4 The New Nation The New Nation When George Washington was inaugurated as America’s first president in 1789 the United States was already a large country consisting of nearly 800,000 square miles 2,071,990 square kilometers of land The nation extended westward from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River and southward from the border of Canada to the Gulf of Mexico Twenty years later when Thomas Jefferson the third president left office the United States doubled to almost twice its size The country now consisted of nearly 1 7 million square miles 4 4 million square kilometers of land and extended westward from the Atlantic Ocean to the Rocky Mountains Four states had been added to the original 13 Vermont in 1791 Kentucky in 1792 Tennessee in 1796 and Ohio in 1803 Unclaimed Territory Rupert’s Land England Disputed between United States and Rupert’s Land England Mississip pi R i v e r Viceroyalty of New Spain Spain Unorganized Territory Pennsylvania Louisiana Spain Virginia North Carolina South Carolina Georgia Pacific Ocean West Florida Spain Disputed between United States and West Florida Gulf of Mexico East Florida Spain Disputed between Massachusetts and Colony of New Brunswick England New Hampshire Vermont Republic Erie Triangle New York Connecticut Western Reserve Massachusetts Rhode Island Connecticut New Jersey Delaware Maryland Atlantic Ocean Colonies Territories Other countries Disputed areas Prior to the election of George Washington as the first president in 1789 the United States consisted of 13 colonies now recognized as states The Old State House later called Independence Hall was built in Philadelphia in the 1700s
6 The New Nation For its size however the United States was still quite small in population In 1790 it had about 3 9 million people This number included about 700,000 slaves more than 94 percent of whom lived in the South By 1810 the population had nearly doubled to about 7 2 million Yet even then in relation to America’s 1 7 million square miles 4 4 million square kilometers the population was considered small by other countries In contrast for example with only about 90,000 square miles 233,098 square kilometers of land Great Britain had about 12 million people France with little more than 200,000 square miles 517,997 square kilometers of land had more than 29 million people The United States was an overwhelmingly rural nation Most Americans lived on farms During the period from 1789 to 1809 only two cities Philadelphia and New York City had populations of more than 25,000 people The Economy Since most Americans lived on farms throughout the country agriculture was the main economic activity Tobacco Words to Know export EK-sport To send goods out of the country or a good that is sent out import IM-port To bring goods into the country or a good that is brought in interchangeable parts in-tur-CHAYNJ-uh-buhl PARTS An invention of Eli Whitney’s that made mass production possible Tobacco was a profitable crop for planters in colonial Virginia wheat rice cotton and indigo which Americans used for dying cloth were the main cash crops Fishing and shipping were also important activities particularly in the Northeast Overseas trade especially with Britain France and their colonies in Canada and the West Indies was vital to the new nation Since America produced few manufactured goods in the late 1700s it had to import or buy from other countries nearly all such items Metal products of all kinds fine clothing furniture glass tea and other beverages were some of the imports that arrived regularly by ship from Europe Americans also worked to export or sell to other countries the farm goods and fish that they did not consume themselves as well as surplus raw materials like forest products Imports to America however far exceeded exports
The New Nation 7 Inventions that Changed America The United States remained an agricultural nation for many decades after 1789 Yet as early as the 1790s inventors were at work on machines that would profoundly change the American economy Cotton was an important crop It was grown in the South for manufacturing into cloth but its production was limited Of the many varieties of cotton upland cotton was the most popular cotton grown in the South Widely grown throughout the region workers had the slow difficult task of separating the valuable cotton fiber from the worthless seeds One worker laboring all day could scarcely produce one pound of fiber Then in 1793 Massachusetts-born Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin This simple machine quickly and efficiently removed the cotton seeds from the fiber The first gin enabled a worker who was usually a slave to produce 50 times more fiber than before Later versions did even better As a result cotton cultivation and production increased enormously In 1790 before the invention of the cotton gin workers produced some 3,000 bales of cotton per year Each individual bale weighed about 500 pounds 227 kilograms In 1810 after the introduction of the cotton gin workers produced nearly 250,000 bales Cotton became America’s most successful export A sad consequence of this success was that cotton cultivation made slavery vastly more profitable and the demand for slaves to work on cotton plantations grew A few years after inventing the cotton gin Whitney made another valuable contribution In 1798 working on a contract from the U S government to supply rifles he devised a method for manufacturing them using interchangeable parts This invention enabled the rifles to be produced in huge numbers much more quickly than when they were assembled one by one Once adapted to other manufacturing processes the concept of interchangeable parts made possible the mass industrial production we know today A third invention that eventually transformed America was the steamboat Shipping goods by water was cheaper than by land but cargo barges could not easily be dragged upstream The steamboat solved that problem In the late 1780s Connecticut-born John Fitch got the idea of powering a boat with the recently invented steam engine Others developed Fitch’s idea Then in 1807 Pennsylvania-born Robert Fulton built the Clermont a 150-foot-long boat powered by a steam-driven paddlewheel The Clermont sailed the Hudson River from New York City to Albany and back at five miles an hour The steamboat made water travel and shipping much easier and more commercial
