SYLLABUS 
                            HISTORY 437
            AMERICAN ECONOMIC HISTORY TO THE CIVIL WAR

Robert Whaples
Office: 385 Holton
229-5211

Office Hours: 1:30 to 2:30, MW

          History 437 is a course which deals with the history of
the American economy before the Civil War.  The focus of the course
is the growth of the American economy, the factors which
contributed to it, and the consequences of that growth.  The goal
is to understand the present through studying the past, so we will
always keep public policy implications in the back of our minds. 
In part we will study the history of institutions which you will
recognize as economic- trade, banking, manufacturing, agriculture,
labor markets, transportation.  However, you may be surprised at
some of the course's topics.  Economics is the study of the
allocation of scarce resources.  Since everything is scarce to some
degree (especially time), we can legitimately study much- including
voting behavior at the Constitutional Convention and decisions
about family size.
     
Books:
     There are five required texts which are available at the UWM
Bookstore:
     Edwin Perkins, The Economy of Colonial America
     Thomas Cochran, Frontiers of Change: Early Industrialism in
America
     Stanley Kutler, Privilege and Creative Destruction: The
Charles        River Bridge Case
     George R. Taylor, Jackson versus Biddle: The Struggle over the
          Second Bank of the United States
     Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman, Time on the Cross
     In addition, there are required readings in a course pack
which is available at Clark Graphics, 2915 No. Oakland.

Grades: Final Exam- 25%
          Open-Book Quizzes- 20%
          Papers- I will assign nine papers of 3 to 4 pages each. 
Two of them are required of all students.  Each student will choose
three of the remainder.  In all, therefore, there will be due five
written assignments.  Assignments must be typed and must be turned
in by the due date- 50%
        Class Participation- 5%
          Optional: Oral Presentation (see sheet)- 5%

If you are a student with a disability, please feel free to contact
me early in the semester for any help or accommodations which you
may need.Outline of course:

Standards of Living and Growth in the Colonial and Antebellum
Economy
     How Poor (or Rich?) Were Americans?
     When and Why Did the Economy Grow?
          *Lebergott, "Beginnings" 
               "The Destruction of the Indians"
               "The Economic Problem"
          *Perkins, Chap. 9
          *Cochran, Chap. 1

Women, Men and Work in the Colonial and Antebellum Economy
          *Kupperman, "The Puzzle of the American Climate in the
Early               Colonial Period"
          *Rodgers, "Work Ideals and the Industrial Invasion"
          *Lerner, "The Lady and the Mill Girl: Changes in the
Status              of Women in the Age of Jackson"
          *Goldin, "The Economic Status of Women in the Early
Republic"

The Colonial Economy, the Revolution, and the Constitution
     Did British Mercantilism Stunt American Economic Growth?
     Did Economic Forces Cause the Revolution?
     Did Economic Forces Shape the Constitution?
          *Perkins, Chaps. 2, 6, 7, and 8
          *The Declaration of Independence
          *The Constitution of the United States
          *Beard, Selections from An Economic Interpretation of the
               Constitution
          *McGuire and Ohsfeldt, "An Economic Model of Voting at
the            Constitutional Convention"

Farmers in the East
     When Did Self-Sufficient Farmers Join the Market Economy?
     Was America Born Capitalist?
          *Perkins, Chap. 3
          *Henretta, "Families and Farms: Mentalite' in Pre-
Industrial               America"
          *Rothenberg, "The Market and Massachusetts Farmers"

Farmers in the West
     Did Speculators Steal the West?
     Was the West a Safety Valve for Discontented Workers?
     When and Why Did Midwestern Farmers Adopt Modern Technology?
     Westward Who? Westward Why?
          *Lebergott, "Westward Ho"
          *Gates, "Land Policy and Tenancy in the Prairie States,"
          *Swierenga, "The Speculators' Role on the Frontier"
          *Steckel, "The Economic Foundations of East-West
Migration"
          *David, "The Mechanization of Reaping in the Antebellum
Midwest"
Sex, Envy, and Security
     Why (and How) Did Fertility Decline in Antebellum America?
          *Perkins, Chap. 1
          *Easterlin, "Population Change and Farm Settlement in the
Northern            United States."
          *Sundstrom and David, "Old-Age Security Motives, Labor
Markets,            and Family Farm Fertility"

The Transportation Revolution 
     What Was the Transportation Revolution?
          *Lee and Passell, "The Role of the Railroads"
          *Cochran, Chap. 3

Government, Law, and Economic Development
     What Role Did the Government Play in Economic Development?
          *Kutler
          *Lebergott, "The Tariff"

