TRANSPORTATION
This transportation project dramatically lowered shipping costs between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic, making New York a commercial powerhouse.
What is the Erie Canal?
This industry was the first to be transformed by industrialization in the United States.
What is the textile industry?
This invention made cotton production far more profitable and expanded slavery in the South.
What is the cotton gin?
This reform movement sought to reduce or eliminate alcohol consumption.
What is the temperance movement?
This inventor improved steam-powered transportation in the United States.
Who is Robert Fulton?
This transportation technology solved the long-standing problem of moving goods upstream on American rivers.
What is the steamboat?
This manufacturing concept allowed goods to be produced faster and repaired more easily by using identical components.
What are interchangeable parts?
This communication technology allowed messages to travel faster than any previous system in the 1840s.
What is the telegraph?
This reform movement aimed to improve prisons, schools, and care for the mentally ill.
What is social reform?
This individual helped introduce British textile machinery to the United States.
Who is Samuel Slater?
Unlike canals, this transportation system could operate year-round and was not limited by geography or freezing water.
What are railroads?
This system centralized workers and machines into a single location, replacing home-based production.
What is the factory system?
This development made ocean trade faster and more competitive during the mid-1800s.
What are clipper ships?
This event is most closely associated with the early women’s rights movement.
What is the Seneca Falls Convention?
This education reformer argued for public schools and professionally trained teachers.
Who is Horace Mann?
Explain one reason canals were eventually replaced by railroads as the dominant form of transportation.
Railroads were faster, worked year-round, and were not restricted to waterways, making them more efficient and flexible than canals.
Explainhow the factory system changed daily life for workers.
Workers followed strict schedules, performed repetitive tasks, and lost control over their pace of work compared to home-based labor.
Explain why the telegraph was more revolutionary than earlier communication methods like mail delivery.
The telegraph allowed near-instant communication over long distances, transforming business, government, and news sharing.
Explain how religious ideas from the Second Great Awakening inspired reform movements.
The belief that individuals could improve themselves encouraged reformers to fix social problems like slavery, education, and temperance.
Explain how one abolitionist used speeches or writing to challenge slavery in the United States.
Abolitionists like Frederick Douglass used speeches and writings to expose the realities of slavery and persuade others to oppose it.
How did improvements in transportation contribute to the growth of regional specialization in the United States?
Cheaper and faster transportation allowed regions to focus on what they produced best and trade easily with other regions, increasing economic interdependence.
How did industrialization simultaneously increase national wealth and worsen conditions for many workers?
Factories boosted production and profits, but workers often faced low wages, long hours, and unsafe working conditions.
How did new technologies contribute to both economic growth and social change during the Industrial Revolution?
They increased productivity and wealth while also reshaping labor, urbanization, and class relationships.
Why did many reformers believe social problems could be solved through organized movements rather than government action?
They believed moral improvement and individual responsibility, not laws alone, were the key to social change.
How did reformers such as Dorothea Dix demonstrate the belief that society could be improved through action?
They gathered evidence, raised public awareness, and pressured governments to reform institutions like prisons and mental hospitals.