PROGRESS IN THE UNITED STATES BETWEEN 1840 AND 1860
[Illustration: Chicago in 1832]
%403. The Movement of Population.%--The twenty years which elapsed
between the election of Harrison, in 1840, and the election of Lincoln,
in 1860, had seen a most astonishing change in our country. In 1840
neither Texas, nor the immense region afterwards acquired from Mexico,
belonged to us. There were then but twenty-six states and five
territories, inhabited by 17,000,000 people, of whom but 876,000 lived
west of the Mississippi River, mostly close to the river bank in
Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana. The great Northwest was still a
wilderness, and many a city now familiar to us had no existence. Toledo
and Milwaukee and Indianapolis had each less than 3000 inhabitants;
Chicago had less than 5000; and Cleveland, Columbus, and Detroit, each
less than 10,000. Yet the rapid growth of cities had been one of the
characteristics of the period 1830 to 1840.
The effect of new mechanical appliances on the movement of population
was amazing. The day when emigrants settled along the banks of streams,
pushed their boats up the rivers by means of poles, carried their goods
on the backs of pack horses, and floated their produce in Kentucky
broadhorns down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans, was fast
disappearing. The steamboat, the canal, the railroad, had opened new
possibilities. Land once valueless as too far from market suddenly
became valuable. Men grew loath to live in a wilderness; the rush of
emigrants across the Mississippi was checked. The region between the
Alleghanies and the great river began to fill up rapidly. During the
twenty years, 1821 to 1841, but two states, Arkansas (1836) and Michigan
(1837), were admitted to the Union, and but three new territories,
Florida (1822-23), Wisconsin (1836), and Iowa (1838), were established.
So few people went west from the Atlantic seaboard states that in each
one of them except Maine and Georgia population increased more rapidly
than it had ever done for forty years. From the Mississippi valley
states, however, numbers of people went to Wisconsin and Iowa.
In consequence of this, Iowa was admitted to the Union in 1846, and
Wisconsin in 1848. Minnesota and Oregon were made territories. Florida
and Texas had been admitted in 1845, and the number of states was thus
raised to thirty before 1850. The population of the country in 1850 was
23,000,000. Two states in the Mississippi valley now had each of them
more than a million of inhabitants.
%404. The First States on the Pacific.%--Until 1840 the people had
moved westward steadily. Each state as it was settled had touched some
other east, or north, or south of it. After 1840 people, attracted by
the rich farming land and pleasant climate of Oregon, and after 1848 by
the gold mines of California, rushed across the plains to the Pacific,
and between 1850 and 1860 built up the states of California and Oregon
(1859), and the territory of Washington (1853). Minnesota was admitted
in 1858. The population of the United States in 1860 was 31,000,000.
[Illustration: %DISTRIBUTION OF THE POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES
SEVENTH CENSUS, 1850%]
%405. Immigration to the United States since 1820.%--The people whose
movements across our continent we have been following were chiefly
natives of the United States. But we have reached the time when
foreigners began to arrive by hundreds of thousands every year. From the
close of the Revolution to 1820, it is thought not more than 250,000 of
the Old World people came to us. But the hard times in Europe, which
followed the disbanding of the great armies which had been fighting
France and Napoleon from 1789 to 1815, started a general movement.
Beginning at 10,000, in 1820, more and more came every year till, in
1842, 100,000 people--men, women, and children--landed on our shore.
This was the greatest number that had ever come in one year. But it was
surpassed in 1846, when the potato famine in Ireland, and again in 1853,
when hard times in Germany, and another famine in Ireland, sent over two
immense streams of emigrants. In 1854 no less than 428,000 persons came
from the Old World; more than ever came again in one year till 1872.