Banking
     Was Jackson's Bank Policy Stupid? Harmful?
     What Do Banks Do?
          *Lamoreaux, "Banks, Kinship, and Economic Development"
          *Taylor
          *Lee and Passell, "Banks and Money before the Civil War"

The Rise of Modern Business
     The Birth of Modern Business Enterprise
          *Perkins, Chap. 5
          *Cochran, Chaps. 2 and 7
          *Blackford and Kerr, "Railroads: Pioneers of Big
Business"

Industrialization
     Why Did the North Industrialize and Not the South?
     How Did Workers Respond to Industrialization?
          *Cochran, Chaps. 4-6 and 8
          *Sokoloff, "The Transition from the Artisanal Shop to the
               Nonmechanized Factory"
          *Sokoloff, "Inventive Activity in Early Industrial
America"
          *Dulles and Dubofsky, "The Impact of Industrialism"

Servants, Slavery and Sectionalism
     Would You Have Indentured Yourself to Get to America?
     Why Did Slaves Replace Indentured Servants?
     How Bad Was the Life of a Slave?
     How Did Slavery Affect the Slave Psychologically?
     Was Slavery a Dying Institution on the Eve of the Civil War?
     Were Slaves More Efficient Than Free Workers?
     Why Did the South Secede?
          *Perkins, Chap. 4
          *Galenson, "The Rise and Fall of Indentured Servitude in
the            Americas"
          *Fogel and Engerman

Final Exam: December 21                        ORAL PRESENTATIONS

Economic outcomes are the results of collective decisions by
largely anonymous people, but sometimes the contribution of one
person stands out.

Oral presentations will be given on or before November 16. 
Presentations will take place in my office.  The audience will
include me and anyone else you wish to bring along.  We prepared
for a grilling after the presentation.  All credit which you
receive will be added directly to your class average.  Thus if your
average is 84 at the end of the semester, and you receive 4 points
for your presentation, your grade will jump to 88, i.e., you will
receive a B+ instead of a B.

For your subject take about 15 minutes to tell why he or she was
important.
1. Open with a brief biographical sketch.
2. Focus on your subject's contribution to the American economy-
not their culinary tastes, sex lives, etc.
3. Link your discussion to the themes of the class.

As Shakespeare said, "Brevity is the soul of wit."

* = individual for whom it will be easy to find a lot of
information

Business Barons
Eliza Lucas and the Southern Colonial Agricultural Economy
Stephen Girard and the Northern Colonial Merchant Economy 
Robert Oliver and the Northern Colonial Merchant Economy 
Isaac Hicks and the Northern Colonial Merchant Economy 
Moses Brown and the Northern Colonial Merchant Economy 
*Samuel Slater and Early Industrialization
John Astor and Antebellum Trade
Erastus Corning and the Antebellum Merchant Economy
E.I. DuPont and Early Industrialization
*Nicholas Biddle and the Bank of the United States

Transportation Titans
Dewitt Clinton and the Erie Canal
Edgar Thompson and Early Railroad Innovation
Robert Fulton and the Steamboat Era
Alvin Adams and the Express Business

Labor Leaders
Sarah Bagley and Women in Antebellum Manufacturing
William Sylvis and Antebellum Labor Unions

Inventive Geniuses
Oliver Evans and Flour Milling
*Eli Whitney, the Cotton Gin and Interchangeable Parts
Seth Thomas and the New England Clock Industry
Thomas Blanchard and America's Age of Wood
Elias Howe, Isaac Singer and the Sewing Machine
Samuel Finley Breese Morse and the Telegraph
*Cyrus McCormick, John Deere, and Agricultural Implements
Baldwin, Cooper and Railroad Inventions

Please come to me for any help you need in finding sources.                 Written Assignments: History 437

There are nine papers of 3 to 4 pages each.  Two of them are
required of all students.  They are noted with an asterisk.  Each
student will choose three of the remainder.  Therefore, there will
be due five written assignments.  
Assignments must be typed and double-spaced, and must be turned in
by the due date.  Recommended length is 3 or 4 pages, although you
may go longer without fear of retribution.  I insist that papers
be free of blatant misspellings and grammatical flaws.  Papers must
be well organized around a central thesis.  Each paper should be
a miniature gem, and is worth up to ten percent of your grade.                       Written Assignment #1

Readings:
Gerda Lerner, "The Lady and the Mill Girl"
Claudia Goldin, "The Economic Status of Women in the Early
Republic"
Perkins, "Women in the Colonial Economy"

