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Eli Whitney's Economic Impact On The United States

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Prior to the invention of the cotton gin in 1793, slaves had to hand pick over one hundred pounds of cotton per day. New technology, ways of transportation, and innovations in markets had a positive major effect on the United States from 1793 to 1850.
New technology in the U.S. allowed the states to produce goods more efficiently. In 1793, American inventor Eli Whitney created the cotton gin, which allowed slaves in the South to easily separate cotton fiber from the seeds. The economic impact of Whitney’s gin was vast because it enabled slaves to produce over two hundred pounds of cotton per day. In the North, the invention of the Lowell mills spun and wove cotton consequently leading to much faster production and an increase in textile manufacturing. Before the Lowell system, textile manufacturing was much smaller and more individual. Invented in 1837, the steel plow caused farming in the West to become much easier and faster as it broke up the tough Midwest soil. …show more content…

In the South, steamships enabled the Mississippi and Ohio rivers to be “highways” of commerce. They made round-trip shipping goods and products more efficient and self-sufficiency decreased as steamboat transportation increased commercial trading. The Erie Canal in the North stimulated economic growth by decreasing transportation costs and the prices of the good themselves. Canals also encouraged westward expansion and ended isolation in the West. Railroads eventually replaced canals since they were cheaper and faster to build and were essential for America’s economy by linking all the states together and providing access to new land for farming. The Cumberland Road was a major route to the west from Maryland to Illinois. The road changed small western towns into booming commercial

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The Marvelous Eli Whitney Have you ever wondered what material was used to make the clothing you are wearing? Well, a lot of it is cotton. Cotton is a very profitable plant, but it is very hard to take the seeds out of the cotton fibers. So, here came a young man that had just graduated college and devised a machine to take the seeds out of the cotton fibers; the machine was called the “cotton gin.” His machine could help a farmer produce up to fifty pounds a day versus only one pound a day.

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Also, the idea of new farmland in the Old Northwest increased immigration population. This canal demonstrated how long-established local market structures could be “swamped by the emerging behemoth of a continental economy.” This economic development of the Northeast differed from the West because of the Northeast’s availability to resources that the West just didn’t have. However, in the West, their stagecoaches and later the Pony Express created economic development through carrying mail throughout the West, established communication not seen before as this increase of transportation increased. Although this would eventually die out to other forms of communication such as the Morse code, the Pony Express established by the West demonstrates how economic innovation can be created out of nothing also known as dusty, muddy tracks

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2. In what ways did development in transportation bring about economic and social change in the United States in the period 1810-1840? Thesis: The developments in transportation in the early 19th century brought about the completion of new canals and roads, these developments linked the east to the west an example of this on page 161 in amsco is “The completion of the Erie canal in New York state in 1825 was a major event in linking the economies of western farms and eastern cities” This is showing that transportation simulates an economic dependency of the cities on the farms in which they are receiving goods from.

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It revolutionized the cotton industry by making it more profitable. A machine was now used to remove seeds from cotton rather than having to remove them by hand. This allowed more cotton to be processed quicker which made production of cotton more efficient for farmers. Prior to the invention of the cotton gin, slavery was actually dying out in the southern United States due to how labor intensive the removal of seeds from cotton had become.

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468 Words | 2 Pages

During the period of 1815-1860, a Transportation Revolution swept through America (Murrin pg. 293). The improvements in transportation included more and better roads. steamboats, canals, and railroads (Murrin pg. 293). These new railroads were able to connect old communities with previously isolated areas (Murrin pg. 293). In 1815 the United States was a rural area stretching from old settlements on the Atlantic coast to the trans-Appalachian west, with transportation facilities spanning from primitive and nonexistent (Murrin pg. 294).

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220 Words | 1 Pages

The Erie Canal played an enormous part in the economic growth in the United States. The Canal helped to cause an increase in industry along the Hudson River. Now, commercial vessels could travel all the way from the Hudson River to Lake Erie (Doc. 1A). This meant that they could bring goods to the people that couldn’t normally get them, because they were too expensive, or they had no way to get to them. Thousands of settlers began to utilize the Erie Canal to move west (OI).

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With the cotton gin, the farmers could separate cotton faster, so they could grow more cotton. To grow more cotton, more slaves would be need to plant and harvest it. Also, the plantation owners could afford more slaves because their was more cotton that brought it more money. The plantation owners would repeat this cycle as they got more money. They could also borrow money from the banks to buy more land, or slaves.

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1189 Words | 5 Pages

The speculation that the east and west would differ in interests because of their lack of trade and connection was squashed as quick and cheap transportation (relative to the time) is one the strongest bonds one can create (Doc. 1). The national road enabled people to quickly move west as they would no longer have to move through treacherous and unmarked terrain. Once arriving in the west, they would meet other settlers from parts all over the US which directly promoted unification as they would be forced to work together in this new environment. Although the country may be split along political lines such as slavery, almost no one in the country questioned the creation of the national road

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Alexander Hamilton i. Alexander Hamilton was born in 1755 and became one of the leading founding fathers of the United States. He was a strong opinioned federalist. ii. Alexander also became the first Secretary of the Treasury. While being the secretary of the Treasury he wanted to assume states debts into a federal system of tax in order to help get the newly independent country out of debt.

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Before the Transcontinental Railroads there were few lines running West. There was a huge gap of hundreds of miles between many places. After the development of the Transcontinental Railroads manufactured goods as well as people could be quickly transported across the country. Many of the goods needed such as coal, timber, oil and iron could be carried to and from factories and mills. To encourage settlers to inhabits lands purchase prices were low but much of the land was turned over to railroad companies to continue to build additional

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“In 1820, about 58 towns more than 2500 inhabitants; by 1840, there were 126 such towns, located mostly in the Midwest and Northeast.” The fastest growth occurring in areas were near canals, railroads, and roads because of the easy access of raw and manufactured materials. Toward the later 19th century, the settlers began to move west for cheaper property because the land inhabited near the town built around transportation was getting

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The American Revolution, was an inspiration to black people and they’d hoped the words and rules of the Patriots go for them as well. But that wasn’t the case. When all of the Armies had gone away from the land, we were a country of farmers founded by notions of freedom. We had over 700,000 slaves working in the US at its birth.

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Railroads were an alternate to water routes because they were a less dangerous approach of transportation. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which was built in 1830,connected the port of Baltimore to the Ohio River. Settlers moved west quickly due to the aid of The Pacific Railway Act of

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, and as the US expanded further west, the manufacturing of goods increased a considerable amount leading to new innovations. Early Expansion of the United States The Market Economy Large scale manufacturing and commercial agriculture surfaced in America during the early 1800s, which produced a substantial amount of economic growth and raised the American standard of living. Transportation made a major breakthrough with inventions like railroads, steamboats, canal systems, and clipper ships. These improvements led to faster transportation of goods and people (Shi and Tindall 267-270).

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558 Words | 3 Pages

Before the 1800s, there were two early roads, Forbes and Wilderness Road. In 1811, the National Road known as Cumberland Road was built to reach Western settlements, because they needed a road to ship farm products that connect East and West. The National Road passed thousand of wagons and coaches. John F. Stover states in American Railroads, “The rich agricultural production of the country, the small but expanding factories of eastern cities, and the largely untapped natural resources of the nation-all of these called for improvements in transport. ”(Stover1)

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