a good should reflect the labor required to make it and most of the money should go to the producer. Women were equally as active in protesting better wages. By the 1850's, machines produced more and more goods, and the need for employees decreased prompting employers to lay off workers.

The Division of Labor and the Factory

In attempting to keep up with British competition, factories became more modernized. There were more machines doing the work that used to be done by several workers. This made the laborers in America worth much less. The first strategy of the Americans was to make improved replicas of British machines to replace workers, and the second was to find less expensive workers. This resulted in men losing their jobs to machines, and many more to women and children. This gave women a new sense of freedom and autonomy and made American products available at lower costs, taking business from the British market. Overall did the good outweigh the bad in this situation? Was the improvement on the American economy worth the growing division of classes, and was it fair to the American people?

Women and The Second Great Awakening

The second great awakening allowed women to become increasingly prominent in the churches. Women began founding new sects, and charitable foundations (Society of Promoting Christian Knowledge, Relief of Poor Widows). Because women were excluded politically, they evolved in the churches. Some churches consisted of over 70 percent women. This new religious activism created a reliance on women in churches, and preached of female virtue which led to greater moral and self discipline among women.

Many men contested to this new authority women were claiming spiritually. Some Baptist churches began to deny women the right to vote on church dealings, and others claimed that women should have no say in the churches and that their place was taking care of the home.

Women reacted by founding associations that encouraged raising Christian children and publishing popularly read newsletters among women. Emma Willard opened the Middlebury Female Seminary, where girls were able to receive an education. This new development led to women teaching in the schools. Although they accepted a much lower pay than men, this was a huge step for American women and exhibited the gradual rise to power for women.

The Missouri Compromise

With the addition of the land that was added to the United States, allowed for the new territories to become part of the Union. But, because of the differences between the North and South, the opinions of the policies of the new states differed. The north was strongly against slavery, while the south was for it.

The Northern part of the United States was against letting a new slave state into the Union. When Missouri applied to become one, they we blocked out by the House of Representatives. The south fought back with an argument that Congress could not dictate a policy that didn’t apply to other states before them. They also believe that slavery was under state law, and not the Federal government. The north and south came to an agreement thanks to Henry Clay in 1820. He proposed the Missouri compromise which allowed Missouri to enter the union as a slave state. The compromise comes into play with Maine entering to, as a non-slave state and the rest of the Louisiana Purchase, north of a certain line of latitude, prohibited from slavery. With the emancipation of slavery in other states, was it alright to let another slave state into the union at that time?

The Second Great Awakening

The Second Great Awakening had a major impact on America. For some it gave hope. For others it had a negative effect. For most it meant a new revival for religion. It effected all classes of society, all races, and all sexes.
The Second Great awakening affected what churches had the most members. Methodists and Baptist became the most popular of the religions. The American people started to prefer a religion with a more democratic system unlike the Catholic and Episcopal Churches who had hierarchies. Also predestination was greatly rejected and people repudiated the old Calvinist doctrines.
The African American population in the Second Great awakening saw God as a warrior who would free them. The compared themselves to the Jews who were saved from slavery in Egypt. This also led to slaves uprising and disobeying the elite planters.
The new forms of religion was disruptive to males in their household and the planter elites. Woman also began to take a greater part in the church. Evangelical religion offered salvation for. It didn’t matter whether you are black or white, male or female; you could be saved. This greatly effected the patriarchal household. Woman started to demand more equality in their houses. The planter elite was effected by having their slaves revolt and become more disobedient.

Northern and Southern Differences

Besides the geographical differences the northern and southern states had many economical and social differences. The northern states placed a much higher value on education than their southern counterparts. Almost all native born citizens in New England could read and write while nearly one-third of the southerners could not. According to a British visitor, the northern states had "better education, are more intelligent, and better informed".

The biggest difference was the slavery issue. The northern states thought slavery "corrupted society" and led to laziness while in the southern states it was a way of life. As Congress prohibited participation in the Atlantic slave trade and the northern states began to emancipate their slaves the southern states were expanding slave-based agriculture to the lower Mississippi Valley. This expansion caused a need for slave labor which could not legally be filled from outside the country and therefore led to the internal slave trade. This westward expansion led to three more slave states entering the union.

Louisiana Purchase

The Louisiana Purchase was quite possible the most ludicrous American deal in history. It was not only the cheapest land, but it also gave poor farmers a chance to move west and give land to their sons and daughters in dowries. It had an affect on the Native American population as well. Native Americans were forced onto reservations where the land was not good and where game was scarce.
Thomas Jefferson also took over Native American lands by cheating them out of it. He would underprice things and sell too much of that item to the Native American population and then, when the end of the year came, the US would demand that the Native Americans pay off their debt. Since the Native Americans had no currency, the only thing that they could give to pay off their debts was their land. Naturally, they lost everything-even more game for hunting, and the lands that they were using for farming. Some Native Americans were forced by the white settlers to convert to Christianity.

After reading this, could things have been done differently than they were? How would these changes have affected both the past and the present?