Life in 1800s
What was life like on the frontier?
Grim, filled with loneliness and disease
These immigrants came in a massive wave driven by economic hardship (poverty, lack of jobs) and political unrest (failed revolutions like 1848) in their country.
German Immigrants
Where did the South send their cotton?
Britain
Who provided 50% of the workforce in early factories?
Children
What was most commonly used to motivate the slaves?
The whip
Why did native born protestants distrust the Irish?
They were Roman Catholic
What happened when workers went on strike?
Employers hired immigrants
Where did most German Immigrants settle?
Farmers and artisans who built communities in the Midwest and cities like Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and New York, significantly impacting American culture and industry, particularly in brewing, agriculture, and urban development, creating "Little Germanies" and strengthening American diversity with their skills and entrepreneurial spirit.
What caused each region in the nation to specialize in a particular type of economic activity?
Transportation Revolution
What is the greatest psychological horror for a slave?
Separation from family which happened most often in the upper South.
What was the effect of the rapid growth of cities around America?
Poor Sanitation
These people were pushed to the U.S. primarily by the devastating Great Famine (Potato Blight) of the 1840s, which brought mass starvation, eviction, and disease, compounded by long-term poverty, British land policies, and lack of opportunity, all forcing them to flee dire conditions for survival and hope in America.
Irish Immigrants
Bonus Question: How was this different then previous immigrants?
Where did Irish Immigrants primarily settle?
New York and Boston
What was the US most important export?
Cotton
Life for an enslaved person was brutally difficult across these three states due to sugarcane and cotton plantations. Sugar planation often stand out due to the combination of extreme climate, deadly diseases (cholera/yellow fever), and the grueling, 18-hour workdays during harvest, leading to higher death rates than birth rates, necessitating constant new purchases of enslaved people, making it one of the most perilous environments.
Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana
How was the South different than the North and the rest of the world?
the American South differed from the North and the world primarily through its agrarian, slavery-dependent economy, slower urbanization, and conservative culture, contrasting with the North's burgeoning industry, diverse immigration, and urban growth
How did the immigrants help the American economy?
providing a vast supply of manual labor for the nation's rapid industrialization and expansion of infrastructure, and by settling new agricultural regions
Where did most Southern free Blacks live?
New Orleans and Charleston
What did women who worked outside the home mainly do for employment?
Nursing and teaching
What rights did freed slaves have that slaves didn't?
Could own land and could not be bought
Why did railroads have the advantage over canals?
they were faster, more reliable year-round, not stopped by winter ice or summer droughts, could traverse more varied terrain, carried heavier loads, and were eventually more cost-effective, enabling them to connect inland areas and boost national commerce far more extensively than water routes.
What movie released in 1992 and starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman is about two Irish Immigrants in Boston trying to get farm land in Oklahoma?
You can use cellphone. First Team to answer gets points.
Far and Away
By 1850 where did most slaves live?
Deep South primarily Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, and South Carolina,
Why was plantation agriculture so wasteful?
How were freed slaves treated in the North?
while technically free from chattel slavery, they encountered systemic racism, segregation, limited job opportunities, and violence, often competing with white immigrants for low-wage work and being excluded from schools, public spaces, and voting rights, though some abolitionists offered support and institutions like schools and churches provided community, leading to harsh realities alongside glimpses of freedom.