CHAPTER VIII.. Social Culture At the Turn of the Century

SOCIAL CULTURE AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY

In 1800 the population of our land was 5,305,482, of whom 896,849 were slaves. New York City had 60,489; Philadelphia, 40,000; Boston, 24,937; Baltimore, 23,971; Charleston, 18,712; Providence, 7,614; Washington, 3,210. The population of Vermont, Northern and Western New York, and the Susquehanna Valley of Pennsylvania had grown considerably more dense since 1790. The social life, ideas, and habits of the rural districts had not altered much from those prevalent in colonial days, but in the more favored centres great improvements, or, at any rate, changes, might have been marked.

Even far in the country framed buildings were now the most common, the raising of one being a great event. The village school gave a half holiday. Every able-bodied man and boy from the whole country-side received an invitation--all being needed to "heave up," at the boss carpenter's pompous word of command, the ponderous timbers seemingly meant to last forever. A feast followed, with contests of strength and agility worthy of description on Homer's page.

Skating was not yet a frequent pastime, nor dancing, save in cities and large towns. Balls every pious New Englander abhorred as sinful. The theatre was similarly tabooed--in Massachusetts, so late as 1784, by law. New York and Philadelphia frowned upon it then, though jolly Baltimore already gave it patrons enough. When, in 1793, yellow fever desolated Philadelphia, one theory ascribed the affection to the admission of the theatre. In other cities passion for the theatre was growing, and even Massachusetts tolerated it by an act passed in 1793. President Washington, while in New York, oftener than many thought proper, attended the old, sorrily furnished play-house in John Street, the only one which the city could then boast. John Adams also went now and again. Both were squinted at through opera-glasses, which were just coming into use and thought by the crowd to be infinitely ridiculous. Good hours were kept, as the play began at five.

All sorts of shows, games, and sports which the country could afford or devise were immensely popular, the most so, and the roughest, in the South. Horse-racing, cock-fighting, shooting matches, at all which betting was high, were there fashionable, as well as most brutal man-fights, in which ears were bitten off and eyes gouged out. President Thomas Jefferson was exceedingly fond of menageries and circuses, his diary abounding in such entries as: "pd for seeing a lion 21 months old 11-1/2 d.;" "pd seeing a small seal .125 ;" "pd seeing elephant .5;" "pd seeing elk .75 ;" "pd seeing Caleb Phillips a dwarf .25;" "pd seeing a painting .25."

Lotteries were universal, and put to uses which now seem excessively queer. Whenever a bridge or a public edifice, as a schoolhouse, was to be built, a street paved or a road repaired, the money was furnished through a lottery. In the same way manufacturing companies were started, churches aided, college treasuries replenished. It was with money collected through a lottery that Massachusetts first encouraged cotton spinning; that the City Hall of New York was enlarged, the Court House at Elizabeth rebuilt, the Harvard University library increased, and many pretentious buildings put up at the Federal City. [Footnote: McMaster's United States, 588.] This was but a single form of the sporting mania. The public stocks, as well as the paper of the numerous canals, turnpikes, and manufacturing corporations now springing up, were gambled in a way which would almost shock Wall Street today.

Anthracite coal had been discovered and was just beginning to be mined, but on account of the plentifulness of wood was not for a long time largely used. The first idea of steam navigation was embodied in an English patent taken out by Jonathan Hulls in 1736. The initial experiment of the kind in this country was by William Henry, on the Conestoga River, Pennsylvania, in 1763. John Fitch navigated the Delaware steam-wise in 1783-84. In 1790 one of Fitch's steam paddle-boats made regular trips between Philadelphia and Trenton for four months. In 1785-86 Oliver Evans experimented in this direction, as did Rumsey, in Virginia, in 1787. One Morey ran a stern-wheeler of his own make from Hartford to New York in 1794. Chancellor Livingston built a steamer on the Hudson in 1797. It was only in 1807 that Fulton finished his "Clermont" and made a passage up the Hudson to Albany from New York. It took thirty-three hours, and was the earliest thoroughly successful steam navigation on record. He subsequently built the "Orleans" at Pittsburgh. It was completed and made the voyage to New Orleans in 1811. No steamboat ruffled the waters of Lake Ontario till 1816. The pioneer steam craft on Lake Erie was launched at Black Rock, May 28, 1818. It is recorded as wonderful that in less than two hours it had gotten fifteen miles from shore.

