During the “Jacksonian” period America experienced a change to the economic political and social constructs that reaffirmed the nation's perception that they were destined for greatness. Despite this perception, the years after the War of 1812 leading created a “generation of conflict over the republic’s destiny” (Sellers 4). The completion of the Erie Canal was announced in October of 1825 with fanfare and great ceremony. This achievement reduced travel across New York from “weeks to days”(Feller 18). The efficiency of the canal was much higher than expected. It increased the value of land, lowered the cost of goods and increased the flow of immigrants (Feller 19). America was on the brink of a period of innovation that would affect the way families worked and prospered permanently. …show more content…
The changes to the transportation system pushed economic growth as well as shifting many areas from an agrarian subsistence culture, which was “doomed by its own population dynamic” to a market economy (Sellers 17). The market expansion inspired new techniques and development in manufacturing techniques. While most applauded the modernization of the creation of goods, they caused a social dilemma for some. Reverend Timothy Flint worried about the “morals of the children growing up around these cotton mills about the spread of extravagance and luxury” (Feller 30). The factories “exploited efficiently the most vulnerable workers” that were created by the looming farming crisis (Sellers 28). The factories furthered the divide between owner and employees creating “a class division and social strife” that many Americans thought they left behind in Europe (Feller