How Did Technology Change American Life In The 1800s

The 1800s brought many new technological advances that helped transform American life. These advances led to an economic and physical growth. Inventions brought a continuous growth in the population. New modes of transportation created a highly affective trading system. The three most important technological advances were the Erie Canal, Railroads, and the cotton gin.
Built in 1825, the Erie Canal brought an enormous growth of wealth to New York by linking New York to the Great Lakes (Doc 1A). The Erie Canal changed New York from the fifth largest seaport to the busiest port in America (Doc 1B). The canal helped reduce costs and travel time. Traveling time by boat decreased by thirteen days (Doc 2). In addition, more goods were distributed …show more content…
People started moving to the western cities because of this new mode of transportation (Doc 5). The railroads carried many materials such as: raw materials and processed goods eastward (Doc 6). The railroads also carried manufactured goods westward (Doc 6). The advantage of using railroads was SPEED - it was a lot faster than the roads and the canals (Doc 4). However, not all was positive about the technological advance of the railroad. When building the railroad, the bison were killed either by railroad workers or those who rode on the train. (Doc 5). The railroad also contributed to the near extinction of the American bison. The Bison would be killed by sharpshooters on the …show more content…
During the 1800s, Eli Whitney created a machine called the Cotton Gin. The machine was able to increase the separation of cotton seeds which in turn reduced cotton production by half (Doc 1). This technology affected the American life positively and negatively. While the Cotton Gin made Southerners profitable, it also affected slavery. Prior to the Cotton Gin, slavery was on the decline. Even though it may not have been Whitney’s intention, the cotton gin made slavery popular again. In the 1800s, there were approximately 200,000 slaves in the United States (Doc 2). The average price for a slave changed from $600 in the 1800s to $1,800 in the 1860s (Doc 2). The percentage of cotton exports changed from 7.1% in the 1800s to 57.5% in the 1860s (Doc 2). The cotton gin was so profitable that from 1790 to 1808 when the importation of slaves was banned, the southerners imported 80,000 Africans (Doc 3A). The increase of slaves was so large that approximately one in three southerners was a slave (Doc