Antebellum Technology and Progress

Technology and Industry:
The Tools of Progress in Antebellum
America
Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin
It was difficult to make a profit from cotton because
cottonseeds were removed by hand.
Ex.) It took one person an entire day to clean one pound
of cotton.
• Therefore, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in
1793.
Eli Whitney’s cotton gin.
The Impact of the Cotton Gin in the South:
KING COTTON
• Plantation owners
began to earn a lot
of money growing
cotton
•This caused
farmers to increase
their dependency
on slave labor.
Eli Whitney’s Muskets and
Interchangeable Parts
In 1797, The U. S. government
hired Eli Whitney to make
muskets for the army.
He was to have 10,000 guns
ready in two years.
Rather than assemble each gun
by hand, Whitney first made all of
the parts for the muskets
All the parts were exactly the
same and interchangeable
Then, using the same plan for
each musket, he assembled all
the muskets from the parts he
had made
Interchangeable Parts
• Parts that are exactly alike was Eli
Whitney’s idea when he tried to put the
musket together in seconds.
• Machines that produced exactly
matching parts soon became standard
industries
• Made repairs easy
• Used low pay and less skilled workers
Steam Locomotives and Railroads
• Steam locomotive invented in 1814 in England
• First American Steam locomotive was built in 1830’s
• The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was inaugurated in 1830
Revolutionized passenger travel and
cargo transport in the Antebellum Era
The Steam Boat
invented by Robert Fulton
New Inventions – The
Claremont made the 300 mile trip from
New York to Albany and back in 62 hours in 1807.
Steam Engines and Transportation
• The steam boat could move against the
current of the river and the wind
• Led to the growth of cities like New
Orleans and St. Louis
Shreve’s double decker
steamboat and a paddle
wheel in the back 1816 it
went UP the Mississippi River,
against the current
Samuel Morse’s Telegraph…..
The Telegraph
• Long and short
pulses of electricity
along a wire ( dot,
dot dash…--..)
• Took seconds to
communicate to
other cities
• Brought about
national unity!
• ---…---
John Deere’s Steel Plow:
“The Plow that broke the plains”
John Deere’s Steel Plow
• John Deer invented the
light weight steel plow with
a steel cutting edge
• Older cast iron plows were
designed for the light sandy
soil of New England. But
rich clay, like the soil of the
Midwest needed a sharper
blade of steel.
• More farmers moved to the
Midwest with the help of
this new plow.
The Mechanical Reaper
*The Reaper & the
Threshing machines helped
improve agriculture.
*They were made by Cyrus
McCormick in 1834.
*The thresher separated
kernels of wheat from husks.
*The reaper cut ripe grain
quickly.
Colt Revolver 1836
The US Handgun of the
Mexican and Civil War
The Sewing
Machine
Elias Howe
1846
The Spinning Jenny &
Power Loom
Invented in England.
American Textile mills brought many workers & these machines under
one roof in factories powered by water wheels. People left farms for
cities and created the growth of many towns in New England near
rivers to turn the water wheels.
Textile
Mills
helped
towns
grow
rapidly
in New
England
states.
Lowell, Massachusetts 1840’s
Technology, Progress, and the Beginnings of
Industrialization in America -- 1800-1860
• Transportation and Communication advances
worked to physically connect the Nation
• Industrialization was primarily located in the North
• Strengthened economies of Northern states & cities
• Mill towns in New England and upstate New York
• Southern States were still primarily agricultural
• Utilized slave labor to process resources
• The American Manufacturing Sector born
• Textiles, shoes, clothing, arms, tools, housewares