Introduction to the Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution transformed how people worked, purchased goods, and where they lived.  In U.S.  History we are looking at the early part of the Industrial Revolution and why in the United States it started in New England.

Here are the notes from today's class.

Have a Happy Halloween.

Helpful Links for the Paragraph

      For your paragraph I want you to use your notes and handouts for gathering evidence in your paragraph.  If you want to have some additional information you can use these links below.




Here is a link for Nat Turner

Denmark Vessey


Garbiel Prosser




Here is the Rubric for the Heroism in History assignment.  When you are finished have a friend or someone from home proof read your work to offer any advice or recommendations.

Google Docs

Several times during the year we are going to be using Google docs for our writing assignments. Please click the link below to log onto Wellesley's Google Apps.  You will need to use your regular school LOG IN and PASSWORD. 

docs.apps.wellesley.K12.ma.us

Once you have successfully logged in, you need to create a google document. Once you create it, please rename your blank google doc immediately using your class period and last name:

Period 1, Mullady

To learn how to create a new google document click this link

GA create and upload.pdf

Once you have finished working on your document, you will need to share it with me.  Click on the PDF link to learn how to share your work. 

GA Sharing and Collaborating.pdf

1.  Log on by using your regular school log in and password at this URL:

docs.apps.wellesley.K12.ma.us

2. Click on the left hand red button which says Create.

3. Next, click on Document.

4. Then, click on "Untitled Document" at the top of the blank document.  A box to rename your google doc will then appear.

5. Name your document this way:  Period # last name.  For example, Period 1, Mullady

6.  When you are done writing on your document, click on the blue Share button at the top right hand corner.  When the new box pops up, go to Share With at the bottom and write in Mullady  My name will appear.

7.  Finally, edit the Permissions if you want the person that you are sharing with to edit, comment, or ONLY read your document.  Then, save and share!

The Alabama Slave Codes

      In the wake of Turner's Rebellion Southern lawmakers struggles with how to respond to the events in Virginia. The death of 55 white families in Virginia terrified planters in the South.  What would prevent their slaves from uprising?  Some states proposed ending slavery in the South all together, while others began to impose a harsher policy towards slaves and free blacks.

     In 1833, the state of Alabama passed a series of slave codes with the hopes of preventing a slave uprising from ever happening in their state.  These laws impacted the entire black population, free and enslaved in addition to the white population.  The Alabama Slave Codes would inspire other states to adopt similarly strict laws under the belief that strict slave codes would save the lives of southern whites.

Class Notes:  Slave Code Presentation.

For H.W.

Finish the Alabama Slave Code handout that was given in class today.

Turner's Rebellion

Background:

  Nat Turner was born a slave in Southampton County Virginia in 1800. Turner was a deeply religious man who eventually became a preacher as an adult.  In 1821, Turner ran away from his overseer but returned after having a vision that told him to honor his earthly master.  Turner would have two more visions while a slave, each one he felt was a sign from God that was calling him to action.


Method of Recruitment:

    After witnessing a solar eclipse, Turner believed he had received his final vision calling him to action.  He gathered four of his closest followers on August 21st,  and they prepared a dinner where he explained what their mission from God was.

Plot:

   That night Turner and his followers killed his master and his family while they were sleeping.  The group then traveled to nearby plantations killing the slave owners and recruiting the slaves to join them. Over a period of 36 hours Turner and his men had killed 55 white men, women, and children.  His forces numbering over 40, Turner attempted to take over the town of New Jerusalem.  They were met by militia and federal troops and fighting occurred scattering Turner's forces.  Turner went into hiding and was captured on August 30th.

Results:

   Turner was hanged and later skinned on November 11th.  The government of Virginia executed 55 slaves over the next two months.  While across Virginia and North Carolina angry white mobs began to execute any slave or free black man that they believed was connected to Turner's Rebellion.   200 people were executed for believing to have been connected to Nat Turner.   Many state's began to reorganize their slave codes to impose harsher penalties on slaves and further limit the rights of free blacks in the South.

