1. Self-sufficient farm community (85% pop before industrialization)
Pre-1840 ~ 100% rural / farming – now less than 2%
Lack of transportation proves self-sufficiency (transport key to Indus Rev)
Few roads until 1900 (often only way to travel was on creek beds)
Heavily forested à supply of fuel, wild foods, herbs, teas, dyes
1875-1950 – most trees cut down à industry & $
2. Cooperative Labor – needed help of neighbors
Certain tasks (barn-raising) couldn’t be done without help
Set up reciprocal relationships and established community
50% of days spent in cooperative labor (one farmer estimated)
Technology changed some of this
3. Folk Crafts – needed to carry out tasks
Artifacts that came mostly from selves and neighbors
Hard to get to towns to trade or purchase
Fit in with cooperative labor – trade vs. pay for cash
4. Extended Family – 3 or more generations
Either living very close or under one roof
Older people didn’t live alone
Old widower without children might adopt a family to live with him & inherit farm
Each member of family would contribute
“Spinster” lived with other but helped with chores
Grandparents usually took care of small children & did tasks requiring more skill than strength
5. Informal & Oral Tradition
No schools – or very small one-room
Level of literacy higher than most believe
(1850 census – 85% adults literate)
But most info came from family—1000s things to know for livelihood
Craftsmen learn from relatives
Industrialization takes education out of family & brings it into schools (drives wedge between generations)
Breakdown of family largely due to this separation
Remaining 5% in towns & small cities were craftsmen, employees, etc., to some extent yet often followed this same pattern as much as possible
(tried to maintain self-sufficiency, etc, had big backyards for animals & gardens, other 4 characteristics also kept)
WEALTHY – minority treated as majority now (did not fit any of 5 characteristics)
Set selves apart by artifacts
Devoted much $ to keeping up appearances
Children sent to boarding schools
OTWOL largely destroyed or altered by INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION (largest, most important change in human history in last 10,000 years) = cataclysmic event, wiped out millennia-old pattern (ignored because so recent)
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION – 1750 England (mass production of crafts)
Ø Persistent remnants of 5 characteristics are today marginal
Ø Post 1900 – many buildings re-built or replaced (Courthouse Squares in many towns)
Ø Countryside also changes – cash crop system requires new buildings and system (+ machines)
Ø NEW ROADS & rail lines all through countryside
Ø Many parts of West newly settled (under new system)
Ø Railroads – brought industrial revolution to all parts of U.S. (import factory goods, export farm products)