Discussion i had last night...

Thanks asherman, I will work on this tommorow when i get home from school.. I am a musician so I was at the studio like almost the whole day today, im recording a new song.. i'll let you listen to it also when im done..

cool? thanks alot my brother!!!!

Asherman, I wish you'd been around when I was in school. I could have used this kind of guidance.

Well, this is what I have so far and I think this is what I am going to talk about. I did some research and came to some conclusions based on that research.., let me know what you think.. thanks

There was not that much change from 1760 to about the 1830s. Economic activity and interests revolved mostly around agriculture, and on the east coast, trade. Major changes in society, and also in politics were centered in the expanding population and its movement west of the Allegheny mountains. A large part of this movement was down the Ohio River to the new western territories, and away from New England and the commercial interests there, and from the landed interests of the South. Most of the migrants west were freehold farmers, and concerned for their interests, not those of the "cocked hats" of the East.

In 1828, Andrew Jackson was the first westerner elected president, indicating a change was underway.

By the 1840s, the next major change was underway - the immigration of large numbers of Welsh, and especially Irish newcomers. The potato blight in Ireland was a spur to immigration, and the developing iron founding industry in the northeast US needed labor, particularly miners. this changed the character of the population in a couple of ways - Irish were overwhelmingly Catholic, and changed the makeup of cities, and those cities were in the North to start. Population growth was starting to leave the South behind.

The nature of the US Constitution allocates political power mostly according to population, but the number of new states also had an impact. Were these states to be "slave" states, or free? Opinion on that had changed overall to the point that the South saw its influence deteriorating. Both economic and social factors were driving the North/West and the South apart. compromise, which had worked for decades, failed in 1860, and the Civil War resulted. That ended southern political power until recent times.

I have always thought of the Civil War as the true American Revolution; the war for independence being a civil war among Englishmen to validate what already existed - that we had run our own affairs independent of the English Crown (3,000 mile and several months away) for 150 years. I don't know what others think.

Anyway, the War industrialized the US of necessity, and the entire nature of America changed from 1865 to about 1880. People who had never been 20 miles from home in an agricultural society became somewhat more mobile. Some moved west; more came as immigrants and found work in the shops and factories and mines and on the railroads that were not there much before 1860.

The industrialization of the 1860s was war-related. In the 1870s and 1880s, not so. But the basis was there. The modern US had been born by about 1880, we just didn't know it til about 1900.

Not a bad start, but a long way to go. First, run your spell & grammar checker to fix the numerous grammar problems. Your sentence structure and word choice is pretty good. Toward the end you fall into an informal style, and the writing just sort of drifts. You may want to think about paragraph order, and transitional sentences to better link one though to another. So far you have a bit under 450 words on a topic that could easily run into many thousands.

Now, as to content. Here is the assignment you were given:

"How would you characterize the societal and political changes in America, from roughly 1763-1877? What would you argue weer the primary facotrs and influences that determined these changes? Were these changes simple modifications of existing structures and traditions or did they represent radical departure from earlier periods? "

Your approach so far in dealing with the War of American Independence is very thin. The one paragraph where you mention it in passing is toward the end of your essay, yet the "societal and political changes in America" thereafter largely stem from that struggle and the political changes from it. The Colonists believed that their ancient English Rights had been violated, but what drove them to that conclusion? With independence, why did the Colonists not set up a governing system similar to that of England? Think Enlightenment and the changes that had occurred in England/Europe from the middle 17th century onward.