Denmark Vessey

Denmark Vessey

Background Information:

    Denmark was born on the island of St. Thomas and sold to the captain of a slave ship, Joseph Vessey when he was fourteen years old.  Over the years Denmark traveled between the Caribbean and the United States helping transport, brand, and sell slaves.  In 1799, he was able to purchase his own freedom after winning a lottery.  Vessey eventually settled in the port city of Charleston South Carolina.


Method of Recruitment:

   In 1815, the black population of Charleston voted to separate from the white Methodist Church of the city.  Vessey and other prominent members of the black community helped form a church that was strictly for the black population of the city.  Vessey became one of the leaders of the  African Church and taught Bible study classes with an emphasis on the Book of Exodus and the escape of the Israelites from Egypt.  Vessey recruited both slaves and free blacks from his church to join his rebellion and his supporters numbered over 1,000.

Plot:

  In 1882, Vessey and other members of his church planned an uprising of the black population of Charleston and the surrounding area.   They planned on launching an attack on July 14th and to take over the city's arsenal and set fire to Charleston.  They intended to kill the governor of South Carolina as well as all the slave owners of Charleston.


Results:

       A member of Vessey's conspiracy alerted his master  of the planned uprising.  That slave owner then informed the authorities who sought to arrest the leaders of the church.  Vessey was arrested on June 22nd, and was executed with five other leaders of the rebellion on July 2nd.  By the end of August over 35 slaves were executed for their connection to Vessey's plan.   Following Vessey's execution the African Church of Charleston was destroyed and the city government passed a series of laws that further restricted the rights of slaves.

Gabriel's Army

Gabriel Prosser:

Background: A slave living in Virginia.  As a skilled blacksmith, Gabriel was allowed to hire out his services to others and worked in various towns and on other plantations. Along with his brother Solomon, Gabriel was arrested and branded after attacking a white man.  While in jail the two brothers began to plot a rebellion to end slavery in Virginia.


Method of Recruitment:   Gabriel sought support from poor whites, free blacks, and slaves for his rebellion. In his blacksmith shop Prosser turned shovels and other pieces of farm equipment into spears and sword and made bullets from stolen pieces of metal.


Plan:  Prosser and his supporters numbered over 1,000 and planned on attacking Richmond and liberating all the slaves that lived there.  They would then kidnap the governor of Virginia, James Monroe  and hold him hostage to negotiate the liberation of all the slaves of Virginia.


Results:  On the night of the planned attack a sever thunderstorm occurred.  After meeting by a bridge Gabriel decided that the attack be postponed because of the weather.  Two slaves that were part of the conspiracy alerted their master of the planned uprising.  Their master warned James Monroe the governor, who sent out the militia to find the rebel slaves.  Gabriel and 22 other supporters were found guilty of attempting to start a revolt and sentenced to death.


Aftermath:  Members of the state legislature of Virginia proposed  a bill to end slavery in the state.  The bill was narrowly defeated and the state adopted new laws that further limited the rights of slaves.

Checklist for the Quiz

Your Quiz is Friday and is multiple choice and fill in the blank.  Check your binder for the following notes:

  * Getting a Sense of the South Handout (#8)

  * Covert and Overt Resistance Notes (#12)

  *Marronage Reading (#13)

  *The Reading on Yeomen (#7)

  * Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin (#2)

  * The Cotton Kingdom Reading (#9)

  *  Slave Resistance Reading. (#11)

  * White Culture of the Antebellum South (#6)



Practice Questions:

   1. What were three cash crops that were grown in the South?

   2. Explain how  the three regions of the United States were interdependent.

   3. ______________ is a song by Toby Keith

   4. Who were the Yeoman?



I can stay after Wednesday and Thursday if you have any questions.

