• Merchants are generally prosperous but city life becomes precarious for most

• Many unskilled laborers, sailors domestic servants, shopkeepers-bare subsistence living (no protection when there is no work or injury)
• Skilled Craftsmen were insecure in their jobs. Make many different products by hand in a home shops
• Bakers, butchers, sail makers, craftsmen generally learned craft from being an apprentice but not being paid –then they worked as journeymen (wage-earning)
• Then became masters of their craft
• This lifestyle is much like subsistence lifestyle (crafts shop gives master security over lives and patriarchal control over family)

• Economic Boom changes roles for craftsmen

• As market entends, comp for craftsmen get higher
• Investors (Merchants) would invest in Craftsmen by putting out industrial outwork. Adv. Business by dividing the craft into many tasks. Easy tasks were given to unskilled laborers and hard stuff would be for the craftsmen (cut the cost of production)
• Craftsmen then open large shops where master craftsmen give work to unskilled laborers and journeymen lose ground (Become like the unskilled laborers)
• As this expands in the NE, need for funding increases which makes it more difficult for people to gain wealth (bigger gap between rich and poor)
• Investors try to continue cutting labor costs which threatens the master craftsmen as well because its more eco to do production on a large scale
• In NY City, builds enormous bakery to get unskilled laborers to work. Puts 300 bakers on the streets. Allows for cheaper bread but also less specialty things

• Industrialization starts in NE in 1791- Samuel Slaytor who build first factory in America –makes cotton –relatively small –powered by water

• Machinery spins cotton fiber into thread.

• Merchants then put out to rural families to weave it
• 1814- First complete cotton factory. Walthan, Mass. Brings all processes to turn cotton into fabrics
• Creates cheap cloth which breaks down subsistence culture. Putting out weaving is no longer an option
• Between 1815-1830, cotton price goes down six fold
• No more looms and spinning wheels are necessary
• (Still not available in NW territories)-all the money is still concentrated on the coast

• Specialized Market Agriculture

• 1820s- major growth in number of country stores where you buy cloth, beef, veggies.
• Shopkeepers increase stock by 45% (carry eggs, butter, beef, bulks of manufactured cloth, sacks of flower, sugar, salt, coffee)
• Increases number of silverware, plates, wallpaper

Hand in Hand-Transportation and Market Revolutions

• Ohio, Penn finish canals

• Build toll roads connecting cities
• Steamboats go from New Orleans to Louisville in 1815
• Dramatic reduction in time and cost to ship and make products
• Idea of Cash Economy is booming because of this from E to W

• In the South

• Cotton is king
• Plantations in deep south were commercialized intensely
• Grew nothing but Cotton (bought everything else)
• Suited for slave labor and climate
• Exploitation of slave labor is systematic and humane
• Still have more discipline but its now paternalistic and humane because it’s a business and its doesn’t make sense to beat those who make your money
• Big plantations operate efficiently and cost effectively
• Small farmers grow cotton too
• Creates a dual-economy
• Most small farmers live away from plantations in up country
• Farmers build a yeoman society (much like the subsistence economy)
• Northern farmers commercialize, Yeoman of south have subsistence agriculture
• Southern Yeoman (large group of them) do mixed farming
• Its subsistence with all the extra being traded off at market
• They own their own land, but few have slaves
• 3 out of 4 don’t have slaves
• Plantation owners are filthy rich, slaves own nothing
• Small number of the Great Planters (2 or 3% of white males) own 50% of the slaves
• Widening gap creates a break in Southern politics
• South is poor market for manufactured goods (Planters get things from Europe)
• No factories in South
• Don’t develop industry which is a bad thing
• In North, there is specialized labor force, industry, technology
• South just creates more slavery which in turn creates greater dependence on outside markets

-Big Difference between the north and the south