4. A Northern World View: Yankee Society, Antislavery Ideology and the Abolition Movement

The Civil War and Reconstruction (HIST 119)
Having finished with slavery and the pro-slavery argument, Professor Blight heads North today. The majority of the lecture deals with the rise of the Market Revolution in the North, in the 1820s, 1830s, and 1840s. Blight first describes the causes of the Market Revolution--the rise of capital, a transportation revolution--and then moves to its effects on the culture and consciousness of antebellum northerners. Among these effects were a riotous optimism mixed with a deep-rooted fear of change, an embrace of the notions of progress and Manifest Destiny, and the intensification of the divides between North and South.
00:00 - Chapter 1. Introduction
04:40 - Chapter 2. Uriah Parmelee, the Yalie
12:54 - Chapter 3. The Market Revolution of the North: Mobility, Child Labor, Wealth
27:12 - Chapter 4. The Idea of Manifest Destiny, the Reality of Change, and the Transportation Revolution
37:23 - Chapter 5. Contradictions of Progress in American Literature
43:22 - Chapter 6. Change as Precursor to Reform: A Historical Perspective
Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: open.yale.edu/courses
This course was recorded in Spring 2008.