A Brief History of the United States

by John Bach McMaster

THE WORKINGMAN.—The growth of manufactures and the building of works of internal improvement produced a demand for workmen of all sorts, and thousands came over, or were brought over, from the Old World. The unskilled were employed on the railroads and canals; the skilled in the mills, factories, and machine shops.

As workingmen increased in number, trades unions were formed, and efforts were made to secure better wages and a shorter working day. In this they succeeded: after a long series of strikes in 1834 and 1835 the ten-hour day was adopted in Philadelphia and Baltimore, and in 1840, by order of President Van Buren, went into force "in all public establishments" under the federal government.

THE SOUTH.—No such labor issues troubled the southern half of the country. There the laborer was owned by the man whose lands he cultivated, and strikes, lockouts, questions of wages, and questions of hours were unknown. The mills, factories, machine shops, the many diversified industries of the Northern states were unknown. In the great belt of states from North Carolina to the Texas border, the chief crop was cotton. These states thus had two common bonds of union: the maintenance of the institution of negro slavery, and the development of a common industry. As the people of the free states developed different sorts of industry, they became less and less like the people of the South, and in time the two sections were industrially two separate communities. The interests of the people being different, their opinions on great national issues were different and sectional.

REFORMS.—As we have seen, a great antislavery agitation (p; 293) occurred during the period 1820-40. It was only one of many reform movements of the time. State after state abolished imprisonment for debt, [20] lessened the severity of laws for the punishment of crime, extended the franchise, [21] or right to vote, reformed the discipline of prisons, and established hospitals and asylums. So eager were the people to reform anything that seemed to be wrong, that they sometimes went to extremes. [22] The antimasonic movement (p. 292) was such a movement for reform; the Owenite movement was another. Sylvester Graham preaching reform in diet, Mrs. Bloomer advocating reform in woman's dress, and Joseph Smith, who founded Mormonism, were but so many advocates of reform of some sort.

Owen believed that poverty came from individual ownership, and the accumulation of more money by one man than by another. He believed that people should live in communities in which everything—lands, houses, cattle, products of the soil—are owned by the community; that the individual should do his work, but be fed, housed, clothed, educated, and amused by the community. Owen's teachings were well received, and Owenite communities were founded in many places in the West and in New York, only to end in failure. [23]

MORMONISM had better fortune. Joseph Smith, its founder, published in 1830 the Book of Mormon, as an addition to the Bible. [24] A church was next organized, missionaries were sent about the country, and in 1831 the sect moved to Kirtland in Ohio, and there built a temple. Trouble with other sects and with the people forced them to move again, and they went to Missouri. But there, too, they came in conflict with the people, were driven from one county to another, and in 1839-40 were driven from the state by force of arms. A refuge was then found in Illinois, where, on the banks of the Mississippi, they founded the town of Nauvoo. In spite of their wanderings they had increased in number, and were a prosperous community. [25]

[Illustration: PACK ANIMALS.]

THE GREAT WEST EXPLORED.—During the twenty years since Major Long's expedition, the country beyond the Missouri had been more fully explored. In 1822 bands of merchants at St. Louis began to trade with Santa Fe, sending their goods on the backs of mules and in wagons, thus opening up what was known as the Santa Fe trail. One year later a trapper named Prevost found the South Pass over the Rocky Mountains, and entered the Great Salt Lake country. [26] This was the beginning, and year after year bands of trappers wandered over what was then Mexican territory but is now part of our country, from the Great Salt Lake to the lower Colorado River, and from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. [27]

[Illustration: THE FAR WEST IN 1840.]

Between 1830 and 1832 Hall J. Kelley attempted to found a colony in Oregon, but failed, as did another leader, Nathaniel J. Wyeth. [28] Wyeth tried again in 1834, but his settlements were not permanent. A few fur traders and missionaries to the Indians had better fortune; but in 1840 most of the white men in the Oregon country were British fur traders. It was not till 1842 that the tide of American migration began to set strongly toward Oregon; but within a few years after that time the Americans there greatly outnumbered the British.