World was a fascinating place full of industry and industrialization. From the shipbuilding yards of the highly-structured Marietta, to the booming pork industry of Cincinnati, opportunity abounded. For some people. Under the right circumstances. The Pan-Mississippian world was also full of disease, unchecked growth, racism, violence, and slavery. Ohio was right at the center of this world and eventually helped to turn against it. The Pan-Mississippian world began with a small town of Marietta, which had roots in the East. Marietta was the first western U.S. settlement. Marietta’s founders had a specific goal in mind; create an organized, strategically-designed town that would become a model for all other western towns and cities. Marietta’s streets were designed in organized rows, not unlike what we see in Washington D.C. today. They were named after important politicians and reputable people in order to establish propriety and civilized society. The elites in the east feared unchecked growth and uncurbed industrialization.
Marietta was designed to be organized and therefore would create a civilized society, or so was the idea. Marietta was designed to rebuild Ohio. Washington feared the Appalachians would disconnect Ohio from civilized society, and therefore Marietta was born. Before long, Marietta had a booming shipbuilding industry, sending ships to the east. The people who settled there shared like-values and the same vision Marietta’s founders did. Marietta built where Muskingum meets Ohio River. It had rocky terrain-given to flooding, and the unreliable Muskingum River. Lumber was important resource, and by 1800 it was a shipbuilding center. The first ship, St. Clair sailed in 1800 to the West Indies and back to Philadelphia. There were 20 ships by 1808. Marietta had integrated economy and transatlantic reach which invited foreign investment, they embraced technological change like steamships, and in turn they got a diverse profit seeking population because of the development of technological change like railroads, steamships, telegraphs, and global migration. The problem with Marietta was the very structure that influenced its beginning. There was not much room for change, and stability creates stagnated growth.
In contrast, the town of Cincinnati was built with no vision. It simply began as a military settlement near the Miami watershed. Cincinnati had fertile farmland and a reliable transportation network with the river close by. Cincinnati discovered an industry in pork which was easy to raise in Ohio. First in 1818, they were the largest pork processing industry in the world. The nickname “Porkopolis” sums it up well. Because of this industry, there was now a need for butchers, factories for processing the pork and pork products (resulting in new assembly line techniques), steamship yards, hotels for businessmen, restaurants, and other necessity shops. Due to this need, Cincy also had a diverse population who came from the East seeking a way to make their fortune. This greed was categorized as a “pell-mell-rush.” From the steamboats and steamships like the New Orleans of 1811, travel could be completed from New Orleans to Louisville in 25 days and Cleveland to New York City in 24 hours. The technological change opened Ohio to the world with greater speed and intensity. By the 1840s, Ohio led nation in production of corn and Miami valley led the state.
Corn transformed into portable durable products like whiskey and hogs food. This chaotic development and individual cupidity created a thriving technologically sophisticated, international, and industrial economy and also resulted in a fluid social-political environment by the 1830s and 40s. Cincinnati was not without fault. The great steamboat technology cost $25-50k, so incentives were offered to increase the hard work for cheap. Disease traveled on the steamboats as well as business did. From cholera “the great scourge” leading to violent purges and gangrene; there were two major epidemics in Cincinnati with a loss of over 9,000 people. The diverse population led to racial violence. Participants in the race riots of 1829, 1836, 1841, and 1843 said they were “protecting the city from outsiders.” The 3 million immigrants to the US were seen as ethnically intimidating.
The tide, however, soon turned to International Liberalism; a series of movements in the mid19th century to reform corrupt unrepresentative government. It relied on violence to change the government, but in 1851-52, the Ohio Constitutional Convention rewrote constitution and banned legislature from granting special privileges to businesses or individuals. It gave power back to the people and let them elect judges and statewide executives. While a free state, the city of Cincinnati in Ohio exploited slavery by producing corn and pork products to feed slaves. Cincinnati was also important in financing slavery. At the same time, slavery was also being undermined. The steamboats and busy harbors of Cincinnati were an easy way to escape slavery and travel further north. Cincinnati was used as an information network as it was the closest major free city to the South and served on the Underground Railroad. Ohioans used the global capitalism of the cotton industry as an effort to change the cruel foundation of international capitalism which was slavery. Uncle Tom’s Cabin revealed the following: the exploitation of women, physical violence, and the denying of African Americans’ liberty. It gave whites permission to oppose slavery and emphasized the effects of slavery on whites. This rejected the Pan-Mississippian world.
With the advent of the Ohio-Erie Canal, and Miami-Erie Canal, Ohio’s industry boomed again. The northern third of the state began to grow. In Akron the price of wheat doubled, in Toledo the value of trade increased. Milan became the second largest grain port, and Cleveland became the center of western wares heading to New York City and eastern goods heading west. No longer was New Orleans the most important to Ohio, now it was New York City, further distancing Ohio from the slave trade of the South. This further ensured the demise of slavery. People began to see that it was stagnating growth, and the effects of slavery were not to be ignored. In Ohio, creating growth was attributed to the idea that people must be free to create, explore, and invent. In Marietta, this idea was not used to its full potential, however, with Cincinnati, it was explored with great success. While this ideal was not without its costs and came at a great price, we are much better for it.