What happened in the lives of Americans in the wake of Independence? You probably should say something about the resulting failures of the Confederation to address the problems of the newly independent States, and how the economy was affected. Even more Revolutionary was the Constitution. Why did the Founders feel it was necessary? What other choices might they have tried? How did the Constitution come to assume the form that it did? Read the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers available on-line to get a feel for the difficulties in adopting the new Constitution. The Founders tended to be well-educated men of property. How did that affect their thinking when drafting a new government? The U.S. Constitution was based largely on a Roman model, but even so represented an entirely new way of structuring government. The strengths and weaknesses of that structure are with us still. In the early Republic, say up until 1828, Americans were still trying to adapt themselves to new ways of governing. The rise of a two-Party system wasn't intentional, but wasn't it inevitable? Why was Jackson's election so important to the direction that later followed? How and why was Jacksons war against the Bank so important, and how did that affect the American social and political environment. Why didn't slavery die out as the Founders believed that it would? What drove American expansion into the Northwest Territories, into Florida and into Texas? You seem to be saying that it was population pressure. Is that all it was, or did Americans somehow begin to dream of Manifest Destiny? Why didn't compromise over slavery work (think both politics and social expectations).

Many of the changes that we can identify from 1800 to the "end" of Reconstruction" may be relatively small adjustments, but they almost all stem from one of the most Revolutionary and creative attempts to design a government adequate to securing the liberty of a people in a land, that to the Founders, was almost without limit. Of course, the political, social and economies of England and Europe continued to impact Americans. This is especially true from the French Revolution through 1815 with the end of the Napoleonic Wars. How did The Terror affect American thought? Why did the Industrial Revolution pick up steam (LOL) around the beginning of the 19the century? The 19th century is sometimes called the "Romantic Age". Why, and how did Americans react to Romanticism? How important was Romanticism to the American world-view? What role did religion plan In the 18th century, and how did it change during the 19th century?

And on, and on, and on.

One of the problems you face is in how to handle a topic that could easily fill several large scholarly tomes in a short essay of only a few thousand words. Because the breadth and depth of this question, you will have to balance general statements (to cover a lot of ground) with specific citations to justify your thesis statement. Is your thesis statement clear and is it supported by the evidence you produce?

Now the good news is that you have a fair beginning, and the bad news is that you have only two days to do what should have been done weeks, even months ago. Waiting until the last minute is a killer; don't do it. Get ahead of the curve by reading ahead of assignments and in collateral materials. Write at least a 1000 words every day as a minimum. I've found it useful to combine several topics at a time. For instance, I'll take the material from a historical study and use it in some manner in English, or in some other class. Cross-pollination helps plant ideas and facts more securely in our minds.

I'll be looking for the next draft later today. You need to really focus this late in the assignment, even at the expense of perhaps letting other things slide for a few days. Its called prioritizing. Tally-ho.

Asherman!! you are amazing!.., like you should run for presidency! i swear, u'll win!.. u have too much knowledge to be just chilling, we need u somewhere in this government!!!

Well let me tell you, the teacher gave me until saturday to turn the paper in.., I explained to him my situation of the production of the cd I'm doing, and he understood.. So i am kind of relieved, but the downfall is that I have 3 gigs this week coming up so I want to do as much as i can as soon as i can!! so yeah, im going to work on it now and post you a response later! thanks again.,. your the best!!!!!

Well Asherman, as far as right now I don't the beginning of the slightest answer to your numerous and specific questions but here is my understanding for the causes of the civil war and the main point of socio-economic change in the US from 1830 to 1900: the new bipolaristation of the country (East coast/West coast as opposed to North/South).

Indeed the US are particular in the sense that 1)they have no urban history roughly before the 1750s as opposed to the other continents and thus are path-dependency-free 2) are a unified country and thus no more than one or two major city can live on its administrative captation of the country's wealth.

In this type of things the first comer take it all. See for instance cities like Paris, London or even Bagdad or Tokyo have never seen their position as the country's #1 administrative, political, industrial, commercial capitale contested by another town. This is because of the law of the increasing returns (one factory settle in a point A so this same point A will have a comparative advantage as a location for any footloose industry, etc).

Only California was sufficiently new, afar and different to slowly rise as a competitor to the NE region. On the contrary, the economic and cultural environment of the South never gave it a chance to concurence the North's lead. Yet it wasn't ready to see its wealth fading away without standing a good fight… ie a good war.

