"Frontier life could be tough and crude. No-holds-barred wrestling, which permitted such niceties as the biting off of noses and the gouging out of eyes, was a popular entertainment. Pioneering Americans, marooned by geography, were often ill informed, superstitious, provincial, and fiercely individualistic."

Industrialization changed roles within families-traditional farm family had men as the moral leaders, however, as men began taking work outside of the home, they became more absent. This caused the women in these households to become the leaders in their homes, therefore causing them to be idealized as the new moral leaders of the home

"The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality."

-Elizabeth Cady Stanton

At the dawn of our nation, we were still adapting to more primitive forms of transportation, so we were a very slow-moving nation, both figuratively and literally. Cheap and efficient methods of transportation were imperative if raw materials were to be transported to factories and if finished products were to be delivered to consumers.

In the 1830s, Cyrus McCormick invented the mechanical mower-reaper. This new contraption was the golden gate to industrialization on Western Farms. Now, thousands of acres of land could be tended to, with little additional labor. This is how the mile upon mile of wheat fields came to be a possibility.

We were transforming from a gallimaufry of self-reliant, self-sufficient farmers to a national, interdependent, market economy. Now, you bought your food and products from others, rather than making it yourself. Middle-class were no longer self-employed, they were employees to the first corporations.The household responsibilities of women dwindled and the home was now a place for leisure, not work. The income inequality gap skyrocketed and dynamic society was growing.

Brook Farm

"All across the country, independent communities-generally organized around agriculture rather than manufacturing, were formed according to various idealistics blueprints for social and ecnonomic harmony. Brook Farm was only one such experiment."

-The Blithedale Romance, Nathanial Hawthorne

Slavery affected white slave owners economically- in the south agricultural profit soared because of slavery. Those who did not own slaves, mostly the northern population of the US, were affected by slavery because of the 3/5th's law, and they fought for the balance between slave and free states. Even though some didn't own slaves, it affected them in many ways, such as where their food came from.

The real shift happened because originally Southerners knew that slavery was wrong, but the cheap labor was very much needed for those landowners. But as negative images of blacks became more common because of events like Nat Turner's rebellion, the South shifted it's view, and the idea became more that black people really were less than human, and they were giving them food and work where otherwise they would have nothing.

The abolitionists were effective in their goals, and they hastened the end of slavery through writings such as "Uncle Tom's Cabin" that showed the human side of slavery.

“Treat 'em like dogs, and you'll have dogs' works and dogs' actions. Treat 'em like men, and you'll have men's works.” - Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin.