GREAT ACTIVITY OF MORAL FORCES.

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obtained during all this decade. The qualifications of teachers were everywhere raised and greater thoroughness obtained. The same opportunities were perhaps twice as effective in 1860 as in 1840 in the great mass of common schools, and a much larger number in proportion received an extended education.

Moral and religious influences also gained in about the same proportion. In 1850 there were 18,300 churches in the Valley; they had increased, in 1860, to 28,800—a gain of 10,500. The gain in the number of churches in the rest of the country was but 5,400. This indicates great religious activity and a large proportionate increase of moral force. The value of church property in the whole Valley, in 1850, was $24,300,000; in 1860, $58,100,000. In the rest of the country the gain was $50,154,000, and in the Valley $33,800,000. The precious metals produced in California at this time, and the great prosperity of the whole country spread ease and wealth through the East. The West was employed in laying foundations. Costly church buildings became abundant in the former; in the latter a larger proportion were inexpensive. Church accommodations in the Valley increased from 6,400,000 to 9,700,000, a gain of 3,300,000 sittings; while in the rest of the country the gain of sittings was but 1,591,000—a much more extensive provision for religious instruction and all the ameliorating and elevating influences which it exerts on society was thus made in the Valley.

CHAPTER XXI.

INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS TO 1860.

Manufactures commenced in the Valley with the first families who occupied the log cabins and block houses raised in the incipient clearings. They could bring almost nothing with them through the forest paths that were followed across the mountains and valleys. What they could not do without their own ingenious skill must produce. With almost no tools these were rude enough, but served the purpose. But soon the active enterprise and inventive genius native to the race commenced manufactures at Pittsburgh. This was, necessarily, by slow degrees, for the people had little wherewith to pay. When the Indian war was over, however, manufactures prospered in Pittsburgh, which soon became famous for its glass and iron works, and ever continued to be one of the principal centers of this industry; so much so, indeed,. that it was called the "Birmingham of the West." The Yankees of Ohio soon contrived to give it a rival in Cincinnati.

Manufactures were carried on by mechanics on a comparatively small scale, in most of the villages, for local sale, and trade gradually enlarged the call for the products of the chief manufacturing centers until after 1815, when they received a great impulse. Iron works multiplied in Western Pennsylvania, Ohio and Tennessee. Machinery for steam engines, and every variety of iron articles then in use, was made at Pittsburgh and Cincinnati.

In 1826, Cincinnati produced $1,800,000 worth of manufactures. It was estimated, in 1835, that the amount was $5,000,000. Pittsburgh was not far behind, and along the Ohio and many of the towns on the streams tributary to it

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factories sprung up at an early time. Accurate statistics were not easily obtained in periods prior to 1850, but the increase was very rapid. In 1840, Cincinnati produced manufactured articles valued at $14,500,000; and in 1841, $17,400,000; and in 1847, the production was believed to be nearly $30,000,000. In 1850, the whole Valley produced manufactures valued at $240,000,000. In 1860, at $440,000,000. Manufacturing establishments numbered 41,968, in 1850, and 52,137 in 1860.

While manufactures shyly stood in the background of the upper Ohio, as if uncertain of the reception they might meet in the middle Valley, devoted by its soil to agriculture, and by its Rivers, Lakes and Gulf to commerce and trade, these last availed themselves of its machinery to enlarge their operations a thousand fold. Not until the railroad era had prepared their way, did the more important manufactures venture boldly out from the vicinity of the mountains and establish themselves on the borders of the prairies, at Chicago and St. Louis. From those points they spread themselves through the West. The general diffusion, however, was deferred, in large part, until the civil war was over.

By the time three millions of people had settled themselves to the work of developing the resources of the soil in the Valley-which was only one generation after the first census in 1790 had ascertained that there were but little over three millions of whites in the whole United States-commerce and trade had secured the effective aid of steam.

Up to that time, the river currents and human muscle had been the main propelling forces used by internal commerce. The Erie canal was not opened to the lake for several years, and the wind could be but little used on the rivers. Muscle and current were opposed to each other when the rivers had to be ascended. The will power and muscular force among the stalwart settlers were great, but the difficulties opposed by vast distances were still greater. Man alone against nature is weak; when he can summon any desirable amount of natural

force to his aid, and his mental power is turned from the use of the muscles to the product and supervision of machinery that obliges nature herself to become his drudge, he is really

supreme.

So the property that floated on the streams of the Valley for exchange rose from a few millions in 1821, to $220,000,000 in 1841, and $350,000,000 in 1850. In the latter year, the commerce of the lakes was estimated at $140,000,000, and railroads had already begun to share the burden of transportation to and from the Valley, so that $500,000,000 would not cover the value of this interior commerce. Manufactures had now come to be produced in the Valley itself at the rate of hundreds of millions of dollars annually, and only part of these were distributed by the water routes, so that trade outside these lines was immense. We may suppose the trade of the whole Valley to have been worth, at least, one thousand million dollars a year at this time. This was only the beginning of the colossal activities developed in the Valley; for only now was the transporting agent capable of answering. all demands.

All this vast business rested on agriculture as its base. The manufactures were only for the Valley, and were very far from supplying its wants. Millions of people were supported in the East and in Europe by the proceeds of the fabrics they made for the Valley people. More than half of the foreign exports of the country were drawn from the soil of this region, and a large part of the wealth gained by the Eastern tradesmen, manufacturers and capitalists was furnished from the same source. By 1852, $100,000,000 had been invested in building canals to furnish additional outlets to the produce of western farms, and from 1850 to 1860 some hundreds of millions of dollars were spent in building railroads in the Valley itself. In 1859 the revenues of the four trunk lines, connecting the northern Valley with the seaboard, were $19,500,000. We are lost, from this time, in vast figures, which

THE GREAT PROGRESS MADE FROM 1850 TO 1860. 365

labor in vain to represent to us the great results of development in this fruitful soil. The channels of commerce and trade whose spring was in the Valley, had become so numerous, flowed so freely, and in so many directions, that it is quite impossible to ascertain their sum.

Agricultural beginnings had been small. At first there was little demand for the food products the settlers could furnish so readily. But, by degrees, steam changed the face of the world and revolutionized business. Manufacturing and commercial activity produced hundreds of millions and sent them circulating through the Valley, the Atlantic States and Europe. Great cities multiplied everywhere, or increased their populations to be fed, at an unprecedented rate, and markets enlarged. Steamboats and railroads came when the world was ready for them. Agriculture in the Valley developed as markets opened and facilities for transportation were supplied. It was the Age of Invention, the Age of Beginnings for new and broader activities, the world over. To produce the machinery, and all the accompaniments of its use, required the labor of vast numbers of workmen, and other multitudes entered the shops and manufactories that were prepared to transform the raw material into articles of trade to be transported over the world. It was an extraordinary time-one of the great crises in the progress of mankind.

Most of the enlargement, in Europe and America, reacted on the Valley, in some form, and increased its prosperity. Its resources were inexhaustible and easily drawn out as required. The farmers had overflowing crops on a small percentage of the soil; they stood ready to answer all calls for food supplies and cotton. Had the demand been ten times as large it would soon have been met. This progress has always waited on the needs of the rest of the world, that is, on markets. The number of acres of improved land, in 1850, was 52,400,000; in 1860, it was 90,000,000. The value of all the land inclosed in farms was $1,400,000,000 in 1850; in 1860 it was $3,700,000,000.