A bit as if all the US economy was suddenly shifting to Mexico, the US would fight to try to get back by military means what it failed to conserved by economic one.

Sugar,

That last post is almost unreadable, and I haven't the faintest idea of what your point is nor how it relates to the question at hand. Your focus in on 1763-1877, and that, it seems is already too much for you to handle. You are all over the map at a time when you have to find someway of handling a large subject in a short essay.

Go back and work on your outline, and I've yet to see a clear thesis statement. Your teacher has given you one additional day to complete this assignment. You're lucky, I wouldn't grant a student extra time under the circumstances. One day probably isn't going to be enough time to more than merely pass the examination. Sit down and don't get up until you've moved this project forward. How come you're not spending your day at school attending the prescribed curriculum? Oh well, you've dug your self a hole now you have to just avoid it becoming a grave.

Asherman, i did more research and came up with some ideas due to your questions.... check it..

The colonials thought of themselves as Englishmen, but felt wronged by the Crown, whatever the reasons for that feeling. The governments of the colonies were not uniform, and evolved by necessity over the century and a half before the war for independence. They colonials did what they had to do in the 17th century as they could not "call home" for advice when a problem or a conflict arose. However, English common law, in substance, obtained in all the English colonies. After independence, why not continue what had worked for them before?

The Confederation was a failure, too much particularism making it barely workable (I don't think it would have lasted long anyway). A Constitutional movement, and the Convention, were a way of addressing the questions of governance by attempting to get as much concensus as possible. Writing it all down seemed helpful, major collective issues were addressed, it gained acceptance, and most local issues were left to the several states to deal with as they had before.

Jackson's election was more symbolic than substantive, BUT, it did show that a "new American" was 1) electable, and 2) acceptable to the republic. This new American was often self-made; up-by-the-bootstraps, often not from privilege or wealth, and the election of Jackson reflected the shift of all influence away from the northeast states, and even Virginia. The Westerners now had to be taken into consideration.

I don't know where you are, but Americans have been dealing with the Manifest Destiny (a newspaper phrase) question for a long time. Frankly, the country was going to grow. It had to grow where it could, and it did so. California was habitable in 1850; Colorado and Nevada and Arizona not so much. The trade of the Orient could only be accessed by the ports of the west coast. It was going to happen, and nothing was going to stop it. So, I guess the phrease was actually quite correct.

O.K., that's better.

You need some connective sentences to help the reader into the next statement. There are missing links between Washington's administration after 1787 and the defeat of Quincy Adams in 1828. These were important years. Why? How much did the emerging politics of a novel government affect the newly-minted Americans? Who was it that brought victory to Jefferson in 1800?

Look up answers to these questions if you must, but more importantly you need to think of what the "social and political" impacts were, given the direction of my comment.

The words you just posted need some dressing up, not much, but then they will provide you a skeleton on which to hang your whole essay. Add these sentences into what you had posted as the first draft. Comprende?

I have to go out now to take care of some important business. Certainly won't be back before 4:30 New Mexico time. Use the time well. Get up occasionally and get away from the workarea. Get glass of milk and a cookie. Then ... back to work. You are showing progress, but will it be enough?

Natalie tells me that I've mucked up the schedule. I don't need to leave the house for a little over an hour from now. So I'll check back here a few times in that period if you need anything.

The Act of Confederation and the Continental Congress failed for a series of signal faults in the governmental form. There was no coherent executive, separate from the authority of the legislature. The states could not be compelled to supply revenue, and there was no taxing power, so the Congress only had the funds which were voluntarily given in by the states upon which to operate. That accounted in large measure for the inability to keep a large and effective army in the field despite generous human and material resources. Without Washington, it is doubtful that the "nation" could have kept up a creditable military opposition to the Crown--and the people damned well knew it, too, which is one of the reasons why Washington was so highly respected. Finally, all that states has an equal vote in that Congress, which further hampered the revenue generating ability of the body, because small population states could not easily contribute an equal amount of revenue, and large population states were not going to agree to a formula which derived revenue based on population, while denying them proportional representation with which to have some control over the manner of the disbursement of the revenue.