%406. Modern Conveniences.%--When we compare the daily life of the
people in 1850 with that of the men of 1825, the contrast is most
striking. The cities had increased in number, grown in size, and greatly
changed in appearance. The older ones seemed less like villages. Their
streets were better paved and lighted. Omnibuses and street cars were
becoming common. The constable and the night watch had given way to the
police department. Gas and plumbing were in general use. The free school
had become an American institution, and many of the numberless
inventions and discoveries which have done so much to increase our
happiness, prosperity, and comfort, existed at least in a rude form.
Between 1840 and 1850 nearly 7000 miles of railroad were built, making a
total mileage of 9000. This rapid spread of the railroad, when joined
with the steamboats, then to be found on every river and lake within the
settled area, made possible an institution which to-day renders
invaluable service.
%407. Express Companies.%--In 1839 a young man named W.F. Harnden
began to carry packages, bundles, money, and small boxes between New
York and Boston, and thus started the express business. At first he
carried in a couple of carpet bags all the packages intrusted to him,
and went by boat from New York to Stonington, Conn., and thence by rail
to Boston. But his business grew so rapidly that in 1840 a rival express
was started by P. B. Burke and Alvin Adams. Their route was from Boston
to Springfield, Mass., and thence to New York. This was the foundation
of the present Adams Express Company. Both companies were so well
patronized that in 1841 service was extended to Philadelphia and Albany,
and in 1844 to Baltimore and Washington. Their example was quickly
followed by a host of imitators, and soon a dozen express companies were
doing business between the great cities.
%408. Postage Stamps introduced.%--At that time (1840) three cents
was the postage for a local letter which was not delivered by a carrier.
Indeed, there were no letter carriers, and this in large cities was such
an inconvenience that private dispatch companies undertook to deliver
letters about the city for two cents each; and to accommodate their
customers they issued adhesive stamps, which, placed on the letters,
insured their delivery. The loss of business to the government caused by
these companies, and the general demand for quicker and cheaper mail
service, forced Congress to revise the postal laws in 1845, when an
attempt was made to introduce the use of postage stamps by the
government. As the mails (in consequence of the growth of the country
and the easy means of transportation) were becoming very heavy, the
postmasters in the cities and important towns had already begun to have
stamps printed at their own cost. Their purpose was to save time, for
letter postage was frequently (but not always) prepaid. But instead of
fixing a stamp on the envelope (there was no such thing in 1840), the
writer sent the letter to the post office and paid the postage in money,
whereupon the postmaster stamped the letter "Paid." This consumed the
time of the postmaster and the letter writer. But when he could go once
to the post office and prepay a hundred letters by buying a hundred
stamps, any one of which affixed to a letter was evidence that its
postage had been paid, any man who wanted to could save his time. These
stamps the postmasters sold at a little more than the expense of
printing. Thus the postmasters of New York and St. Louis charged one
dollar for nine ten-cent or eighteen five-cent stamps. This increased
the price of postage a trifle: but as the use of the stamps was
optional, the burden fell on those willing to bear it, while the
convenience was so great that the effort made to have the Post-office
Department furnish the stamps and require the people to use them
succeeded in 1847.
[Illustration: St. Louis postage stamp]
%409. Mechanical Improvements.%--No American need be told that his
fellow-countrymen are the most ingenious people the world has ever
known. But we do not always remember that it was during this period
(1840-1860) that the marvelous inventive genius of the people of the
United States began to show itself. Between the day when the patent
office was established, in 1790, and 1840, the number of patents issued
was 11,908; but after 1840 the stream poured forth increased in volume
nearly every year. In 1855 there were 2012 issued and reissued; in 1856,
2506; in 1857, 2896; in 1858, 3695; and in 1860, 4778, raising the total
number to 43,431. An examination of these inventions shows that they
related to cotton gins and cotton presses; to reapers and mowers; to
steam engines; to railroads; to looms; to cooking stoves; to sewing
machines, printing presses, boot and shoe machines, rubber goods, floor
cloths, and a hundred other things. Very many of them helped to increase
the comfort of man and raise the standard of living. Three of them,
however, have revolutionized the industrial and business world and been
of inestimable good to mankind. They are the sewing machine, the reaper
and the electric telegraph.
