During 1815 -1861 the nation was transformed from an undeveloped nation of farmers and frontiersmen to an urbanized economy. As the industrialized North and agricultural South split further apart, certain trends took over the American economy, and the social and political life during this time period.
The Market Revolution completely changed the northern and western economy between 1820 and 1860. With the help of Eli Whitney who invented the cotton gin which perfected manufacturing with interchangeable parts, the North experienced a manufacturing increase that continued to help the next century. Another great inventor of this era was Cyrus McCormick, who invented the mechanical mower. The mechanical mower transformed grain production in the West. The Erie Canal and the Cumberland Road, helped with certain transportation such as the steamboat and railroad, which allowed goods and crops to flow easily and cheaply between the agricultural West and manufacturing North. The growth of manufacturing also created a new wage labor system. …show more content…
the United States was a land full of farmers, until 1820 were millions of people began to move to the cities. They, along with several million Irish and German immigrants, filled the northern cities to find jobs in the new industrial economy. The wage labor system had a big role in america's society because it gave birth to America’s first middle class. Comprised mostly of white-collar workers and skilled laborers, this growing middle class became the vital force behind the different reform movements. Such reform movements included the reduction of alcohol consumption, elimination of prostitution, improve in prisons and insane asylums, improvement in education, and banishment of slavery.. The Second Great Awakening affected american life in all parts of the