The Dynamics of Growth

Study Guide

I.  You should be able to identify and explain the historical significance of the following:

• Samuel Slater

• Cyrus McCormick

• Eli Whitney

• Robert Fulton

• Samuel F.B. Morse

• Catherine Beecher

• John Jacob Astor

II.  You should be able to define and state the historical significance of the following:

• Industrial Revolution

• Transportation Revolution

• Nativism

• Cult of Domesticity

• Cotton Gin

• Turnpikes

• Clipper Ships

• Sewing Machine

• Lowell Method

• Steamboat

III.  You should be able to describe and state the historical significance of the following:

• Clermont

• Ancient Order of Hiberians

• Pony Express

• Tammany Hall

• Order of the Star Spangled Banner

• No Nothing Party

• Erie Canal

• Waltham Plan

• "Lowell Girls"

• Preemption Act of 1830

• Commonwealth vs. Hunt

IV.  Discussion Questions:

• Why did cotton farming expand in the nineteenth century, and what effects
  did the increased production have on the Old South, the Old Southwest, and
  New England? 

• Describe the development and interplay among different means of
  transportation in the antebellum period and show how and why railroads
  eventually became the most-used means of transportation and how the
  growth of transportation helped create a national economy. 

• Describe the features of the Waltham plan and the family system. Why was
  the Waltham plan gradually phased out? 

• Discuss some of the ways in which technology improved urban life in the
  antebellum period. 

• Take two of the major immigrant groups in the United States in the
  antebellum period and compare their circumstances of immigration and
  adaptation to American society. 

• Assess the distribution of wealth in the United States in the decades prior to
  the Civil War and explain the trends in that era; account for the reasons for
  those trends.

• Why did the Northeast lead the South in Industrial production?

• In what ways did the American Government contribute to and promote industrial growth and economic expansion in the early nineteenth century?

• What was the impact of industry, urbanization, and the transportation revolution on American agriculture?

• What was the impact of the industrial revolution on American labor?

• Explain the part played by each of the following in the industrialization of the American economy:

  • technology

  • immigration

  • investment

  • government aid

  • internal improvements

• Compare and contrast the Irish and German immigrants of early nineteenth century America in terms of their motives for leaving Europe, pattern of settlement, impact on American life, and reception by native-born Americans.

V.  Practice Quizzes:

• Bailey's American Pageant

• Tindall and Shi: America: A Narrative History

• Quizzes from Historyteacher.net

• Quiz A

• Quiz B