Covert and Overt Resistance

          Prior to the Civil War, life in the South can be described as a culture of fear.  White plantation owners were afraid that the slaves would one day rise up agains them in rebellion similar to what had happened in Haiti.  Yeoman feared that they would lose their status in Southern culture and become poor and poor whites feared becoming poorer and worse off than slaves.  Free Blacks faced the possibility of being falsely accused of a crime and sent into slavery while slaves feared being punished at the will of their master or overseer.

     In order to prevent a slave uprising, plantation owners attempted to use fear as a method of controlling their slaves.  Slaves would be severely punished for a variety of reasons: resisting slavery, running away, stealing, speaking up against their master, and not working hard enough to name a few.  Below is a drawing of slave who is being punished with a muzzle, probably for speaking too much while working.



        Since the punishments for slaves was so severe, many slaves were forced to resort to covert  or secret means of resisting slavery.  These methods included: pretending to be sick, destroying farm equipment, and slowing down the pace of work.  

    Another form of resisting slaver was using overt methods.  These tactics were very clear and obvious that a slave was resisting their owner.  The most common form of resisting slavery was running away.  Since masters relied on their slaves for work, slaves used their master's dependency to their advantage.   For Homework tonight, please read and markup the handout on Marronage.

Writing for the North Star

   


      The North Star was one of the most influential anti-slavery newspapers in the United States.  Founded by Frederick Douglas in 1843, The North Star helped spread abolitionist beliefs and also championed the rights of women.

      Your assignment is to create an article for the The North Star that describes the evils of slavery.  Your audience already believes that slavery should end in the United States,  so your task  is to be as descriptive as possible to try and motivate your readers to take action.  Your Investigative Reporting of the South handout is going to provide you with the evidence and details to support your article and the Power of Persuasion handout from class today to help you organize your article.

Enjoy your weekend,

Mr. Mullady

The Cotton Kingdom

      Between the spring of 1998 and summer of 2000 Barbara Ehrenreich worked as a minimum wage employee at various jobs.  Her goal was to show the challenges that people faced in the United States that were living on a minimum wage salary.  Ehrenreich wanted Americans to gain a greater understanding to the challenges that many people were facing in their own community.   Her book became a bestseller and received both praise and criticism from various organizations and groups in the U.S.  

    Nickel and Dimed is an excellent modern day example of investigative journalism, when an outsider travels to a community to expose problems or issues that are occurring.  There have been many famous investigative journalists in American History, one of them Frederick Law Olmsted, wrote about Southern culture for a Northern audience.

     A publisher in London asked Frederick Law Olmsted to revise three travel essays that he had written previously and turn them into a book that was about Southern Culture.  Olmsted saw this as an opportunity to highlight how much progress had occurred in the North while also detailing the evils of slavery.  His book was published in 1861, right at the beginning of the Civil War.   The Cotton Kingdom became a best seller in Europe as well as the North and has provided historians with an excellent study of the economics of slavery.

Getting A Sense of the South

     To get a more complete understanding of the culture of the Antebellum South it is important to look at how the Southern economy developed during the 19th Century and how it developed differently from the North.  As the North became industrial economy that manufactured textiles and other goods, the South became more agricultural with an economy based on cash crops and raw materials.    As the nation began to grow and expand, the economy of the West became agricultural as well.

    While Western farmers supplied the corn, wheat, and grain crops that fed the expanding nation but did not rely on slave labor like farmers and planters of the South.

  onight for H.W. please finish the Getting a Sense of the South handout that we started in class.
Also,  on Friday, the "Yo-T.V.Activity" is due.

The Yeoman Farmers of the South

       The Plantation Class of the American South is the group that is most often associated with life in the South prior to the Civil War.  They were the ruling class of the South influencing politics, religions, and  Southern culture from the top of the social pyramid.  The planters were not the majority of the white population though, most whites were members of the Yeoman class.

    Yeoman farmers owned their own land and typically grew corn, wheat, and vegetables and raised pork and chickens.  They grew what they needed and sold any surplus crops to make a profit.  If the Plantation Owners were the Upper Class of the Antebellum South then the Yeoman would be the Middle Class of the South.

