James Knox Polk Frontpage
American President Frontpage
Jump to:
| Previous Section: Family Life | The American Franchise | Next Section: Impact and Legacy |
In 1844, the nation's population had reached 19.6 million people, an increase from 1840 of 2.4 million people. Amazingly, four years later, the national population increased another two million, reaching 22 million (a 13 percent increase). Four new states came into the union during these eight years: Florida (1845), Texas (1845), Iowa (1846), and Wisconsin (1848), keeping the balance exactly fifteen slave states and fifteen free states.
These 4.4 million new Americans -- of which 1.5 million were immigrants, mainly from Germany and Ireland -- entered into a nation that was highly partisan and firmly sectional in its politics. In 1840, nearly 2.8 million people had voted, or an astounding 80.2 percent of the eligible voters, up from 57 percent in 1836. This incredible rate held in 1844 at 78.9 percent of eligible voters, and it remained in the high seventies for the remainder of the century. Obviously, the 2.7 million voters in 1844 held firm to the 1840 party lines. Indeed, if Clay had not lost electoral votes in New York to the Liberty Party candidate, James G. Birney, he would have won the popular vote and the electoral college vote as well, giving him the presidency.
Concentrations of Wealth
Amidst all of this growth and partisan politics were immense changes that drove politics. The richest man in America in 1845, for example, was John Jacob Astor, who held a fortune worth $25 million. On the other hand, squalid working class slums began to appear in every American city, principally filled with Irish and German immigrants as well as free black men and women. By 1845, the top 1 percent of wealthiest people in New York City held 50 percent of the total wealth, an increase of 10 percent since 1828. And the cities were larger: Philadelphia stood at 389,000 in 1850; New York was twice as large. Thus, most of the people who lived in these cities were poor, with annual incomes of $100 or less (70 percent). Another 25 to 30 percent were middle class, with yearly incomes between $100 and $5,000. Only 3 percent earned more than $5,000 each year. And it has been estimated that a family of five required at least $500 annually to barely survive. These cities were also sickly places in which people drank from contaminated wells and used outdoor toilets.
Political Activism
Although no women were allowed to vote in any state of the union in the 1840s, many were involved in political activism and reform movements. Nearly every church in the nation had charity groups staffed and run largely by women. And the spread of public education in the North and West was accompanied by droves of women teachers in a field previously dominated by men. By 1850, women staffed most of the primary teaching positions in the nation's expanding roster of public and private elementary schools. Thousands of women joined Martha Washington Temperance Reform Societies, campaigning to end the drinking of hard liquor, which had become a national problem by the 1830s, peaking at seven gallons per capita in 1836. By 1850, the consumption rate had decreased by half. Numerous other women joined the Female Moral Reform Society, which worked to eliminate prostitution by organizing charity and work opportunities for poor women and orphans. Others campaigned to reform the horrible conditions of the nation's insane asylums, orphanages, and prisons in the 1840s.
Still others embraced utopian communities and new religions as an alternative to political activism. Groups like the Millerites, the Shakers, the Oneida Community, and socialist communities appealed to thousands of men and women alike. None was more successful among the communitarian movements than the new Mormon religion. Its unique and extraordinary communitarianism, which focused on hard work and selfless cooperation, enabled the group to prosper in agriculture. The Mormon's success, and the unique features of its religion, which included polygamy, aroused the wrath of non-Mormon neighbors, who believed that the group was un-American and anti-individualist. The Mormons were forced to flee from their homes in New York and Ohio to Missouri and the -- when dissension split the community -- on to the Great Salt Lake region of present-day Utah.
Women's Political Voice
Thousands of women worked in the forefront of the abolitionist movement in the 1840s, canvassing their neighborhoods in petition drives requesting the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia. When the abolitionist movement formerly split in 1840 into those that advocated forming a new political party to run abolitionist candidates for office and those that continued to insist on moral activism alone, female adherents also followed suit.
Most women activists discovered, however, that while they were valued to do much of the legwork, there were few opportunities for them to lead or to speak out as women. The few who did, such as the African American Sojourner Truth and the white Grimke sisters, were criticized at every turn, frequently even by fellow male reformers. The women were told that their best contributions could be made in ways reflecting the popular notion of separate spheres for men and women -- the public world for men and the home and family for women. Empowered by their own sense of accomplishment as reformers and activists, a group of women (led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott) organized the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 in upstate New York to focus specifically on women's rights. The Convention's proclamation, modeled on the Declaration of Independence, called a Declaration of Sentiments, asserted that "We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men and women are created equal." It then documented the history of male tyranny oven women and called for women's suffrage as the best means for women to protect themselves and to realize their potential as humans equal to men.
