Question

what was the “Market Revolution”? What was the driving force behind it?

Topics that you might want to include are

• The growth of the cotton sector
• “Revolutions” in transportation and communication
• Changes in agriculture (broadly conceived)
• The impact of the legal system, especially the Supreme Court, on the Market Revolution

Other developments you think important that flowed from the Market Revolution

Write Essay

Answer 1

Q- What was the " Market Revolution"?

Answer- The Market Revolution, which occurred in 19th century United States, is a historical model which argues that there was a drastic change of the economy that disoriented and coordinated all aspects of the market economy in line with both nations and the world. The Market Revolution of the nineteenth century radically shifted commerce as well as the way of life for most Americans.

The Market Revolution (1793–1909) in the United States was a drastic change in the manual-labor system originating in the South (and soon moving to the North) and later spreading to the entire world. Traditional commerce was made obsolete by improvements in transportation, communication, and industry. With the growth of large-scale domestic manufacturing, trade within the United States increased, and dependence on foreign imports declined. The dramatic changes in labor and production at this time included a great increase in wage labor. The agricultural explosion in the South and West and the textile boom in the North strengthened the economy in complementary ways.

What was the driving force behind it?

The Market Revolution (1793–1909) in the United States was a drastic change in the manual-labor system originating in the South (and soon moving to the North) and later spreading to the entire world. Traditional commerce was made obsolete by improvements in transportation, communication, and industry.

The growth of the cotton sector?

Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin in 1793 resulted in massive growth in the cotton industry in the American South.

Cotton in the South

In the antebellum era—that is, in the years before the Civil War—American planters in the South continued to grow Chesapeake tobacco and Carolina rice as they had in the colonial era. Cotton, however, emerged as the antebellum South’s major commercial crop, eclipsing tobacco, rice, and sugar in economic importance.

The Cotton Gin

In 1793, Eli Whitney revolutionized the production of cotton when he invented the cotton gin, a device that separated the seeds from raw cotton. Suddenly, a process that was extraordinarily labor-intensive when done by hand could be completed quickly and easily. The cotton gin (short for "cotton engine") quickly and easily separated cotton fibers from their seeds, a job that otherwise had to be performed painstakingly by hand—most often by slaves. Whitney's introduction of "teeth" in his cotton gin to comb out the cotton and separate the seeds revolutionized this process. With the invention of Whitney's cotton gin, cotton became a tremendously profitable industry, creating many fortunes in the antebellum South. American plantation owners, who were searching for a successful staple crop to compete on the world market, found it in cotton.

Domestic and International Markets

As a commodity, cotton had the advantage of being easily stored and transported. A demand for it already existed in the industrial textile mills in Great Britain, and in time, a steady stream of slave-grown American cotton would also supply northern textile mills. Southern cotton, picked and processed by American slaves, helped fuel the nineteenth-century Industrial Revolution in both the United States and Great Britain.New Orleans, Louisiana, and Galveston, Texas, were shipping points that derived substantial economic benefit from cotton raised throughout the South. Cotton soon became the primary export in the United States, and by 1860, on the eve of the Civil War, the southern states were providing two-thirds of the world's supply of cotton.Additionally, the development of large-scale mills and metal machine tools dramatically increased textile production in northern mill towns in the early 1800s. Though cotton was primarily grown for export to Europe, this textile boom in New England created an important domestic market for southern cotton producers.

Cotton, Slavery, and the Civil War

Due to its profound effect on American slavery, the growth of the cotton industry is frequently cited as one of the causes of the American Civil War. The number of slaves rose in concert with the increase in cotton production, increasing from approximately 700,000 in 1790 to roughly 3.2 million in 1850. A congressional ban on the importation of slaves from Africa in 1808 only increased the demand for domestic slaves on cotton plantations, hindering the work of abolitionists who sought to end slavery. The domestic slave trade exploded, providing economic opportunities for whites involved in many aspects of the trade and increasing the possibility of slaves’ dislocation and separation from kin and friends.

“Revolutions” in transportation and communication ?

In the nineteenth century, the construction of roads, rails, and canals dramatically improved national mobility.

Advances in Transportation

In the late eighteenth century, the U.S. population was centered on the Atlantic coast, with all major population centers located on natural harbors or navigable waterways. Water and river transportation were central to the national economy, while most overland transportation was by horse, which made it difficult to move large quantities of goods. By 1803, the country was growing rapidly with the admission of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio; however, the only means of transportation between these landlocked western states and their coastal neighbors was by foot, pack animal, or ship.During the nineteenth century, transportation routes and means of transport underwent dramatic changes, greatly increasing national mobility. New and improved transportation technology made it easier and faster to transport goods: first national roads, then canals, and finally the railroad revolution.

Roads

In eighteenth-century America, roads were privately built, and the government played little role in their construction. Early toll roads were constructed and owned by joint-stock companies that sold stock to raise construction capital. As the nation expanded, however, the government came to see the transportation network as a public good worthy of government support.In 1808, a government-sponsored Report on the Subject of Public Roads and Canals suggested that the federal government should fund the construction of interstate turnpikes and canals. The suggestion was controversial: Anti-Federalists opposed expanding government power, but many others were persuaded by the compelling need for overland roads for military operations as well as for general commerce. Following the report, work began on a National Road to connect the west to the eastern seaboard. In 1815, construction on the National Road (also known as the “Cumberland Road”) began in Cumberland, Maryland; by 1818, the road had reached Wheeling, West Virginia (then part of Virginia). Though political strife ultimately prevented its western advance to the Mississippi River, this road became the gateway for thousands of westward-bound antebellum settlers

Canals

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, economic expansion spurred the building of canals to speed goods to market. Among the most important of these canals was the Erie Canal. First proposed in 1807, the Erie Canal waterway was constructed from 1817 to 1825 and was the first transportation system between New York City and the western interior of the United States. Extending from Albany, New York, on the Hudson River to Buffalo, New York, the canal cut transport costs by about 95 percent.The Erie Canal made an immense contribution to the wealth and importance of New York City, which became the chief U.S. port, and it fostered a population surge in western New York State. It also served to increase trade throughout the nation by opening eastern and overseas markets to midwestern farm products, and it opened regions farther west to settlement. The success of the Erie Canal led to a proliferation of smaller canal routes in the region.

