A Market Society

The Market Revolution of the early nineteenth century saw advances in technology, transportation, communication, and manufacturing.

Learning Objective

Summarize the key social and economic transformations that accompanied the nation's movement away from small-scale subsistence farming toward agriculture and manufacturing aimed at the market

Key Points

Along with the technological innovations of the Industrial Revolution, traditional modes of production and labor were transformed in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Tremendous growth in the manufacturing sector in the North and commercial agriculture in the South and West allowed for unprecedented domestic trade and international export.
The development of new transportation networks played a vital role in commerce and the development of new markets.
The market revolution resulted in broader participation in domestic markets in the United States.
Though exports increased, aided by the cotton boom in the South, domestic manufacturing reduced U.S. dependency on European imports.
As production moved outside of the home and subsistence agriculture declined, Americans began to purchase more goods.

Terms

Industrial Revolution
The major technological, socioeconomic, and cultural change in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century resulting from the replacement of an economy based on manual labor with one dominated by industry and machine manufacture.
Market Revolution
(1793–1909) A drastic change in the manual labor system originating in the South of the United States (and soon moving to the North) and later spreading to the entire world.
cotton gin
A machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, a job that otherwise must be performed painstakingly by hand.

Full Text

The Market Revolution

During the Market Revolution in the first half of the nineteenth century, traditional modes of commerce were made obsolete by improvements in transportation, communication, and industry. The new technologies and tools that arrived with the Industrial Revolution strengthened large-scale domestic manufacturing in the United States. During this era, Americans began to experience the forces of supply and demand on a broader scale.

New Forms of Labor

Drastic changes in the manual labor system altered the schedules, wages, and working conditions for laborers. Artisanal trades began to give way to more efficient systems of production that did not require skilled labor. Wage labor became an increasingly common experience. Manufacturing came to depend on conveyor belts, interchangeable parts, and industrial tools. The textile industry in New England particularly benefited from these innovations.

New Innovations

Eli Whitney's invention, the cotton gin, helped to establish the new significance of the market to American society, as it enabled southern planters to reap tremendous profits from cotton exports. The large-scale production of cash crops began to replace subsistence farming in the South and West. Simultaneously, port cities such as Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston developed powerful economies that began to challenge those of contemporary midsize European cities. Americans now could quickly produce larger amounts of goods for a nationwide, and sometimes an international, market and rely less on foreign imports than in colonial times.

Transportation

As American dependency on imports from Europe decreased, the importance of internal commerce increased dramatically. Construction of the Erie Canal connected western agricultural markets to the manufacturing centers of the Northeast, and the development of steamboats and railroads allowed for much greater mobility between markets.

"Free Trade"

Image of an old advertisement from Sutton & Co., with the words "Free Trade" across the front. American society became increasingly subject to broad market forces in the early nineteenth century.

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