[Illustration: The first Howe sewing machine]
%410. The Sewing Machine.%--As far back as the year 1834, Walter Hunt
made and sold a few sewing machines in New York. But the man to whose
genius, perseverance, and unflinching zeal the world owes the sewing
machine, is Elias Howe. His patent was obtained in 1846, and he then
spent four years in poverty and distress trying to convince the world of
the utility of his machine. By 1850 he succeeded not only in interesting
the public, but in so arousing the mechanical world that seven rivals
(Wheeler and Wilson, Grover and Baker, Wilcox and Gibbs, and Singer)
entered the field. To the combined efforts of them all, we owe one of
the most useful inventions of the century. It has lessened the cost of
every kind of clothing; of shoes and boots; of harness; of everything,
in short, that can be sewed. It has given employment to millions of
people, and has greatly added to the comfort of every household in the
civilized world.
[Illustration: The Wilson sewing machine of 1850]
%411. The Harvester.%--Much the same can be said of the McCormick
reaper. It was invented and patented as early as 1831; but it was hard
work to persuade the farmer to use it. Not a machine was sold till
1841. During 1841, 1842, 1843, such as were made in the little
blacksmith shop near Steel's Tavern, Virginia, were disposed of with
difficulty. Every effort to induce manufacturers to make the machine was
a failure. Not till McCormick had gone on horseback among the farmers of
Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and secured written orders for
his reapers, did he persuade a firm in Cincinnati to make them. In 1845,
five hundred were manufactured; in 1850, three thousand. In 1851
McCormick placed one on exhibition at the World's Fair in London, and
astonished the world with its performance. To-day two hundred thousand
are turned out annually, and without them the great grain fields of the
middle West and the far West would be impossible. The harvester has
cheapened the cost of bread, and benefited the whole human race.
%412. The Telegraph.%--Think, again, what would be our condition if
every telegraph line in the world were suddenly pulled down. Yet the
telegraph, like the reaper and the sewing machine, was introduced
slowly. Samuel F. B. Morse got his patent in 1837; and for seven years,
helped by Alfred Vail, he struggled on against poverty. In 1842 he had
but thirty-seven cents in the world. But perseverance conquers all
things; and with thirty thousand dollars, granted by Congress, the first
telegraph line in the world was built in 1844 from Baltimore to
Washington. In 1845 New York and Philadelphia were connected; but as
wires could not be made to work under water, the messages were received
on the New Jersey side of the Hudson and carried to New York by boat. By
1856 the telegraph was in use in the most populous states. Some forty
companies, but one of which paid dividends, competed for the business.
This was ruinous; and in 1856 a union of Western companies was formed
and called the Western Union Telegraph Company. To-day it has 21,000
offices, sends each year some 58,000,000 messages, receives about
$23,000,000, and does seven eighths of all the telegraph business in the
United States.
%413. India Rubber.%--The same year (1844) which witnessed the
introduction of the telegraph saw the perfection of Goodyear's secret
for the vulcanization of India rubber. In 1820 the first pair of rubber
shoes ever seen in the United States were exhibited in Boston. Two years
later a ship from South America brought 500 pairs of rubber shoes. They
were thick, heavy, and ill-shaped; but they sold so rapidly that more
were imported, and in 1830 a cargo of raw gum was brought from South
America for the purpose of making rubber goods. With this C. M. Chaffee
went to work and succeeded in producing some pieces of cloth spread with
rubber. Supposing the invention to be of great value, a number of
factories[1] began to make rubber coats, caps, wagon curtains, of pure
rubber without cloth. But to the horror of the companies the goods
melted when hot weather came, and were sent back, emitting so dreadful
an odor that they had to be buried. It was to overcome this and find
some means of hardening the gum that Goodyear began his experiments and
labored year after year against every sort of discouragement. Even when
the secret of vulcanizing, as it is called, was discovered, five years
passed before he was able to conduct the process with absolute
certainty. In 1844, after ten years of labor, he succeeded and gave to
the world one of the most useful inventions of the nineteenth century.
