A History of the United States: Chapter 11: Growth and Expansion

At the heart of the Industrial Revolution was technology.

In 1793 Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. The word gin is short for "engine." It quickly and easily removed the seeds from picked cotton and allowed a huge increase in cotton production.

Whitney's idea of interchangeable parts changed manufacturing forever.

In 1790 Congress passed a patent law to protect the rights of inventors. A patent gives an inventor the sole legal right to make money from an invention for a certain period of time.

In capitalism, individuals and businesses own property and decide how to use it.

The people—not the government—control capital, which includes the buildings, land, machines, money, and other items used to create wealth.

We also use the term free enterprise to describe the American economic system. People are free to work wherever they wish and to buy, sell, and produce whatever they want.

The major elements of free enterprise are economic freedom, profit, private property, and competition.

In 1790 the first census—the official count of a population—revealed that there were nearly 4 million Americans.

In 1790 the first census—the official count of a population—revealed that there were nearly 4 million Americans.

Private companies built many turnpikes, or toll roads.

First, most major rivers in the eastern region flowed in a north-south direction, while most people and goods were headed east or west.

They would build a canal—an artificial waterway—across the state.

With the end of the War of 1812, the intense divisions that once split the nation seemed gone.

Clay called for higher tariffs, a new Bank of the United States, and internal improvements, including the building of roads, bridges, and canals.

The tariff dispute illustrated a growing sectionalism—differences in the goals and interests of different parts of the country.

The state of New York had granted a monopoly—sole control of an industry—to a steamship operator running ships between New York and New Jersey.

The Supreme Court said that only Congress had the power to make laws governing interstate commerce, or trade between states.

The Supreme Court said that only Congress had the power to make laws governing interstate commerce, or trade between states.

Adams was correct, and with the Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819, Spain ceded, or gave up control of, all claims and ownership to both East and West Florida.

Between La Salle's opening of the river and the time when it may be said to have become the vehicle of anything like a regular and active commerce, seven sovereigns had occupied the throne of England, America had become an independent nation....

They floated and sailed from the upper rivers to New Orleans, changed cargoes there, and were tediously warped and poled back by hand.

In time this commerce increased until it gave employment to hordes of rough and hardy men; rude, uneducated, brave, suffering terrific hardships with sailor-like stoicism..., heavy fighters, reckless fellows, every one, elephantinely jolly, foul-witted, profane; prodigal of their money, bankrupt at the end of the trip, fond of barbaric finery, prodigious braggarts; yet, in the main, honest, trustworthy, faithful to promises and duty, and often picturesquely magnanimous.

In time this commerce increased until it gave employment to hordes of rough and hardy men; rude, uneducated, brave, suffering terrific hardships with sailor-like stoicism..., heavy fighters, reckless fellows, every one, elephantinely jolly, foul-witted, profane; prodigal of their money, bankrupt at the end of the trip, fond of barbaric finery, prodigious braggarts; yet, in the main, honest, trustworthy, faithful to promises and duty, and often picturesquely magnanimous.

In time this commerce increased until it gave employment to hordes of rough and hardy men; rude, uneducated, brave, suffering terrific hardships with sailor-like stoicism..., heavy fighters, reckless fellows, every one, elephantinely jolly, foul-witted, profane; prodigal of their money, bankrupt at the end of the trip, fond of barbaric finery, prodigious braggarts; yet, in the main, honest, trustworthy, faithful to promises and duty, and often picturesquely magnanimous.

In time this commerce increased until it gave employment to hordes of rough and hardy men; rude, uneducated, brave, suffering terrific hardships with sailor-like stoicism..., heavy fighters, reckless fellows, every one, elephantinely jolly, foul-witted, profane; prodigal of their money, bankrupt at the end of the trip, fond of barbaric finery, prodigious braggarts; yet, in the main, honest, trustworthy, faithful to promises and duty, and often picturesquely magnanimous.

In time this commerce increased until it gave employment to hordes of rough and hardy men; rude, uneducated, brave, suffering terrific hardships with sailor-like stoicism..., heavy fighters, reckless fellows, every one, elephantinely jolly, foul-witted, profane; prodigal of their money, bankrupt at the end of the trip, fond of barbaric finery, prodigious braggarts; yet, in the main, honest, trustworthy, faithful to promises and duty, and often picturesquely magnanimous.

In time this commerce increased until it gave employment to hordes of rough and hardy men; rude, uneducated, brave, suffering terrific hardships with sailor-like stoicism..., heavy fighters, reckless fellows, every one, elephantinely jolly, foul-witted, profane; prodigal of their money, bankrupt at the end of the trip, fond of barbaric finery, prodigious braggarts; yet, in the main, honest, trustworthy, faithful to promises and duty, and often picturesquely magnanimous.

In the heyday of the steamboating prosperity, the river from end to end was flaked with coal-fleets and timber rafts, all managed by hand, and employing hosts of the rough characters whom I have been trying to describe.