The ability to organize finances and generate revenue were crucial to an effective government. Contrary to a popular and simple minded formula, the Congress created by the Constitution was not modeled on the English Parliament with its House of Commons and House of Lords. The only state delegation which arrived at the Constitutional Convention with a plan was Virginia. The Virginia plan called for a legislature of a single house, with representation proportional to population, and an executive committee. The former would have virtually made the small population states subservient to the large population states, and the latter would have created a weak executive unable to challenge the power of the purse strings in the legislature. The comprise worked out was to have a two house legislature. All money bills would originate in the House of Representatives, chosen on the basis of population proportion, while powers of sovereignty would reside in the Senate, where all states had equal representation. Therefore, appointments to the executive branch must be approved by the Senate, and treaties must be ratified by two thirds of the Senate--thereby preserving the sovereignty of the states as it existed before they were truly united by the Constitution. Finally, the Electoral College assured that small population states would have more of a voice in the choice of the chief magistrate (the President) than were implied merely by the population of each state.

When you write: The Confederation was a failure, too much particularism making it barely workable . . . i suspect you are just parroting something you read, and that you don't actually understand what that sentence implies. Either that, or you expressed yourself badly.

The colonials thought of themselves as Englishmen, but felt wronged by the Crown, whatever the reasons for that feeling.--This completely abdicates the responsibility to understand why the revolution took place. It was not inevitable. A careful policy by George III might not only have prevented a revolution, but might even have never given the colonists any reason to consider rebellion. The date 1763 is significant because the Treaty of Paris ended two wars which were actually two sides of the same coin. The French and Indian War actually began first, in North America, when George Washington signed a document in which he acknowledged that he had killed a French ambassador--and he signed it because he didn't read French and didn't know what he was signing. Washington was only 22 years old, and commanded a small force of Virginia militia and a Royal American company which refused to take orders from a mere militia officer. A French officer named Jumonville had decided to scout the position, and he and a band of Indians had hidden in a grove near Washington's Fort Necessity. Indians with Washington warned him, and they went into the woods, and launched a surprise attack on Jumonville's little band, and Jumonville was killed. Subsequently, Jumonville's brother lead a force of French and Indians to attack Washington's little force in Great Meadows, and due his lack of experience, Washington agreed to terms of surrender, although, had he known it, Coulon the Villiers, the French commander, was on the point of withdrawing because he knew he could not successfully assualt the position. In the surrender document, Coulon de Villiers included an admission that a French ambassador (his brother Jumonville) had been murdered. There was a Dutchman with the American force, who translated the French document, and read assassinat (murder) as "killed," and Washington was honest enough to admit that Jumonville had been killed.

The French used this as an excuse to declare war in North America, but not in Europe. The unfortunate result for the French was that they lost their North American colony. In 1760, the same year that the French were finally defeated in Canada, George II died. Three years after the French and Indian War had begun in 1754, the Seven Years War had broken out in Europe. The Prussian King, Frederick II (known as Frederick the Great) had begun his career as King in 1740 by attacking Austria, and taking Silesia away from the new Archduchess of Austria, Maria Teresa, whose father had died a few months after Fredericks father. She never forgave him. She had an adviser named von Kaunitz who became her chancellor in the early 1750s. He worked tirelessly to form a coalition against Frederick, and for once, Frederick was caught napping--he didn't see it coming. In 1757, Kaunitz managed a seemingly impossible alliance between France and Austria (they were traditional enemies) to which he joined the Russian Empress, Elizabeth. For the next seven years, Frederick fought for the very life of his kingdom.