[Footnote 1: At Roxbury, Boston, Framingham, Salem, Lynn, Chelsea, Troy,
and Staten Island.]
%414. The Photograph; the Discovery of Anaesthesia.%--But there were
other inventions and discoveries of almost as great or even greater
value to mankind. In 1840 Dr. John W. Draper so perfected the
daguerreotype that it could be used to take pictures of persons and
landscapes. Till then it could be used only to make pictures of
buildings and statuary.
The year 1846 is made yet more memorable by the discovery that whoever
inhaled sulphuric ether would become insensible to pain. The glory of
this discovery has been claimed for two men: Dr. Morton and Dr. Jackson.
Which one is entitled to it cannot be positively decided, though Dr.
Morton seems to have the better right to be considered the discoverer.
Before this, however, anaesthesia by nitrous oxide (laughing gas) had
been discovered by Dr. Wells of Hartford, Conn., and by Dr. Long
of Georgia.
%415. Communication with Europe; Steamships%.--Progress was not
confined to affairs within our boundary. Communications with Europe were
greatly advanced. The passage of the steamship _Savannah_ across the
Atlantic, partly by steam and partly by sail, in 1819, resulted in
nothing practical. The wood used for fuel left little space for freight.
But when better machinery reduced the time, and coal afforded a less
bulky fuel, the passage across the Atlantic by steam became possible,
and in 1838 two vessels, the _Sirius_ and the _Great Western_, made the
trip from Liverpool to New York by steam alone. No sails were used. This
showed what could be done, and in 1839 Samuel Cunard began the great
fleet of Atlantic greyhounds by founding the Cunard Line. Aided by the
British government, he drove all competitors from the field, till
Congress came to the aid of the Collins Line, whose steamers made the
first trip from New York to Liverpool in 1850. The rivalry between these
lines was intense, and each did its best to make short voyages. In 1851
the average time from Liverpool to New York was eleven days, eight
hours, for the Collins Line, and eleven days, twenty-three hours, for
the Cunard. This was considered astonishing; for Liverpool and New York
were thus brought as near each other in point of time in 1851 as Boston
and Philadelphia were in 1790.
%416. The Atlantic Cable%.--But something more astonishing yet was at
hand. In 1854 Mr. Cyrus W. Field of New York was asked to aid in the
construction of a submarine cable to join St. Johns with Cape Ray,
Newfoundland. While considering the matter, he became convinced that if
a cable could be laid across the Gulf of St. Lawrence, another could be
laid across the Atlantic Ocean, and he formed the "New York,
Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company" for the purpose of doing
so. The first attempt, made in 1857, and a second in 1858, ended in
failure; but a third, in 1858, was successful, and a cable was laid from
Valentia Bay in Ireland to Trinity Bay in Newfoundland, a distance of
1700 geographical miles. For three weeks all went well, and during this
time 400 messages were sent; but on September 1, 1858, the cable ceased
to work, and eight years passed before another attempt was made to join
the Old World and the New.
%417. Condition of the Workingman%.--Every class of society was
benefited by these improvements, but no man more so than those who
depended on their daily wages for their daily bread. Though wages
increased but little, they were more easily earned and brought richer
returns. Improved means of transportation, cheaper methods of
manufacture, enabled every laborer in 1860 to wear better clothes and
eat better food than had been worn or consumed by his father in 1830.
New industries, new trades and occupations, new needs in the business
world, afforded to his son and daughter opportunities for a livelihood
unknown in his youth, while the free school system enabled them to fit
themselves to use such opportunities without cost to him. When our
country became independent, and for fifty years afterwards, a working
day was from sunrise to sunset, with an hour for breakfast and another
for dinner. After manufactures arose, and mills and factories gave
employment to thousands of wage earners, fourteen, fifteen, and even
sixteen hours of labor were counted a day. Protests were early made
against this, and demands raised that a working day should be ten hours.
