National Identity In The Early 1800s | BRI’s Homework Help Series
Have you ever looked at your teacher with a puzzled face when they explain history? I know we have. In our new Homework Help Series we break down history into easy to understand 5 minute videos to support a better understanding of American History. In our eleventh episode, we tackle national identity in early America.
0:00 Welcome to Homework Help. Whether you’re studying for the AP US history exam or any other exam that your teacher is inflicting upon you, we’ve got you covered. Today we will be discussing America’s national identity. Throughout the first half of the 1800s. The United States developed a growing unified identity following the creation of the Constitution.
0:21 Although sectional differences, local loyalty and political beliefs divided Americans to some degree, citizens increasingly identified as Americans. Americans of different occupations each felt success as equality and prosperity increased throughout the nation. This supported a shared confidence in political and economic freedoms.
0:43 In addition to growing prosperity, military victories during the war for American Independence and the War of 1812 increased patriotic devotion to the new nation. After the completion of the War of 1812, the American economy entered a new phase of industrialization called the Market Revolution that linked the various parts of the country together.
1:05 So what was the Market Revolution? Well, private businesses develop new internal trade networks spanning across states through a vast transportation system. These included roads, canals and steamboats. These innovations in transportation and trade relations lend together southern plantation owners,
1:26 northern merchants and factory owners, and frontier farmers in the west. The Market Revolution led to a powerful American economy because of expanded access to resources across various regions of the country. At the same time, the population exploded both from natural increase and immigration. 2.5 million people immigrated to the United States from 1815 to 1848.
1:52 This meant more workers and farmers who produced and consumed more goods. Immigrants came to America because they believed it would lead to a better life with greater political freedoms and economic opportunities. That was the start of that idea we now refer to as the American Dream. The national mood of unity and optimism was so prevalent that a Boston newspaper
2:15 called the period from 1825 the Era of Good Feelings. By 1830, the United States experienced a resurgence of religious fervor called the Second Great Awakening. Traveling preachers crisscrossed rural countrysides preaching about individual Christian conversion and led to several new denominations.
2:37 The Second Great Awakening contributed to the American identity of individualism. Religious groups throughout the nation focused on organizing social reform designed to promote family and motherhood and combat drunkenness, prostitution, and other social items they deemed as sins, especially slavery. It was during this time that abolition became a matter of moral reform.
3:01 Other less religious people fed off the same sense of activism and form secular social reform movements to address problems in the prison system, education, and the beginnings of gender equality. Religious excitement also led to individuals focused on creating perfect utopian communities such as Brook Farm in Massachusetts, New Harmony in Indiana,
3:24 and Oneida in New York and the Mormons in Utah. Americans were unified by an expansionist belief that God had specially blessed the American people to achieve what they called Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny was the idea that it was the American purpose to spread throughout the American continent to the Pacific Ocean and utilize the many resources available in this continent.
3:48 While this belief caused significant divisions over the expansion of slavery, americans were largely united by the idea of spreading west with the Louisiana Purchase and addition of new states. American national identity throughout the first half of the 1800s was fueled by a strong sense of national pride, a growing national economy, a religious awakening,
4:11 and the vast expansion of American territories throughout the continent. While the idea of the National Union would be challenged by sectional differences in the mid 1800s, a strong National Union had grown up in the early 19th century. We hope you liked this video. Make sure to check back next week for more Homework Help