Westward Expansion

Mr. Luvera

Chapter 7: New Yorkers Move West

Unit 3: A Time of Change

Life of Settlers

Frontier: edge of a settled area

Pioneer: person who is among the first of non-native people to settle a region

Genesee Road: once a trail used by Native Americans, led thousands of settlers to western New York

Big Tree Treaty

In 1797, representatives of the Holland Land Company and the Seneca leaders met at the village of Big Tree called Geneseo today.

The Holland Land Company signed the Big Tree Treaty with Seneca leaders to purchase a large area of Seneca land in western New York.

Shortly after, people settled Buffalo and Rochester.

War of 1812

From 1790 to 1820, Great Britain and France were at war.

The British navy needed sailors. British ships began stopping American ships near Canada, and began forcing American sailors to serve in the British navy. (New York borders Canada.)

In June of 1812, the United States declared war on Great Britain.

American army invaded Canada in December 1813. They burned its capital, York, which is now Toronto.

Battle of Lake Champlain

In September 1814, Sir George Prevost and 11,000 British soldiers crossed Lake Champlain on several ships. About 1,500 American soldiers led by Brigadier General Alexander Macomb and a small fleet led by Commodore Macdonough defeated the larger British force.

This forced the British to withdraw to Canada.

Soon after this battle, a peace agreement was reached.

List 3 events from the War of 1812 in the order they occurred.

America burned the capital, York (now Toronto).

America defeated Britain at Lake Champlain.

America and Great Britain signed peace treaty to end the War of 1812.

Westward Expansion

View a film of New Yorkers moving west: http://www.mhschool.com/ss/ny/big_idea_video/NY_Unit_3.swf

Transportation Revolution

Robert Fulton invented the Steamboat that could transport goods and people, named the boat Clermont in 1807.

Gov. DeWitt Clinton thought of building a waterway to connect to western New York, named the Erie Canal in 1825.

Peter Cooper started a railroad and used locomotives, a steam-powered engine that pulls railroad cars in 1831.

What was the effect of the Erie Canal on New York City?

Cause Effect

ERIE CANAL

New York City became the largest port and a center for new arrivals to the United States (able to transport goods from the west to the east).

New York Grows and Changes

Industry: all the companies that make one kind of goods or provide one kind of service

Examples: Syracuse quickly became the center of the salt

industry in New York. Gloversville (Fulton County): Leather for gloves

and shoes come from animal skins. The skins treated by tanning, a method of scraping and soaking the skins to make them soft and workable

Industrial Revolution

Almost every industry changed from handwork in homes to machine work in factories.

Isaac Singer invented the sewing machine. Clothing was made faster and cheaper.

Art Revolution

James Fenimore Cooper wrote stories about life on the New York frontier.

Washington Irving wrote about New York, including American classics, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle.”

Thomas Cole and Frederick Church developed a beautiful style of painting landscapes – paintings that show the landforms of an area. Their style became known as the Hudson River School of painting. Visit Olana, home of Frederick Church.

Thomas Cole, View on the Catskill, Early Autumn, 1837

Looking for a Better Life

Immigrants: people who come to a new country to live

In 1853, New York State a law requiring all children to go to school. Lawmakers hoped that children would go to school rather than work in factories.

In the 1840’s, the women’s rights movement began. Leaders like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott helped organize the first women’s rights convention at Seneca Falls in 1848.

Carolina cotton mill, 1908

Children working as coal miners in Pennsylvania, 1911.

Breaker boys in a coal mine were often prodded with sticks or kicked if they fell behind

Italian peanut vendor, 1910

Italian shoe shine boys in N.Y.C.

Children worked alongside their parents.Oyster shuckers in a canning factory often worked 13 hours a day.

    Little girl working in a cotton mill

Boy working in a glass factory

Early life on the frontier

Watch this film on a one-room school house: http://www.macmillanmh.com/ss/ny/artifacts/One_Room_School.swf

Labor Leaders (Ch. 9)

Many employers, or business owners, made workers spend long days in dangerous conditions for low wages.

Samuel Gompers helped organize labor unions, groups of workers who try to get better working conditions.

They used strikes, a refusal of all the workers in a business to work until the owners meet their demands.

Factories Change (Ch. 9)

Some industries produced their work in sweatshops, dark and dirty workshops where immigrant workers were paid low wages and worked long hours.

On March 25, 1911, a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City. Most of the immigrant workers were Jewish and Italian teenagers. These women made shirtwaists, a popular type of women’s blouse.

Flames and smoke spread quickly through the crowded building. Owners of the factory had locked the doors because they thought their workers were stealing. 146 women died because they were unable to escape from the building.

Reforms and regulations in other areas were occuring at this time, known as the Progressive Era (early 1900’s).

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City

An Age of Inventions

Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876.

Thomas Alva Edison invented more than 1,000 practical inventions, including the development of the electric light bulb.

George Eastman invented paper-backed film for cameras

Other New York Inventors

How did our state grow in the early 1800’s?

Transportation Industry Art

The Empire State

View a film on Industries: http://www.mhschool.com/ss/ny/big_idea_video/NY_Unit_4.swf

View a film on A Changing New York: http://www.mhschool.com/ss/ny/big_idea_video/NY_Unit_5.swf