At the North the muster or general training was, for secular entertainment, the day of days, when the local regiment came out to reveal and to perfect its skill in the manual and in the evolutions of the line. Side-shows and a general good time constituted for the crowds its chief interest. Cider, cakes, pop-corn, and candy drained boys' pockets of pennies, those who could afford the fun going in to see the one-legged revolutionary soldier with his dancing bear, the tattooed man, the ventriloquist, or the then "greatest show on earth." College commencements, too, at that time usually had all these festive accompaniments, and many a boy debated whether to spend his scant change here or at the muster. In New England, Christmas was not observed; it was hardly known, in fact, Thanksgiving taking its place, proclaimed with the utmost formality by the Governor some weeks in advance.

Intemperance was still terribly common; worst in the newer sections of the country. There is extant a message of William Henry Harrison, while Governor of Indiana Territory, to his legislature, against this evil, urging better surveillance of public-houses. "The progress of intemperance among us," it runs, "outstrips all calculation, and the consequences of its becoming general I shudder to unfold. Poverty and domestic embarrassment and distress are the present effects, and prostration of morals and change of government must inevitably follow. The virtue of the citizens is the only support of a Republican Government. Destroy this and the country will become a prey to the first daring and ambitious chief which it shall produce."

To counteract this and other vices, which were justly viewed as largely the results of ignorance, philanthropic people were at this period establishing Sunday-schools, following the example of Robert Raikes, who began the movement at Gloucester, England, in 1781. They had been already introduced in New England, but were now making their way in Philadelphia and elsewhere. The first Methodist bishop, Asbury, zealously furthered them. They had, to begin with, no distinctive religious character, and churches even looked upon them with disfavor; but their numbers increased and their value became more apparent until the institution was adopted by all denominations.

Before 1800 the new United States coinage, with nearly the same pieces as now, had begun to circulate, but had had little success at that date in driving out the old foreign coins of colonial times. Especially were there still seen Spanish dollars, halves, quarters, fifths or pistareens, and eighths--the last being the Spanish "real," "ryall," or "royall," worth twelve and a half cents--and sixteenths or half-reals, worth six and one-quarter cents each. Many of these pieces were sadly worn, passing at their face value only when the legend could be made out. Sometimes they were heated to aid in this. Many were so worn that a pistareen would bring only a Yankee shilling, sixteen and two-thirds cents; the half-pistareen, only eight cents; the real, ten; the half-real, five.

The denominations of the colonial money of account were also still in daily use, and, indeed, might be heard so late as the Civil War. The "real," twelve and one-half cents, was in New York a shilling, being one-twentieth of the pound once prevalent in the New York colony. In New England it was a "nine-pence," constituting nearly nine-twelfths, or nine of the twelve pence of an old New England shilling of sixteen and two-thirds cents. Twenty such shillings had been required for the New England pound, which was so much more valuable than the pound of the New York colony. But neither one or any colonial pound was the equivalent of the pound sterling.

In the middle colonies, including Pennsylvania, the pound had possessed still a different value, the Spanish dollar, in which the Continental Congress kept its accounts, there equalling ninety pence. This is why those accounts stand in dollars and ninetieths, a notation so puzzling to many. A "real" would here be about one-eleventh of ninety pence, hence called the "eleven-penny-piece," shortened into "levy." Dividing a levy by two would give five (and a fraction); hence the term "five-penny-piece," "fippenny," or "fip," for the half-real or six and one-quarter cent piece. There are doubtless yet people in Virginia and Maryland who never say "twenty-five cents," but instead, "two levies and a fip."