England supported Frederick, because they did not want to see France become powerful at the expense of Prussia, and because the King of England was still also the ruler of Hanover, which the French hoped to take away from them. The English sent troops to Hanover, and they spent literally millions to keep the Prussians in the fight. In his deepest, darkest hour, Frederick was the beneficiary of what must have seemed like a miracle. The Empress Elizabeth died, and her son (a congenital idiot) was a great admirer of Frederick (he used to run around the palace in a Prussian uniform), and he withdrew the Russians from the alliance. Frederick had a brief breathing spell--the Emperor Peter III was murdered six months later, at the instigation of his wife, Ekaterina, who was to become the Empress Catherine the Great. But Frederick improved on the opportunity, and marched with a Russian army, which had orders not to fight the Austrians. But the Austrians didn't know that, and Frederick was able to force the Austrians to come to terms.

Why should any of this be important to America? Well, the English Parliament had spent a fortune to keep the Prussians in the war, and had spent a good deal to fight the French in North America. They therefore needed to make up the revenue. It was pretty certain that a Parliament filled with land owners or their paid politicians was not going to vote to increase the property tax, and those members of Parliament who were not land owners were merchants or represented merchants, so they were not going to increase the excise. The fatal decision was that they would enforce the tax on sugar in North America, and that they would pass other revenue measures to get the money out of the Americans.

That was just part one, but i'll explain it before i go on to part two. There had always been a tax on sugar, and the Americans had always ignored it. Originally, the Sugar and Molasses Act had imposed a tax of six pence on a gallon of imported molasses, to assure that the molasses from English islands in the West Indies would be bought, and not molasses from the French islands. This was important, too, because New Englanders bought a whole hell of a lot of molasses, to make rum, which they then smuggled into Europe--and it made them rich. They'd make rum, sell some of it in England, but most of it was smuggled into England and Holland. Then they'd use the proceeds to buy cheap trade goods, and sail to West Africa, where they'd buy slaves. Then they'd sail for the West Indies, sell the slaves, buy molasses and begin the process all over again.

However, the English islands did not produce enough molasses to meet the demands of England and the colonies, so, for many generations, New Englanders had smuggled molasses, and had bribed local officials to look the other way. The Sugar Act of 1764 actually lowered the tax on molasses, but it also came with new enforcement measures. The Royal Navy sent ships to stop the smuggling, and admiralty courts were set up to try those accused of smuggling. Previously, if someone were actually caught, they would go before a local jury which inevitably let them off. The colonists howled.

When George Frederick William, who would become King George III was a boy, his father, Frederick, Prince of Wales, died. King George II and the Prince of Wales had never gotten along, and the King's grandson, George, had lead a rather bleak and lonely life as a boy. He was thirteen when is father died (from an injury), and suddenly he was the heir to the throne. His mother, the Dowager Princess of Wales, did not like her father-in-law, and did not trust him, and she hired John Stuart, Earl of Bute, to be George's tutor and companion. The Earl of Bute was rather a misanthropic sort himself, and his friends were mostly army officers. George had never been "out in society," and Lord Bute now took him around to meet his military friends.

George II died in 1760, at the height of two wars on either side of the Atlantic, and George III took the throne, just 22 years of age. He made the Earl of Bute his Prime Minister as soon as he decently do so. It was a big mistake. The Earl of Bute was a firm believer in the divine right of Kings, and he despised the Americans. After the war, a lot of his buddies were out of a job, now that the war was over. In those days, England did not keep a large standing army, so when a war ended, officers (who were never paid much to begin with) were put on half-pay, so they could be called back if they were needed. That wasn't enough money to live in style (and for lower ranking officers, it wasn't even enough to live on). So the Earl of Bute and George came up with what they thought was a brillian way to find work for their friends, and to kill a second bird with the same stone. The war had pointed up the need for troops permanent stationed in America, so the Parliament authorized the raising of Royal American troops in the colonies. Additionally, the Lords of Trade (a committee appointed by Parliament to govern the colonies) had decided that the Americans should be prevented from crossing the mountains to the west, and that that region should be kept free of colonists. It was a practical, and a cynical decision. With the French out of the picture, the English had a good chance to corner the market on beaver pelts, a very rich product of North America. The Hudson's Bay Company, founded in 1670 by Charles II, had long been making a handful of people rich in England, and was virtually a sovereign power unto itself. Now, the region of the Great Lakes which the French had always exploited for furs was open to England, and a good many men in Parliament saw a chance to make themselves as rich as the Moncks and Churchills and others who had gotten in on the ground floor of the Hudson's Bay Company.

