Worksheet
Mill Bells and Canal Boats: A Timeline of the Market Revolution
Grade 8 economics: a dated timeline from 1790 to 1869, a passage and a Lowell mill worker's memoir show how factories and new transportation changed American life.
Grade 8Social StudiesInteractive · Printable
Aligned toECO.8.1
What’s included
- Single worksheet
- Auto-graded online
- 1 C3 Framework standard
- Printable answer key
- 11 questions
- Classroom-ready
Details
- Format
- Interactive · Printable
- Grade
- Grade 8
- Subject
- Social Studies
- Question types
- Fill in the blank, Multiple choice, Circle the answer, Sorting, Short answer
About this worksheet
What students practice
- Students sequence key events of the market revolution and the early Industrial Revolution from 1790 to 1869.
- Students explain how factories and new transportation changed work and daily life.
- Students source and corroborate a memoir written long after the events.
How to use
Look over the timeline as a class first, then read the passage and memoir; students answer on their own and debate the final claim in pairs.
Curriculum
C3 Framework standard covered
Explain how the Industrial Revolution and the market revolution changed work, transportation and daily life in the United States.
Preview
OwlSheets.com
Mill Bells and Canal Boats: A Timeline of the Market Revolution
Use a timeline, a passage and a mill worker's memoir to trace how work and travel changed.
The timeline
Study the timeline and read the passage. Then answer the questions.
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1790 | Slater's spinning mill, Rhode Island |
| 1807 | Fulton's steamboat runs the Hudson |
| 1811 | Work begins on the National Road |
| 1814 | Waltham mill spins and weaves cloth |
| 1825 | Erie Canal opens in New York |
| 1826 | Mill town of Lowell is founded |
| 1830 | B&O Railroad carries passengers |
| 1836 | Lowell mill workers turn out (strike) |
| 1837 | John Deere makes a steel plow |
| 1844 | Morse sends a telegraph message |
| 1869 | Transcontinental railroad finished |
From Homespun to Factory Cloth
1In 1800, most Americans lived on farms. Many families grew much of their own food, and women and girls often spun thread and wove cloth at home. In many places goods moved slowly over dirt roads, and hauling a wagon of grain to a distant city could cost more than the grain would sell for.
2Over the next decades, new ways of making and moving goods changed this pattern, a shift historians call the market revolution. Samuel Slater had worked in English mills and built spinning machines in Rhode Island from memory. At Waltham and later at Lowell, Massachusetts, investors built mills where water-powered machines turned raw cotton into finished cloth.
3Transportation changed even faster. Before the Erie Canal opened, shipping a ton of goods from Buffalo to New York City cost about $100; on the canal it cost about $10. Steamboats carried goods up rivers against the current. Railroads, which could run in winter when canals froze, spread across the country. Farmers in Ohio and Illinois began growing wheat and corn to sell in faraway cities, then used the money to buy factory cloth, tools and other goods.
4Work changed too. Many Lowell workers were young women from New England farms. They lived in company boardinghouses and worked about 12 or 13 hours a day, six days a week, with a factory bell marking the start and end of each shift. Their wages, often a few dollars a week, were their own, and many sent money home or saved it. In 1836, when the companies raised the price of board, more than a thousand workers walked out.
5Harriet Hanson Robinson began working in a Lowell mill at age 10. In 1898, more than sixty years later, she published a memoir about those years. In this adapted passage she recalls the 1836 strike: "When the girls in my room hesitated, I, who was only eleven, grew impatient and called out, 'I don't care what you do, I am going to turn out, whether anyone else does or not.' I marched out, and the others followed. As I looked back at the long line behind me, I felt prouder than at any success I have had since."
The transcontinental railroad was finished years after the Erie Canal opened.
- A. Morse sends a telegraph message.
- B. The B&O Railroad carries passengers.
- C. Fulton's steamboat runs the Hudson.
- D. Work begins on the National Road.
- A. The farmer would grow less wheat than before.
- B. Wheat would cost more in New York City than before.
- C. Selling wheat in eastern cities would now be worth the trip.
- D. The farmer would have to haul the wheat by wagon instead.
| Work | Transportation | Daily life at home |
|---|---|---|
- A. Spinning moved from homes to mills that paid wages.
- B. Families began to weave more cloth by hand at home.
- C. Men took over spinning, which women had done before.
- D. Cloth now came mainly from mills in England.
Transportation changed even faster.Steamboats carried goods up rivers against the current.Railroads, which could run in winter when canals froze, spread across the country.Farmers in Ohio and Illinois began growing wheat and corn to sell in faraway cities, then used the money to buy factory cloth, tools and other goods.
A worker remembers
Use paragraphs 4 and 5 and the timeline.
- A. She was not living in Lowell at the time of the strike.
- B. She wrote her memoir to sell cloth made in the Lowell mills.
- C. Mill workers in the 1830s were not able to read or write.
- D. Memories can shift over many years, and she was proud of her part.
- A. The companies raised the price of board that year.
- B. Workers left their jobs during a strike in 1836.
- C. Many workers sent part of their pay home.
- D. Workers' wages were often a few dollars a week.
At 12 hours a day, six days a week, a Lowell worker spent about hours a week at work.
- A. In 1835 they ship crops by canal and buy more store goods.
- B. In 1835 they travel to markets mainly by dirt road.
- C. In 1835 they work in a mill that stands on their farm.
- D. In 1835 they spin and weave more of their own cloth.