For H.W. finish reading and marking up The Life of Yeoman Farmers and then answer the following questions on the back of the reading.


1. True of False?  Yeoman farmers interacted with many different types of people in Southern society and spent much of their time in the markets of various cities in the South.  Explain your answer using evidence from the reading.

2. Which famous politicians might the yeoman look up to and why?

3. Explain why the yeoman were a transient group of people.

4. What is a stereotype about the work ethic of the yeoman?  Is it true? Use evidence from the reading to support your answer.

5. Did yeoman own slaves?  How was the relationship between slaves and yeoman different from the relationship between plantation owners and slaves?

6. What were three activities that brought yeoman together as a community?

7. Why do historians know so little about yeoman and know much more about plantation owners?

8. What concept united the yeoman with other whites in Southern society?

The Plantation Class

     By the mid 1800s, cotton was the king of the U.S. economy and slavery had become entrenched in Southern culture.  In less than a generation's span cotton had replaced tobacco as the nation's leading cash crop.  Owning slaves could put a farmer on the fast tract to success but many whites could not afford to own their own slave.

  Here are the notes for Friday's Class

Enjoy the weekend.

Cotton Gin Consequences

   Thank you very much for watching the debate last night and giving some feedback on how you thought the candidates did.  As we get closer to Election Day the impact of the debates increases and I think you will see both candidates handle themselves in a different manner then last night.
  
 In class today we examined how inventions can have both intended and unintended consequences. Alfred Nobel's invention of dynamite was intended to improve the safety of miners but during his lifetime he saw others use his creation as a destructive weapon.

  Eli Whitney's cotton gin was intended to improve the working conditions of slaves as well as white farmers who grew their own cotton.  The cotton gin would be a leading catalyst for the expansion of not only slavery but also the United States itself.

For homework tonight complete the table on cotton production and the growth of slavery.

Presidential Debate

      The first televised Presidential Debate was in 1960 between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon.  To the audience that followed the debate on their radios Nixon was the most impressive candidate.  Those who watched the debate on television saw a calm and relaxed Kennedy out debate a sweaty and nervous looking Nixon.  That debate changed politics and showed how much of an impact television can have on an election. Here is a link of some important debate moments that have been captured on television.

        Tonight is the first debate between President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney.  While you are watching the debate be sure to to have your Debate Bingo sheet with you.  There is a great deal of talk about how the two candidates are going to respond to the questions and how they will react to their opponents.  The two men are going to be challenged on their core beliefs and policies, their temperament and how they handle the challenges would be something to keep an eye out for.

Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin

     Sometimes or actions have unforeseen consequences.  When Henry Ford created his Model T automobile, he knew that he had created product that would make him a fortune. Ford new that his invention was going to make transportation faster and more efficient, what he did not envision was how his automobile would transform the culture of the United States. 

    

   Eli Whitney new that his cotton gin had the potential to make him money, he could foresee how his invention would revolutionize the American South and help cause the spread of slavery. 

      Eli Whitney was hired by Catherine Greene to solve a problem with cleaning cotton. Coastal cotton, which was grown in Georgia and South Carolina was very costly. Planters and farmers struggled to make a profit growing cotton.  Whitney's invention was supposed to make cleaning cotton faster and more efficient. In March of 1794, Eli Whitney was issued a patent for his cotton gin that could effectively clean 55 pounds of cotton in one day. 

   News of Whitney's invention made him famous across the South and many sought to recreate Whitney's cotton gin for themselves.  For the next 20 years, Whitney would spend a fortune defending his patent in courts across the United States.  The cotton gin would prove to be an economic success for the South, but an economic test for Whitney who would not make the fortune from his invention that he dreamed of.

    In the years following the invention of the cotton gin the production of cotton increased dramatically across the United States.  As more farmers began to plant cotton there was an increase in the demand for slaves.  

Over the past 20 years there has been an increased emphasis placed on the roles of slaves, southern planters, and Catherine Greene with the invention of the cotton gin.  Tonights reading offers different perspectives on the story of the cotton gin.