So, two things happened which pissed off Americans who had otherwise been loyal subjects, and who would have likely remained loyal subjects, had George III and Lord Bute not been such idiots. The Americans had spent a lot of blood and treasure to fight for George II in the French and Indian War. They deeply resented having a tax burden put on them to pay for the King's military ventures in Germany, which they saw as simply done to keep Hanover safe. They also resented all these officers and new companies of Royal Americans descending upon them when they had protected themselves for over 150 years without very damned much help from London, thank you very much.

Things went from bad to worse. Read about the Quartering Act, and the riots in New York as a result. Read about the Stamp Act, the Boston Port Act, and what the Americans called the "Intolerable Acts." The Americans howled about paying the Sugar tax, because they had always gotten away with not paying it before. But the Stamp Act was a different matter altogether, and they objected to it because they were not represented in the Parliament which had passed it. Parliament told them they were "virtually represented." Parliament repealed the Stamp Act, but they then passed the Declaratory Act, in which they stated that they were competent to legislate in any matters at all relating to the colonies.

Things went pretty rapidly from bad to worse. Just about everything the government in London could do to make matters worse, they did. Just about everything rabble-rousers like Sam Adams could do to imflame people's anger, they did. The revolution need never have happened, and a careful study of the period from 1763 to 1775 will teach anyone a good deal about practical politics, and the politics of rebellion.

When you continually refer to "the industrial revolution," you make it sound as though it were some discrete event which took place in America at some point between 1763 and 1877. It wasn't. The origins of the "industrial revolution" stretch back to 1200, when Europe began to get colder, and architecture and textile manufacture to deal with the situation became important. Several events took place between 1200 and the present (the "industrial revolution" has never ended) which were significant, and had nothing to do with North America. The use of steam engines to pump water from deep mines beginning in 1712 is often cited as the beginning of the "industrial revolution," while other people point to the use of steam engines in cotton and wool mills in the 1760s--something else which has nothing to do with North America. Others point to the proliferation of railroads--something which becomes important in North America after 1877, at the end of Grant's second term as President.

History teachers throw around phrases like "particularism" and "industrial revolution" because they aren't really well educated in the subjects they teach, and they want to make it simple for students who don't care about the subject. The students don't care because the text books are badly written and their teachers are too ignorant to make it interesting to them.

You could spend the rest of your life reading enough to understand the period 1763-1877 in American history. Probably, though, if your textbook and teacher are slinging around terms such as "particularism" and "industrial revolution," the best thing you can do is throw them right back, and learn to make it look as though you know what you're writing about.

By the way, "english common law" had absolutely nothing to do with the Revolution, or the Constitution which created our government. Governments create law, but law does not create a government.

please, can someone address the Bank issues.., I cant seem to find anything

wow Setanta..., thats alot of info.., I'm going to start reading now.., what do you think Asherman?

You could spend the rest of your life reading enough to understand the period 1763-1877 in American history. Probably, though, if your textbook and teacher are slinging around terms such as "particularism" and "industrial revolution," the best thing you can do is throw them right back, and learn to make it look as though you know what you're writing about.

Sentana, i think u are too bright for me.., it was too much information in order for me to acquire, i might a history major so im not too familiarized with the subject... what should I do? have you read the past posts?

