An Overview of 1790 - 1840 New England
In the early 1800s, the six New England states (Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont) were a distinctive and dynamic part of a young and vigorous nation. New Englanders led the nation in commerce and manufacturing, many championed causes of reform (some examples of New England reform are temperance, abolition, and care of the poor) and education, and they carried their notions of ambition, conscience, and community wherever they settled.
The people of New England were a busy, bustling, industrious population, still living mostly on farms and in small villages. As you look around, notice the landscape. It was a very different picture in the early 19th century. Much of the land had been deforested (the land was being cleared for farms, lumber, and firewood). Imagine 75 to 85 percent of the trees cut down. Everywhere you look; you would have seen rolling fields, pastures, farms and small villages. This was a time of great change. Commerce and industry were replacing the traditional, rural economy (where 90 percent of the people farmed the land). America's Industrial Revolution began in rural New England with water-powered textile factories. Farmers began to grow food for the nation's first factory workers, and manufacturing of all kinds expanded in the countryside, providing not just cloth, but shoes, chairs, brooms, books, straw and palm leaf hats, wagons, tinware, and machinery. As land in New England tended to be scarce, rocky, and expensive, many New Englanders looked to the west for greater opportunities to purchase land, farm, and raise their families.
There were over a thousand towns in New England, where roads would converge in a "center village" with houses, shops, stores, and meetinghouses clustered about a common. Farms were scattered about the countryside with a district school within walking distance in each neighborhood.
Typically, New England children would have a one-room district school within a mile and a half of home. Here they learned reading, writing, and ciphering (arithmetic), as well as some geography, history, and composition. About 90 percent of New Englanders could read, write, and do enough arithmetic to keep accounts, making them the most literate people in the United States and the equal of any in the world.
Our re-created community at Old Sturbridge Village portrays a "typical" New England town of the early 19th century. It is divided into three distinct areas: the Center Village, the Countryside, and the Mill Neighborhood. The historic mills, shops, homes, working farm, district school, commercial buildings, and meetinghouses re-create a community where authentically costumed Villagers demonstrate and discuss with students the daily life, work, and celebrations of 19th-century New Englanders.
General Timeline
1770 - Boston Massacre1773 - Boston Tea Party
1775 - Battle of Lexington & Concord
1776 - Declaration of Independence
1783 - Treaty of Paris
1788 - Ratification of U.S. Constitution
1789-1797 - Presidency of G. Washington
1790 - Slater's Mill
1793 - Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin
1797-1801 - Presidency of John Adams
1801-1809 - Presidency of T. Jefferson
1803 - Louisiana Purchase
1807 - Embargo Act
1808 - Congress Prohibits Slave Trade
1809-1817 - Presidency of J. Madison
1809 - Nonintercourse Act
1811 - Tecumseh Defeated
1812-1815 - War with England
1817-1825 - Presidency of J. Monroe
1818 - Tariff of Abominations
1819 - Spain cedes Florida
1820 - Missouri Compromise
1825-1829 - Presidency of J. Q. Adams
1829-1837 - Presidency of A. Jackson
1831 - Nat Turner's Slave Revolt
1836 - War of Texas Independence
1837-1841 - Presidency of M. Van Buren
1837 - Financial Panic
1837 - Victoria, Queen of England
1841 - Presidency of W. H. Harrison
1841-1845 - Presidency of John Tyler
1845-1849 - Presidency of J. K. Polk
1846-1848 - War with Mexico
1848 - Gold Discovered in California
1850 - Fugitive Slave Law
1857 - Dred Scott Decision
1861 - Abraham Lincoln elected President
The Civil War Begins