9 Transforming the Economy

1800–1860

The British writer Harriet Martineau visited Chicago during a “rage for speculation” as frenzied investors bought title to unimproved land along a proposed canal route. “Storekeepers hailed them from their doors,” she said, “with offers of farms, and all manner of land-lots, advising them to speculate before the price of land rose higher.” More sober than most Chicagoans, Martineau predicted “a bursting of the bubble” and feared the worst: “Many a high-spirited, but inexperienced, young man; many a simple settler, will be ruined for the advantage of knaves.” She wasn’t wrong. The 1837 depression hit just as her book was published.

The “delusion” she described was the effect of the Market Revolution, an economic expansion accelerating in the years following the War of 1812. Brought on by improvements in transportation, such as canals and roads, and manufacturing, more Americans entered the market for goods, purchasing items they desired rather than making those goods they needed. The market empowered the individual as an agent of his or her own destiny, but it also strained social relations, creating, for instance, the need for a temperance movement. Religious revivals were both a product of and a reaction to the Market Revolution, emphasizing the necessity of the individual to choose to do God’s work.