At last, late in the thirties, the ten hours system was adopted in
Baltimore, and in 1840, by order of President Van Buren, was put in
force at the navy yard in Washington and in "all public establishments"
under the Federal government. Thus established, the system spread
slowly, till to-day it exists almost everywhere. Indeed, in many states,
and in all departments of the Federal government, eight hours of work
constitute a day. Thus, by the aid of machinery, not only are articles,
formerly expensive, made so cheaply that poor men can afford to use
them, but the wage earners who operate the machinery can make these
articles so quickly that they to-day earn higher wages for fewer hours
of work than ever before in the history of the world. Not only did wages
increase and the hours of labor grow shorter between 1840 and 1860, but
the field of labor was enormously expanded. In 1810, when the first
census of manufactures in the United States was taken, the value of
goods manufactured was $173,000,000. In 1860 it was ten times as great,
and gave employment to more than 1,000,000 men and women.
%418. Few Manufactures in the Slave States%.--From much of the
benefit produced by this splendid series of inventions and discoveries,
the people of the slave-owning states were shut out. They raised corn,
tobacco, and cotton, and made some sugar; but in them there were very
few mills or manufacturing establishments of any sort. While a great
social and industrial revolution was going on in the free states, the
people in the slave states remained in 1860 what they were in 1800. The
stream of immigrants from Europe passed the slave states by, carrying
their skill, their thrift, their energy, into the Northwest. The
resources of the slave states were boundless, but no free man would go
in to develop them. The soil was fertile, but no free laborer could live
on it and compete with slave labor, on which all agriculture, all
industry, all prosperity, in the South depended. The two sections of the
country at the end of the period 1840-1860 were thus more unlike
than ever.
SUMMARY
1. Between 1830 and 1850 the rush of population into the West continued,
but, instead of moving across the continent, most of the people settled
in the states already in existence.
2. This was due to the effect of such improved means of communication as
steamboats, railroads, canals, etc.
3. As a consequence, but six new states were admitted to the Union in
twenty-nine years, and one of them was annexed (Texas).
4. The period is also noticeable for the number of foreigners who came
to our shores.
5. After 1849 the existence of gold in California brought so many people
to the Pacific coast that California became a state in 1850.
6. As population grew denser, and transportation was facilitated by the
expansion of railroads and steamboats and canals, business opportunities
were increased, and new markets were created.
7. Labor-saving and time-saving machines and appliances became more in
demand than ever, and a long list of remarkable inventions and business
aids appeared.
8. The South, owing to its own peculiar industrial and labor condition,
was little benefited by all these improvements, and remained much the
same as in 1800.
CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY, 1840-1860.
_The People_.
Immigration Causes.
Number of immigrants.
No. of people in 1840. 17,000,000
U. S. 1850. 23,000,000
1860. 31,000,000
Movement New States Arkansas, 1836. Slave.
Westward .. Michigan, 1837. Free.
Florida, 1845. Slave.
Texas, 1845. Slave.
Iowa, 1846. Free.
Wisconsin, 1848. Free.
California, 1850. Free.
Minnesota, 1858. Free.
Oregon, 1859. Free.
Territories New Mexico, 1850.
Utah, 1850.
Washington, 1853.
Kansas, 1854.
Nebraska, 1854.
_New Social and Business Conveniences._
Gas.
Plumbing.
Paved streets.
General use of anthracite.
Free schools.
Railroad expansion.
Express.
Postage stamps.
Ocean steamships.
_New Inventions._
Number of patents.
The sewing machine.
The harvester.
The telegraph.
India rubber.
Daguerreotype.
Anaesthesia.
Atlantic cable.
_The South._
Little affected by new industrial conditions.
Few manufactures.
Increase of the cotton area.
No immigration.