General intelligence had improved, partly from the greater number, better quality, and quicker and fuller distribution of newspapers. Correspondents were numerous. Intelligent persons visiting at a distance from home were wont to write long letters to their local newspapers, containing all the items of interest which they could scrape together. Papers sprung up at every considerable hamlet. Even the Ohio Valley did not lack. Perhaps four and a half million copies a year were issued in the whole country by 1800. They were admitted now--not so, however, under the original postal law--as a regular part of the mails, and thus found their way to nearly all homes. The news which they brought was often old news, of course, post riders requiring twenty-nine and one-half hours between Philadelphia and either New York or Baltimore; but they were read with none the less avidity. Its first mail reached Buffalo in 1803, on horseback. Mail went thither bi-weekly till 1806, then weekly. Postal rates were high, ranging for letters from six cents for thirty miles to twenty-five for four hundred and fifty miles or over. So late as 1796 New York City received mails from North and from South, and sent mails in both directions, only twice weekly between November 1st and May 1st, and but thrice weekly the rest of the year. In 1794 the great cities enjoyed carriers, who got two cents for each letter delivered. In 1785 there were two dailies, The Pennsylvania Packet and The New York Advertiser, but, as yet, no Sunday paper appeared, nor any scientific, religious, or illustrated journal, nor any devoted to literature or trade. The New York Medical Repository began in 1797, the first scientific periodical in America. In 1801 seventeen dailies existed. Paper was scarce and high, so that appeals were published in most of the news sheets imploring people to save their rags.

The press was more violently partisan and indecently personal than now. To oppose the federalist United States Gazette the republican National Gazette had been started, which, with brilliant meanness, assailed not only Washington's public acts, but his motives and character. Him, and still more Adams, Hamilton, and the other leading Federalists, it, in nearly every issue, charged with conspiracy to found a monarchy.

Republican journals reeked with such doggerel as:

"See Johnny at the helm of State, Head itching for a crowny; He longs to be, like Georgy, great, And pull Tom Jeffer downy."

Federalists were not behind in warfare of this sort. Jefferson was the object of their continual and vilest slander. In New England, the stronghold of Federalism, nearly every Sunday's sermon was an arraignment of the French, and impliedly of their allies, the Republicans. [Footnote: 2 McMaster, 383] From Jefferson's election--he was a conservative free-thinker--they seemed to anticipate the utter extermination of Christianity, though the man paid in charities, mostly religious, as for Bibles, missionaries, chapels, meeting-houses, etc., one year of his presidency, $978.20; another year, $1,585.60. One preacher likened the tribute which Talleyrand demanded of Adams's envoys to that which Sennacherib required of Hezekiah. [Footnote: Isaiah, 36] Another compared Hamilton, killed in a duel, to Abner, the son of Ner, slain by Joab. Another took for his text the message which Hezekiah sent to the Prophet Isaiah: "This is a day of trouble and of rebuke and of contumely," [Footnote: Isaiah, 37: 3 seq.] etc. Another attacked Republicanism outright from the words: "There is an accursed thing in the midst of thee, O Israel." [Footnote: Joshua. 7: 13] The coolest federalist leaders could fall prey to this partisan temper. Lafayette meditated settling in this country. Such was his popularity here that no one would have dared to oppose this openly. Hamilton, however, while favoring it publicly, yet, lest the great Frenchman's coming should help on the republican cause, secretly did his utmost to prevent it. Even Washington, who was human after all, connived, it seems, at this piece of duplicity.

According to a federalist sheet, Hamilton's death called forth "the voice of deep lament" save from "the rancorous Jacobin, the scoffing deist, the snivelling fanatic, and the imported scoundrel." "Were I asked," said an apologist, "whether General Hamilton had vices, in the face of the world, in the presence of my God, I would answer, No."

Another poetized of the

"Great day When Hamilton--disrobed of mortal clay-- At God's right hand shall sit with face benign, And at his murderer cast a look divine."

In 1800 instrumental music might have been heard in some American churches. There were Roman Catholic congregations in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Baltimore had its Catholic bishop. The Protestant Episcopal Church in America had been organized. Methodism, independent of England since 1784, was on its crusade up and down the land, already strong in New York and the South, and in 1790 a Methodist church had been gathered in Boston.

The manufacture of corduroys, bed-ticking, fustian, jeans, and cotton-yarn had been started. Iron ore and iron ware of nearly all sorts was produced. Syracuse was manufacturing salt. Lynn already made morocco leather, and Dedham, straw braid for hats. Cotton was regularly exported in small quantities from the South. In New York one could get a decayed tooth filled or a set of false teeth made. Four daily stages ran between New York and Philadelphia. The Boston ship Columbia had circumnavigated the globe. The United States Mint was still working by horse-power, not employing steam till 1815. Whitney's cotton-gin had been invented in 1793. Terry, of Plymouth, Conn., was making clocks. There were in the land two insurance companies, possibly more. Cast-iron ploughs, of home make, were displacing the old ones of wood. Morse's "Geography" and Webster's "Spelling-book" were on the market, and extensively used.