Setanta's facts are virtually always impeccable, and he can be relied upon to give you more than you can profitably use. The broadness of the question you're assigned to write about just won't admit to as much detail as can be dug up with relatively little problem. Read Setanta, but also realize that you have a specific question to answer, and the time you have available to write a passing paper is short. If you had more time you could maybe shoot for a better grade.

Don't game the teacher, just do the best you can with what you have available to communicate to your reader. Readers like new and novel ideas, but they are easily turned off by pretentiousness and reliance upon cliche.

If you think you have a calling to History, you have a lot of ground to make up. Most of the stuff you hear from Setanta and I should be familiar to anyone whose completed a college survey course, or two. Not least among the benefits I foresee in walking you through this forest is the awareness of how exciting learning and discovery can be. Rote learning has its place, but by the time a student is in High School the emphasis is already beginning a shift to greater thinking and analysis of any question or problem. History is only one among many careers that are the underpinning of our culture and views of the world. To think for one's self is the very stuff of Freedom and Liberty. To merely parrot the ideas of others leads nowhere but slavery of one sort or another.

Asherman, i just read ur post, and you're totally right ... lets see.. should i make it this simple.., i am going to write my 1st paragraph right now and please if you can guide me and give me examples of what i should do.. thanks

Changes in America

The societal and political changes in America from roughly 1760's to the late 19th century were extremely significant in the birth of the modern United States. The modern US had been born by about 1880, we just didn't know until about 1900. There was not much change from 1760 to about the 1830's. Major changes in society, and also in politics were centered in the expanding population and its movement. Also in 1828, Andrew Jackson was the first westerner elected president, according to Lepore an indicating change was underway. By the 1840's, the next major change was ongoing which was the immigration of large numbers. Population growth began to grow too much in the North and started to leave the South behind. Both economic and social factors were driving the North/West and South apart. Compromise, which had worked for decades, failed in 1860, and the Civil War resulted. Centered mostly after the late 1820's, the societal and political changes during 1763-1877 were radical departures from earlier periods; because of factors like the Civil War and the reconstruction of it, is why this important period in US history has impacted the development of what America is today.

Your instructor (one assumes) has asked you to discuss societal changes in North America in the period 1763-1877. That's a hell of a lot of ground to cover. For example, did you know that women in New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts and New Hampshire who could meet a certain property qualification could vote at the time of the foundation of the United States? And that that right was withdrawn in those states in the period 1777-1807?

The answers to the question of what societal changes took place in that 114 year period are incredibly complex and complicated. Women who had the vote lost it. Women in the Utah territory were given the vote, and Congress took it away. The lives of "pioneers" meant that women played far more crucial roles in society than had been the case in Europe in two thousand years--and yet they were denied a basic civil right. Throughout that period, women agitated for civil rights equivalent to those of men, and yet they struggled in vain for more than a century. The invention of the typewriter and upright pianos meant that women had new opportunities to find work outside the home, and yet society continued to consider that women were not competent to sign and execute contracts, and that a husband had the exclusive right to dispose of all of a wife's property.

That's just a quick review of societal conditions for women in the period specified. What about blacks? What about Indians? What about changes in the law (many states--but not all--extended the franchise to all white males above 21 years of age after Shays' Rebellion, which you should look up, but many states also continued to have property qualifications for voters until well into the 19th century)? What about changes in the Constitution (the Constitution was amended 15 times in the specified period)? What about steam ships and railroads? What about the Lousiana Purchase, the Mexican War and the Gadsden purchase, which more than doubled the size of the nation? What about the purchase of Alaska? That added land to the nation more than twice as large as France--although the effects would not be felt until the 20th century. What about "the Era of Good Feelings?" That nine year period saw political parties and strife decline to the point that James Madison ran unopposed in 1820. What about "the Age of the Common Man," when Andrew Jackson created the first modern political party, the Democratic Party? What about Dred Scott? What about Aaron Burr and the attempt to impeach the Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase?

That question covers way too much material.

