Cotton/Southern Economy
What invention, patented by Eli Whitney in 1793, made processing short-staple cotton much faster and increased cotton production?
Cotton Gin
What term describes the legal and economic system that treated people as property and forced labor in the South?
Slavery
Which industry was the first to use machines and mills that dramatically increased production in the early U.S. Industrial Revolution?
Textile industry (cloth manufacturing).
Name one major reason (push factor) many Irish immigrants left Ireland in the 1840s.
The Irish Potato Famine (crop failure/starvation) was a major push factor.
What religious movement in the early 19th century encouraged moral reform efforts and inspired social activism?
The Second Great Awakening.
Name two features that made the Deep South especially suited for large-scale cotton cultivation.
Fertile soil for cotton (fertile river valleys), long growing season/warm climate, and access to rivers for transport (e.g., Mississippi).
Give one example of how enslaved people maintained family and community life despite bondage.
Maintaining family ties, religious gatherings, song, oral tradition, mutual aid networks
What is the idea of “interchangeable parts,” and which inventor is associated with promoting it?
Interchangeable parts are standardized, uniform components that can be swapped between machines or products; Eli Whitney is associated with promoting this idea.
Give one pull factor that attracted German immigrants to the United States in the mid-1800s.
Political unrest in Europe, economic opportunity, available farmland, or religious freedom — any one is acceptable.
Name two leaders associated with the women’s suffrage movement and one idea they promoted.
Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (and Sojourner Truth); they promoted women's rights/suffrage, legal equality, and organized conventions (e.g., Seneca Falls).
Identify three states that were major cotton producers before the Civil War.
Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, ect
What were common forms of everyday resistance used by enslaved people on plantations? Name two.
Work slowdowns, sabotage (breaking tools), feigning illness, learning to read/write secretly, escape attempts.
Who is Samuel Slater and why is he important to early American manufacturing?
Samuel Slater brought British textile technology knowledge to the U.S. and helped start early American mills (often called the “Father of the American Industrial Revolution”).
Identify one major effect of immigrant labor on American industrial growth.
Immigrant labor supplied workers for factories, built canals/railroads, and helped expand industrial output; they also influenced urban growth.
Identify two prominent abolitionists and one method each used to promote the abolitionist cause.
William Lloyd Garrison (newspaper The Liberator, moral suasion), Frederick Douglass (speeches, autobiographies), Harriet Tubman (Underground Railroad conductor), Elihu Embree (published an antislavery newspaper) — methods: newspapers, speeches, helping escapes, organizing.
Explain why Memphis grew into a major center for the cotton trade and the domestic slave trade.
Memphis was on the Mississippi River (transport hub), near rich cotton-growing regions, had river ports and traders, and became a market for shipping cotton; its growth also made it a center for the domestic slave trade (auction houses, slave markets).
Who led a notable slave rebellion in Virginia in 1831, and why did it alarm white Southerners?
Nat Turner
Describe the Lowell System and one way it changed textile production and labor in New England
The Lowell System used factory complexes that employed young women who lived in company boardinghouses, combined water-powered machinery, and regimented work/educational programs.
Name two transportation projects (roads, canals, railroads, or steamboats) that helped connect regions of the U.S. and support economic growth.
Examples: Erie Canal, National Road (Cumberland Road), expansion of railroads, and steamboat development.
How did the Second Great Awakening influence reform movements such as temperance, prison reform, or abolition? Give one specific example.
Revivalist emphasis on individual moral responsibility led people to support reforms; e.g., revivalism inspired abolitionists to see slavery as a sin and fueled temperance and prison reforms.
Describe how the rise of the cotton economy affected Southern social and political power in the first half of the 19th century.
Cotton wealth concentrated economic power with planters, expanded slavery westward, increased Southern political influence (e.g., in Congress), and tied the South’s economy to a single cash crop.
Describe conditions of enslavement (work, discipline, living conditions) and explain one way enslaved people adapted culturally or religiously to cope.
Conditions: long hours in the field, harsh punishments, inadequate housing/food; adaptation: development of spirituals, kinship networks, marriage ceremonies, and covert education or cultural practices.
Explain how technological innovations contributed to the growth of Northern cities (name at least two technologies and their effects).
Steam power and the steam engine (factories & steamboats), mechanized spinning/weaving machines (textiles), interchangeable parts and machine tools (mass production) — these concentrated labor in factories and led to urban growth.
Explain how the Erie Canal and the National Road each affected trade, settlement, or westward expansion.
Erie Canal: connected Great Lakes to Hudson River/New York City, lowered transport costs, spurred western settlement and NYC growth. National Road: overland route linking eastern states to the West, facilitated movement of people/goods, encouraged settlement along its route.
Describe the significance of Harriet Tubman or Frederick Douglass to the abolitionist movement, including one specific contribution each made.
Harriet Tubman: led enslaved people to freedom via the Underground Railroad, guided multiple rescue missions. Frederick Douglass: escaped enslaved man who became a powerful orator, writer (autobiography), and publisher advocating abolition and equal rights.