These 4.4 million new Americans -- of which 1.5 million were immigrants, mainly from Germany and Ireland -- entered into a nation that was highly partisan and firmly sectional in its politics. In 1840, nearly 2.8 million people had voted, or an astounding 80.2 percent of the eligible voters, up from 57 percent in 1836. This incredible rate held in 1844 at 78.9 percent of eligible voters, and it remained in the high seventies for the remainder of the century. Obviously, the 2.7 million voters in 1844 held firm to the 1840 party lines. Indeed, if Clay had not lost electoral votes in New York to the Liberty Party candidate, James G. Birney, he would have won the popular vote and the electoral college vote as well, giving him the presidency.
Concentrations of Wealth
Amidst all of this growth and partisan politics were immense changes that drove politics. The richest man in America in 1845, for example, was John Jacob Astor, who held a fortune worth $25 million. On the other hand, squalid working class slums began to appear in every American city, principally filled with Irish and German immigrants as well as free black men and women. By 1845, the top 1 percent of wealthiest people in New York City held 50 percent of the total wealth, an increase of 10 percent since 1828. And the cities were larger: Philadelphia stood at 389,000 in 1850; New York was twice as large. Thus, most of the people who lived in these cities were poor, with annual incomes of $100 or less (70 percent). Another 25 to 30 percent were middle class, with yearly incomes between $100 and $5,000. Only 3 percent earned more than $5,000 each year. And it has been estimated that a family of five required at least $500 annually to barely survive. These cities were also sickly places in which people drank from contaminated wells and used outdoor toilets.
Political Activism
Although no women were allowed to vote in any state of the union in the 1840s, many were involved in political activism and reform movements. Nearly every church in the nation had charity groups staffed and run largely by women. And the spread of public education in the North and West was accompanied by droves of women teachers in a field previously dominated by men. By 1850, women staffed most of the primary teaching positions in the nation's expanding roster of public and private elementary schools. Thousands of women joined Martha Washington Temperance Reform Societies, campaigning to end the drinking of hard liquor, which had become a national problem by the 1830s, peaking at seven gallons per capita in 1836. By 1850, the consumption rate had decreased by half. Numerous other women joined the Female Moral Reform Society, which worked to eliminate prostitution by organizing charity and work opportunities for poor women and orphans. Others campaigned to reform the horrible conditions of the nation's insane asylums, orphanages, and prisons in the 1840s.
Still others embraced utopian communities and new religions as an alternative to political activism. Groups like the Millerites, the Shakers, the Oneida Community, and socialist communities appealed to thousands of men and women alike. None was more successful among the communitarian movements than the new Mormon religion. Its unique and extraordinary communitarianism, which focused on hard work and selfless cooperation, enabled the group to prosper in agriculture. The Mormon's success, and the unique features of its religion, which included polygamy, aroused the wrath of non-Mormon neighbors, who believed that the group was un-American and anti-individualist. The Mormons were forced to flee from their homes in New York and Ohio to Missouri and the -- when dissension split the community -- on to the Great Salt Lake region of present-day Utah.
Women's Political Voice
Thousands of women worked in the forefront of the abolitionist movement in the 1840s, canvassing their neighborhoods in petition drives requesting the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia. When the abolitionist movement formerly split in 1840 into those that advocated forming a new political party to run abolitionist candidates for office and those that continued to insist on moral activism alone, female adherents also followed suit.
Most women activists discovered, however, that while they were valued to do much of the legwork, there were few opportunities for them to lead or to speak out as women. The few who did, such as the African American Sojourner Truth and the white Grimke sisters, were criticized at every turn, frequently even by fellow male reformers. The women were told that their best contributions could be made in ways reflecting the popular notion of separate spheres for men and women -- the public world for men and the home and family for women. Empowered by their own sense of accomplishment as reformers and activists, a group of women (led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott) organized the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 in upstate New York to focus specifically on women's rights. The Convention's proclamation, modeled on the Declaration of Independence, called a Declaration of Sentiments, asserted that "We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men and women are created equal." It then documented the history of male tyranny oven women and called for women's suffrage as the best means for women to protect themselves and to realize their potential as humans equal to men.