Westward Movement

     By the mid-nineteenth century, the American economy that had been based on local commerce and small-scale farming was maturing into a dynamic, wide-reaching capitalist marketplace. As the industrial revolution in the northeast altered the economy and intensified the process of urbanization, an agricultural empire began to emerge in the west.

     By 1860, more than one-half of the American population was located west of the Appalachian Mountains. Conditions along the entire Atlantic seaboard stimulated migration to the western regions. The soil in New England was incapable of producing agricultural crops beyond a subsistence level, resulting in a steady stream of men and women moving west to take advantage of the rich land in the interior of the continent. Many people in the Carolinas, Virginia, and the Deep South also moved westward because they had exhausted the soil. A lot of them moved near the Mississippi River because it provided a means for getting their products to coastal markets.

The Effects of Industry

     Early American factories were usually owned by individuals, families, or partners. As mechanization became more widespread and the scale and complexity of businesses increased, a substantial capital investment was required to open a factory. Although it was a slow process, these factors led more and more firms to “incorporate” ownership.

     Prior to the 1860s, most manufacturing was conducted by unincorporated companies. Organizing a corporation required a special act of a state legislature. Many people believed that only projects that were in the public interest, such as roads, railways, and canals, were entitled to the privilege of incorporation. Businessmen also often viewed corporations as monopolistic and corrupt and as a threat to the individual enterprise. It took years for corporations to be regarded as agencies of free enterprise.

The Growth of Industry

     In the eighteenth century, British inventors perfected a series of machines for mass production of textiles, which initiated the European Industrial Revolution and gave Britain a head start in industrial production. For many years, the British carefully guarded their industrial secrets, forbidding the export of machines or even descriptions of them and restricting the departure of informed mechanics.

     The British could not keep its secrets forever, and in 1789, Samuel Slater left Britain in disguise and arrived in America with the plans in his head for a textile machine that would spin cotton. He contracted with a merchant-manufacturer in Rhode Island to build the machine, and in 1791, he created the first efficient American machinery for spinning cotton thread. By 1815, there were 130,000 cotton spindles turning in 213 factories. Slater is often called the “Father of the Factory System” in America.

Growth of America

     Between 1790 and 1820, the population of the United States more than doubled to nearly 10 million people. Remarkably, this growth was almost entirely the result of reproduction, as the immigration rate during that period had slowed to a trickle. Fewer than 250,000 immigrants entered the United States due to doubts about the viability of the new republic and travel restrictions in Europe during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars.

     Soon after Napoleon’s final defeat in 1815, immigration to the United States began to increase. Competing shippers who needed westbound payloads kept transatlantic fares low enough to make immigration affordable, and migrants were interested in the prospect of abundant land, high wages, and what they saw as endless economic opportunities. Many also migrated to America because Europe seemed to be running out of room, and numerous people were displaced from their homelands. For the next several decades, the number of immigrants continued to rise. In the 1820s, nearly 150,000 European immigrants arrived; in the 1830s, nearly 600,000; by the 1840s, nearly 1.7 million; and during the 1850s, the greatest influx of immigrants in American history—approximately 2.6 million—came to the United States.

2011 Timeline

• January:
• Floodwaters wreak havoc in Victoria, Australia.
• Devastating mudslides and floods hit Brazil.
• February:
• Thousands celebrate the toppling of Mubarak in Egypt.
• Protest marches jam Bahrain's capital.
• March:
• Magnitude nine earthquake and tsunami hit eastern Japan.
• Lava erupts after Pu’u O’o crater collapses in Hawaii.
• April:
• Japan holds a moment of silence one month after the disasters.
• Storms bring tornadoes and floods to US Midwest
• May:
• Osama Bin Laden was killed.
• Volcanic ash cloud plunges Icelandic town into darkness and disrupts flights.
• June:
• Anti-austerity riots cause chaos in Athens.
• Lightning turns volcanic ash cloud into spectacular light show in Chile
• July:
• UN declares famine in parts of Somalia.
• CIA-trained covert forces in Afghanistan.
• August:
• HSI shuts down Arizona smuggling tunnel
• Forensic Document Lab serves as authentication authority
• September:
• Charlotte: Man Pleads Guilty to Supporting Terror Conspiracy to Wage Violent Jihad.
• San Juan: Thirty-Nine Individuals Indicted for Drug Trafficking in the Municipality of Ceiba, Puerto Rico.
• October:
• Philadelphia: Two Indicted in Connection with ‘Jihad Jane’ Terrorism Conspiracy.
• Minneapolis: Two Women Convicted of Providing Material Support to al Shabaab.
• November:
• San Antonio: Judge Limas Associate Pleads Guilty.
• Atlanta: Tennessee Man Sentenced to 40 Months in Prison for Fraudulent Hedge Fund Scheme.
• December:
• Kim Jong il died.
• Snow storm slams great plains.

Jefferson's Embargo

Thomas Jefferson envisioned a peaceful, agrarian society that used diplomacy, rather than military might, to execute America’s foreign policy. Jefferson believed that a large standing army was an invitation to dictatorship, and he drastically reduced the size of both the American Army and Navy. On the Barbary Coast of North Africa, rulers of Algiers, Morocco, Tunis, and Tripoli extorted money from countries wishing to send cargo ships through their waters. For years, American shipping was safe because Britain regularly paid the pirates. In 1801, the pasha of Tripoli increased the tribute demanded for safe passage. When Jefferson refused to pay, Tripoli declared war on the United States, and the president reluctantly sent warships to Tripoli. Jefferson reassessed his decision to scale back the military and ordered several small gunboats that critics nicknamed “Jeffs” or the “mosquito fleet.” The undersized boats were fast but featured just one gun. In 1803, American shipping became entangled in European hostilities when Napoleon revived his war with England. The American Navy, which was no match for the heavily armed English and French, could offer only limited protection for American merchants. In the summer of 1807 off the coast of Virginia, the crew of the British frigate Leopard stopped the American ship Chesapeake and demanded to search it. When the captain refused to obey the orders, the British warship opened fire, killing three Americans and injuring several more. Jefferson set in motion his idea of “peaceable coercion” by encouraging Congress to pass the Embargo Act of 1807, which stopped all exports of American goods. Jefferson reasoned that both England and France relied heavily on American products and would be forced to work with the United States. Jefferson’s popularity plunged and the Federalist Party began to make a resurgence as voters eyed the upcoming election. Critics shouted that Jefferson’s decisions damaged the economy and left America unprotected.

The Monroe Doctrine

At the great European conference, the Congress of Vienna, the monarchs of Europe gathered to return the continent to its status before the French Revolution. The European powers banded together to eradicate democratic movements that threatened their thrones.  Britain had profited from the breakup of the Spanish monarchy in South America by developing a thriving commerce with the Spanish republics. In 1823, the British foreign minister, George Canning, sought to join with the United States and renounce any interest in acquiring any South American territory and declare opposition to any French interference with the South American colonies.  Monroe agreed with the arguments Adams made and decided to include a statement of American policy that reflected those arguments in his seventh annual message to Congress in December of 1823. The “Monroe Doctrine,” as it was later called, had two main points.  At the time, since the Monroe Doctrine was not a treaty or a law, it drew little attention either in the United States or abroad. In reality, the U.S. didn’t have the power to enforce this unilateral announcement.