The great industrial inventions which were to color the entire civilization of mankind had a powerful effect upon America. So early as 1775, in England, Crompton's mule-jenny had superseded Hargreaves' spinning machine. The latter had improved on the old spinning-wheel by making eight, and later eighty, threads with the effort and time the old arrangement had required for one; but the threads were no better, and could be used only for woof, linen being required for warp. Arkwright's roller arrangement was an improvement upon Hargreaves'. It bettered the quality of the threads, making them evener, so that they could serve for warp as well as woof. Crompton's mule was another quantitative improvement, combining the excellences of both Hargreaves and Arkwright. One man could with this machinery work twenty-two hundred spindles, and they went much faster than by the ancient wheel. Then came steam-power. Watts's engine was adapted to spinning and carding cotton at Manchester in 1783. Two years later the cylinder printing of cottons was invented, and a little after began the use of acid in bleaching.

These mighty industrial devices did not cross to America immediately, but were all here before the time of which we now write. A spinning-jenny was indeed exhibited in Philadelphia so early as 1775. During the Revolution, Philadelphia was a seat of much manufacture. We have in an earlier chapter remarked that Beverly, Mass., had a cotton factory in 1787. Oxen furnished its power, as a horse did that for the first Philadelphia mill. A cotton mill was also started very early at Worcester, but whether in 1780 or 1789 may admit of doubt. There is some evidence that before July, 1790, a cotton factory run by water, with ginning, carding, and spinning machines, the last of eighty-four spindles apiece, was in operation near Statesburg, S. C.; but whether it was successful or not is not known. Oliver Evans was operating a single-flue boiler for steam-power by 1786. Soon after he had one with two flues, and in 1779 a high-pressure or non-condensing engine, the principle of which he is by many believed to have invented. He was the earliest builder of steam-engines in the United States, having in 1804 secured a patent for the high-pressure device. His factory furnished engines to all parts of the country.

England did her best to prevent all knowledge of the new manufacturing machinery from crossing the Atlantic. The Act 21 George III., c. 37, denounced upon anyone who should aid toward giving America any tool, machine, or secret relating to manufacture in any branch, a penalty of 200 pounds and one year's imprisonment. In vain. Partly by smuggling, partly by invention, the new arts soon flourished here as there. Some Scotch artisans who came to Bridgewater, Mass., by invitation from Mr. Hugh Orr, of that town, constructed, about 1786, the first cotton-spinning machines in America, including the Arkwright inventions.

To build and launch the English machinery with full success was, however, reserved for Samuel Slater, a native of Belper, Derbyshire, England, who, in 1790, erected at Pawtucket, R. I., the Old Mill in rear of Mill Street, which still stands and runs. Slater had served his time at the making of cotton-manufacturing machinery with J. Strutt, who, had been Arkwright's partner. In Strutt's factory he had risen to be overseer. So thoroughly had he mastered the business that, on arriving here, he found himself able to imitate the foreign machines from memory alone, without model, plan, or measurement. Having gotten his gear in readiness, almost solely with his own hands, December 20, 1790, he started three cards, drawing and roving, also seventy-two spindles, all on the Arkwright plan, the first of the kind ever triumphantly operated on this side of the ocean. President Jackson styled Slater "the father of American manufactures," and 1790 may be taken as the birth-year of the American factory system.

The Tariff, the embargo policy of President Jefferson, and the hatred toward England, taking form in organizations pledged to wear only home-made clothing, all powerfully stimulated the erection of factories. A report in 1810, of Albert Gallatin, Madison's Secretary of the Treasury, states that by the end of the year preceding, eighty-seven cotton factories had arisen in this country, calculated for eighty thousand spindles. The power loom, however, not used in England till about 1806, did not begin its work here till after the War of 1812. [Footnote: See. further, Period II., Chap. VIII.]