Social Transformations And The Adjustments Of Living Conditions Of The Farmers In The Northeast Of America (1800-1860)

During the period of Antebellum(1800-1860), the Industrial Revolution took place in the northeast of the United States. The Industrial Revolution accelerated the process of urbanization and promoted"The Revolution of Transportation". These tremendous economic and social changes made great impacts on the traditional rural society of the region. Farmers began to change agriculture development patterns. They adopted the market-orientated products such as cheese,milk,fruits and vegetables so that the agriculture of the northeast region presented the commercial characteristics. The northeast farmers of this period began to show the signs of differentiation. In this dissertation, the model transformation of agriculture development and the division of the peasants are discussed, as well as the characteristics and significance of these adjustments.This paper is divided into four parts:Part 1: The emergence of industrial society in the northeast of America. This part introduces the causes and the process of the Industrial Revolution; the process of urbanization and the improvements of transportation conditions together with the impacts these changes made on agriculture.Part II: The commercial trend of the agricultural development in the northeast region. This part of the contents first briefly reviews the history of the development of agriculture in the northeast region. Then the article cites the conditions of land resources, the development of the western region and internal and external market factors which helped form the commercialization of agriculture. The most important contents of this part explain the specific commercial agricultural products in detail. Part III: The division of farmers. This part of the contents relate the conditions of the farmers who continued to engage in agricultural production under the new social situations and the farmers who started to separate themselves from the agriculture.Part IV: Summary. This concluding part sums up the general contents of this paper, and evaluates the historical characteristics and significance of this agricultural development.