A School History of the United States

by John Bach McMaster

The effect of new mechanical appliances on the movement of population was amazing. The day when emigrants settled along the banks of streams, pushed their boats up the rivers by means of poles, carried their goods on the backs of pack horses, and floated their produce in Kentucky broadhorns down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans, was fast disappearing. The steamboat, the canal, the railroad, had opened new possibilities. Land once valueless as too far from market suddenly became valuable. Men grew loath to live in a wilderness; the rush of emigrants across the Mississippi was checked. The region between the Alleghanies and the great river began to fill up rapidly. During the twenty years, 1821 to 1841, but two states, Arkansas (1836) and Michigan (1837), were admitted to the Union, and but three new territories, Florida (1822-23), Wisconsin (1836), and Iowa (1838), were established.

So few people went west from the Atlantic seaboard states that in each one of them except Maine and Georgia population increased more rapidly than it had ever done for forty years. From the Mississippi valley states, however, numbers of people went to Wisconsin and Iowa.

In consequence of this, Iowa was admitted to the Union in 1846, and Wisconsin in 1848. Minnesota and Oregon were made territories. Florida and Texas had been admitted in 1845, and the number of states was thus raised to thirty before 1850. The population of the country in 1850 was 23,000,000. Two states in the Mississippi valley now had each of them more than a million of inhabitants.

%404. The First States on the Pacific.%—Until 1840 the people had moved westward steadily. Each state as it was settled had touched some other east, or north, or south of it. After 1840 people, attracted by the rich farming land and pleasant climate of Oregon, and after 1848 by the gold mines of California, rushed across the plains to the Pacific, and between 1850 and 1860 built up the states of California and Oregon (1859), and the territory of Washington (1853). Minnesota was admitted in 1858. The population of the United States in 1860 was 31,000,000.

[Illustration: %DISTRIBUTION OF THE POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES
SEVENTH CENSUS, 1850%]

%405. Immigration to the United States since 1820.%—The people whose movements across our continent we have been following were chiefly natives of the United States. But we have reached the time when foreigners began to arrive by hundreds of thousands every year. From the close of the Revolution to 1820, it is thought not more than 250,000 of the Old World people came to us. But the hard times in Europe, which followed the disbanding of the great armies which had been fighting France and Napoleon from 1789 to 1815, started a general movement. Beginning at 10,000, in 1820, more and more came every year till, in 1842, 100,000 people—men, women, and children—landed on our shore. This was the greatest number that had ever come in one year. But it was surpassed in 1846, when the potato famine in Ireland, and again in 1853, when hard times in Germany, and another famine in Ireland, sent over two immense streams of emigrants. In 1854 no less than 428,000 persons came from the Old World; more than ever came again in one year till 1872.

%406. Modern Conveniences.%—When we compare the daily life of the people in 1850 with that of the men of 1825, the contrast is most striking. The cities had increased in number, grown in size, and greatly changed in appearance. The older ones seemed less like villages. Their streets were better paved and lighted. Omnibuses and street cars were becoming common. The constable and the night watch had given way to the police department. Gas and plumbing were in general use. The free school had become an American institution, and many of the numberless inventions and discoveries which have done so much to increase our happiness, prosperity, and comfort, existed at least in a rude form.

Between 1840 and 1850 nearly 7000 miles of railroad were built, making a total mileage of 9000. This rapid spread of the railroad, when joined with the steamboats, then to be found on every river and lake within the settled area, made possible an institution which to-day renders invaluable service.

%407. Express Companies.%—In 1839 a young man named W.F. Harnden began to carry packages, bundles, money, and small boxes between New York and Boston, and thus started the express business. At first he carried in a couple of carpet bags all the packages intrusted to him, and went by boat from New York to Stonington, Conn., and thence by rail to Boston. But his business grew so rapidly that in 1840 a rival express was started by P. B. Burke and Alvin Adams. Their route was from Boston to Springfield, Mass., and thence to New York. This was the foundation of the present Adams Express Company. Both companies were so well patronized that in 1841 service was extended to Philadelphia and Albany, and in 1844 to Baltimore and Washington. Their example was quickly followed by a host of imitators, and soon a dozen express companies were doing business between the great cities.

%408. Postage Stamps introduced.%—At that time (1840) three cents was the postage for a local letter which was not delivered by a carrier. Indeed, there were no letter carriers, and this in large cities was such an inconvenience that private dispatch companies undertook to deliver letters about the city for two cents each; and to accommodate their customers they issued adhesive stamps, which, placed on the letters, insured their delivery. The loss of business to the government caused by these companies, and the general demand for quicker and cheaper mail service, forced Congress to revise the postal laws in 1845, when an attempt was made to introduce the use of postage stamps by the government. As the mails (in consequence of the growth of the country and the easy means of transportation) were becoming very heavy, the postmasters in the cities and important towns had already begun to have stamps printed at their own cost. Their purpose was to save time, for letter postage was frequently (but not always) prepaid. But instead of fixing a stamp on the envelope (there was no such thing in 1840), the writer sent the letter to the post office and paid the postage in money, whereupon the postmaster stamped the letter "Paid." This consumed the time of the postmaster and the letter writer. But when he could go once to the post office and prepay a hundred letters by buying a hundred stamps, any one of which affixed to a letter was evidence that its postage had been paid, any man who wanted to could save his time. These stamps the postmasters sold at a little more than the expense of printing. Thus the postmasters of New York and St. Louis charged one dollar for nine ten-cent or eighteen five-cent stamps. This increased the price of postage a trifle: but as the use of the stamps was optional, the burden fell on those willing to bear it, while the convenience was so great that the effort made to have the Post-office Department furnish the stamps and require the people to use them succeeded in 1847.