Lerner argues that between the colonial period and about 1840, the
"actual situation" of American women "had in many respects
deteriorated."  That "the definition of 'women's proper sphere'
seemed narrower and more confined than ever."
Her thesis that "women's status deteriorated from a 'golden age,'"
has many backers, but when Goldin attempts to assess it with
quantitative evidence, she argues that "such a thesis ... is not
an entirely accurate description of the past."
Did the social and economic status of women in the Northern
colonies and states deteriorate from a "Golden Age?"                       Written Assignment #2

Readings:
The Constitution of the United States of America
Charles Beard, Selections from An Economic Interpretation of the
          Constitution
Robert McGuire and Robert Ohsfeldt, "An Economic Model of Voting
          at the Constitutional Convention"

McGuire and Ohsfeldt in "An Economic Model of Voting Behavior at
the Constitutional Convention of 1787," show that economic
interests played an important role in the shaping of the
Constitution.  Does their evidence support the broad contentions
of Charles Beard that "economic elements are the chief factors in
the development of political institutions."  Does their evidence
support the narrower Beardian contention (as restated by Brown)
that "Instead of being a document drawn up by patriotic men for the
protection of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the
Constitution was the work of consolidated economic groups- personal
property interests including money, public securities,
manufacturers, land speculators, and trade and shipping- groups
that were personally interested in the outcome of their labors. 
In the Constitution, essentially an economic document, they
incorporated their philosophy that private property came before
government and was not subject to control by popular majorities."
(Do you think that they measured ideology well?)                       Written Assignment #3

Readings:
James Henretta, "Families and Farms: Mentalite' in Pre-Industrial
          America."
Winifred Rothenberg, "The Market and Massachusetts Farmers, 1750-
1855."

Winifred Rothenberg attacks James Henretta's argument that the
"eighteenth-century rural mentality was not capitalist."   Who wins
the debate in your opinion and why?                       Written Assignment #4

Assignments must be typed and double-spaced, and must be turned in
by the due date.  Recommended length is 3 or 4 pages, although you
may go longer without fear of retribution.  I insist that papers
be free of blatant misspellings and grammatical flaws.  Papers must
be well organized around a central thesis.  Each paper should be
a miniature gem, and is worth up to ten percent of your course
grade.

Stanley Lebergott, "Westward Ho."
Paul Gates, "Land Policy and Tenancy in the Prairie States,"
Robert Swierenga, "The Speculators' Role on the Frontier"

Were the American government's policies regarding public lands in
"good" and "fair" during the antebellum period?                       Written Assignment #5

Readings: 
Richard Easterlin, "Population Change and Farm Settlement in the
Northern United States."
William Sundstrom and Paul David, "Old-Age Security Motives, Labor
Markets, and Farm Family Fertility in Antebellum America?"

Easterlin and Sundstrom-David offer competing explanations for the
decline in rural fertility during the 1800s.  Who wins the debate
and why?  Be careful to show how each side develops its case. 
Don't be afraid to suggest your own theory of fertility decline
that can complement these other theories.                       Written Assignment #6

Reading: Stanley Kutler, Privilege and Creative Destruction: The
Charles River Bridge Case.

If you sat on the Supreme Court, how would you have voted in the
Charles River Bridge Case?  Prepare a brief in which you defend
your decision, and destroy that of the opposition.                       Written Assignment #7

Readings: 
          George R. Taylor, Jackson versus Biddle
          Lamoreaux, "Banks, Kinship, and Economic Development"
          Lee and Passell, "Banks and Money before the Civil War"

Would you have vetoed the rechartering of the Second Bank of the
United States?  Why or why not?  Write a presidential message
explaining your veto or nonveto.                       Written Assignment #8

Readings: 
Thomas Cochran, Frontiers of Change: Early Industrialism in America
Sokoloff, "The Transition from the Artisanal Shop to the
Nonmechanized  Factory"
Sokoloff, "Inventive Activity in Early Industrial America"
Dulles and Dubofsky, "The Impact of Industrialism"

Stop the world, I want to get off!  Suppose you had ultimate power
over America's industrial development in the antebellum period. 
Would you decide to let industrialization take the course it did,
or arrest industrialization as of about 1800.  Examine the
perspectives of a) a typical consumer, and b) a poor worker. 
Explain your reasoning.                       Written Assignment #9

Readings: 
Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman, Time on the Cross.

One of the arguments of Fogel and Engerman is that many slaves in
the American South were imbued with something like a "Protestant
Work Ethic."  How do Fogel and Engerman build their case?  What
theoretical and empirical evidence do they use?  Do you agree with
this thesis?  Why or why not?