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On March 4, 1801, Thomas Jefferson was inaugurated. It was the first election in modern history that resulted in the orderly transfer of power from one political party to another. Jefferson was the first president inaugurated in the new national capital of Washington, District of Columbia. During his inauguration, Jefferson emphasized his connection to the "plain and simple" ways of the "common" people. -
On December 20, 1803, U.S. officials took formal possession of the Louisiana Territory. The purchase included 875,000 square miles of land. Six states in their entirety, and most of nine or more, would be carved out of the Louisiana Purchase. The Louisiana Purchase was the most significant event of Jefferson's presidency and one of the most important developments in American history. It spurred western exploration and expansion. -
To learn more about the Louisiana Territory and its prospects for trade and agriculture, Thomas Jefferson asked Congress to fund an expedition to find the most "practicable water communication across this continent." The president then appointed army captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to lead what came to be known as the Lewis and Clark expedition.
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The decisive battle in what came to be called the Creek War occurred on March 27, 1814, on a peninsula formed by the Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa River. Andrew Jackson's soldiers, with crucial help from Cherokee and Creek allies, surrounded a Red Stick fort, set fire to it, and shot the Indians as they tried to escape. Nine hundred were killed, including 300 who drowned in a desperate effort to cross the river. Fewer than fifty of Jackson's soldiers were killed.
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During the late summer of 1814, U.S. forces suffered their most humiliating experience of the war when British troops captured and burned Washington, D.C. The destruction of Washington, D.C., shocked, embarrassed, and infuriated Americans. Even worse, people had lost confidence in the government and the military. -
The Erie Canal (finished in 1825) in central New York connected the Great Lakes and the Midwest to the Hudson River and New York City. It drew eastward much of the midwestern trade (furs, lumber, textiles) that earlier had been forced to go to Canada or make the long journey down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. Thanks to the Erie Canal, the backwards village of Chicago developed into a bustling city. -
In 1834, the National Trades' Union formed to organize the citywide trade unions into a stronger national association. -
Irish farmers primarily grew potatoes; the average Irishman ate five pounds of potatoes a day. In 1845, a fungus destroyed the potato crop and triggered the potato famine. More than a million people died, and almost 2 million more left Ireland, whose total population was only 8 million. Most Irish Immigrants, almost all of them Roman Catholics, traveled to Canada and the United States. -
In 1846, Elias Howe patented his design of the sewing machine. It was soon improved by Isaac Merritt Singer, who founded the Singer Sewing Machine Company, which first produced industrial sewing machines for use in textile mills but eventually offered machines for home use. Sewing machines helped revolutionize "women's work." They dramatically reduced the time for making clothes at home, thus freeing up more leisure time for many women. -
In 1848, the discovery of gold lured thousands of prospectors and entrepreneurs from the Atlantic seaboard. The massive wave of would-be-miners also generated an urgent demand for goods on the West Coast.