Railroads

Canals radically improved transportation, but their reign was short-lived. By the mid-nineteenth century, the canal boom was brought to a sudden end by the rapid expansion of railroads. Railroads provided a quick, scheduled, and year-round mode of transportation. Railroads were superior to water routes in that they provided a safer, less hazardous mode of transport.Beginning in 1826, several states chartered railroads, including Massachusetts, New York, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania. The most prominent early railroad was the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O), which linked the port of Baltimore to the Ohio River and offered passenger and freight service as of 1830.

A Communications Revolution

The United States experienced a communication revolution in in the early 1800s, during which the penny press and the electrical telegraph emerged. Advances in forms of communications greatly expanded in the United States during the early 1800s. The penny press and the electrical telegraph were among the innovations that emerged during this communications revolution.

Newspapers

In the early 1800s, newspapers were largely meant for the elite. They generally took two forms: mercantile sheets intended for the business community, which contained ship schedules, wholesale product prices, advertisements, and some foreign news; and political newspapers, which were controlled by political parties or their editors as a means of sharing their views with elite stakeholders. Journalists reported the party line and editorialized in favor of party positions.Mass production of inexpensive newspapers became possible due to the shift from handcrafted printing to steam-powered printing. In 1833, the first “penny paper,” the Sun, was founded in New York. Penny papers—specifically targeting the working class urban population—quickly became widespread. The cheap sensationalized news sources covered crime, tragedy, adventure, and gossip, and these newspapers easily shifted allegiance on political issues. The changes made during the Penny Press era set the standards for all future newspapers, and those standards are still implemented today.

Electrical Telegraph

In 1836, Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail developed an electrical telegraph capable of transmitting text messages over long distances using wire. Together, they developed the Morse code signaling alphabet system.n 1843, the U.S. Congress appropriated $30,000 to fund an experimental telegraph line from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, Maryland. In May of 1844, Morse made the first public demonstration of his telegraph, sending the famous message, “What hath God wrought?” The Morse-Vail telegraph was quickly deployed in the following two decades. Improved communication systems fostered the development of business, economics, and politics by allowing for dissemination of news at a speed previously unknown.

Changes in agriculture (broadly conceived) ?

New technologies rapidly transformed and commercialized the agricultural sector in the American South and West.During the Market Revolution, agriculture in the United States began to shift from subsistence farming to larger commercial operations.This shift in agriculture catered to emerging domestic and international markets, mirroring a movement away from local markets.Commercialized agriculture transformed the South and West: Cotton produced on Southern plantations became the largest U.S. export, and wheat production in the West became a major industry following the invention of the mechanical reaper in the 1830s.Despite tensions between the North and South, the rise of urban and industrial centers in the North created an important market for agricultural producers in the South and West.

From Subsistence Farming to Commercial Agriculture

Prior to the Revolutionary War, agriculture created the livelihood for 90 percent of the population. The majority of farms were geared toward subsistence production for family use. Small landowning family farmers, the yeomen ideal of Jeffersonian democracy, were prevalent at the turn of the nineteenth century in both the North and South. Landowning yeomen were typically subsistence farmers, but some also grew crops for market.

Farming in the South and West

During the early half of the nineteenth century, new technologies and expanding markets transformed the landscape of farming and gave rise to commercial agriculture. Cotton, for example, was one of the first and most extensively commercialized crops. Following the invention of the cotton gin in the late 1790s, cotton came to dominate southern plantations and became the quintessential example of a commercialized crop. The rapid growth of the textile industry in Britain created a major demand for cotton fiber, and by 1840, this plantation crop represented two-thirds of all American exports. After 1810, the emerging textile mills in New England also produced a heavy demand for the crop. Cotton prices continued to increase as the South remained the primary supplier in the world. Cotton was generally produced on plantations ranging from South Carolina westward, and production relied upon slave labor, thus greatly strengthening the institution of slavery in the South.

International and Domestic Markets

International markets were important for commercial agriculture, especially for cotton. This global trade was facilitated by improvements in shipping and transportation. At the same time, U.S. industrialization and urbanization in the North opened up lucrative domestic markets for American farmers. For example, the textile mills of New England created a new market for Southern cotton planters. Farmers in the West were producing more wheat than the West could consume, and crop surpluses were sold to the manufacturing Northeast.

Effects on Agriculture

The commercialization of agriculture changed the economic base for the South and West. Though the country remained regionally specialized, with the North and South divided by sectional ideology, the growth in commercial agriculture pushed farmers in the South and West away from subsistence agriculture and production for local markets toward a nationally integrated market.

The impact of the Supreme Court on the Market Revolution

The United States Supreme Court began to decide the balance that must exist between the rights of the individual and that of a private business. In 1837, the Supreme Court decided in Charles River Bridge v Warren Bridge (1837) the needs of the public outweighed the rights of a private business. A later Supreme Court decision in Munn v Illinois (1871) further solidified the government’s ability to regulate private business as the courts ruled against the railroads citing public interest grounds under the government’s ability to regulate interstate trade. Federal legislation such as the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890 and then the Clayton Anti-Trust Act of 1914 would challenge the dominant trusts that would later form from the economic progress and innovations of the Market Revolution.