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Market Revolution Dbq

Decent Essays

A) The market revolution of the first half of the nineteenth century occurred as a result of new developments in transportation and manufacturing. Labor changes as actories and mass production helped new industries develop as the textile industry grew—increasing the demand for cotton and cloth—and the steel industry grew—providing material for new machines—and new farm machines, such as the reaper invented by Cyrus McCormick, made farming faster. In the North, more people began working in the factories. This brought many changes to working life as men, women, and children worked outside the home. They were paid low hourly wages, worked twelve-hour days six days a week, and completed difficult, repetitive work. Workers often suffered injuries …show more content…

At first, overland travel was slow and expensive, and the west was isolated from the rest of the nation. Canals, steamboats, and railroads began to appear, resulting in faster travel, cheaper transport, and greater economic growth. The Erie Canal, completed in 1825, connected New York City to the Great Lakes. It cut the trip time from twenty days to six days and made it much cheaper to ship goods, which later inspired many new canal projects. Additionally, steam engines used the steam produced by boiling water to drive machinery. They were developed as a new source of power in the early 1700s and improved by James Watt in 1765 to be used in factories and for transportation. In 1807, Robert Fulton used the idea of steam power to built one of the first boats powered by a steam engine. These steamboats could travel against the wind and against river currents, increased the speed and lowered the costs of river travel and shipping, and opened up the South and West to more travel and trade. Furthermore, in the 1830s, railroads were developed. Steampowered locomotives pulled trains of cars. Travel by train was faster than travel by horse and trains carried more cargo than other land transportation did. Thus, railroads could be built where there were no rivers. Before long, railroads spread rapidly across the United States and the miles of railroad tracks increased from 3,000 miles in 1840 to 30,000 in 1860. They were concentrated in the North, made shipping cheaper and faster, linked the East and the West, and helped industry

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