What you need to do is to try to give us an idea of precisely what the question is. If it is as vague as "societal changes in the period 1763-1877," that's way too vague, and we can only respond as we have. However, if your textbook, or your teacher, is claiming that only the Civil War or "the industrial revolution" can be considered responsible for societal changes in that period (a really stupid claim), then we need to know that. This seems like an awfully goofy question.

For example, what most historians in the English-speaking world know of as the "industrial revolution" was well underway before 1763. Nevertheless, the United States does not become an important industrial nation until after 1877. You have made a comment about America being an agricultural nation before such and such a date. I've got a news flash for you--the United States has always been a primarily agricultural nation, and is to this very day. Our most important exports have always been agricultural. The fact that we can produce enough food to feed ourselves and still export food is crucially important. France, for example, lived on the edge of being able to feed itself until well after their revolution, and their governmental policy has been since the Revolution, and right up until today, crucially affected by their determination to keep their agricultural sector not just alive, but sufficiently viable that they never have to rely upon other nations to feed themselves. We have always been able to feed ourselves, and that is really, really important. England, from about 1700 to the Second World War, did not produce enough food to feed their nation, and they didn't care. You could spend a couple of months reading about the Corn Laws (what we call wheat, rye and barley, they describe with the generic term "corn") and how they affected the English economy.

In 1873, both North America and Europe went into an economic slump. In the United States, we had an advantage which Europe did not have. We had millions of square miles of empty land. This attracted European immigrants, and manufacturers, whether in the United States or Europe, always had a market to sell them shoes, and clothing, and tools. In Europe, the recession deepened into an economic depression which lasted from 1875 to 1893. When historians in Europe talk about "the Great Depression," they refer to 1875-1893, not 1929-1941, which is what that means to Americans. The rich stay rich even in an economic depression, but they want some place to invest their money. So many European capitalists came to North America to invest their money, and they invested in textile mills, light manufacture, breweries--but above all, they invested in railroads. They made a good return on their money, too. The nation continued to fill up with immigrants who came for cheap or even free land, and political power such as they would never know in the Europe of the day. The railroads took them to that cheap or free land, and brought the goods they would buy, and carried back the agricultural produce they created on that newly acquired land. In fact, both emigration from Europe and the "flight" of capital to North America can be said to have deepened and prolonged the economic depression in Europe, while the United States was climbing out of recession by 1875, and by 1876, boom times were beginning which would last until the First World War.

Which also points to an important economic issue between northern and southern states long before slavery lead to war--the tariff. Southerners wanted a low tariff or no tariff, so they could get cheap European goods. Manufacturers in England and France were willing to practice "dumping," selling their goods at almost no profit, or even at a loss, in order to drive their American competitors out of business (just as the Japanese, Koreans and Chinese do now). The northern states, where what little industry there was then was concentrated in the United States, wanted a high tariff, a protective tariff, to prevent the English and French from "dumping." Some states even threatened to secede over the tariff issue, and John Calhoun's "nullification" movement was sparked by southern resentment of the tariff.

This question is way too vague, and we know too little about your textbook and what your teacher has told you.

If you could help us out with some clues as to what precisely is expected of you, either Asherman or i could more carefully tailor a response for you.

What does your outline look like?

As a general rule, the first paragraph is best as the last written. As you write, you are continually making choices. Writing is about ideas, and as you work your thoughts may well evolve in surprising directions. By writing the first paragraph, you are putting on shackles to your thought. Have a good thesis statement, and then marshal your thoughts and facts to support your assertion. At the same time, you should be questioning how each fact and element uncovered affects the whole. Be more critical of your thought/work than the most severe critic on the planet. When you find that you've errored in your analysis or conclusions, dismiss them without another thought. And so an education is built that can aid you in all of life's challenges.

We should have been out of here, but Natalie has misplaced a document that is central to our business today. If we don't get this straighted out, I'll have to reschedule. Oh well, life goes on.