Post-Napoleonic Depression

Last updated

The post-Napoleonic Depression was an economic depression in Europe and the United States after the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. In England and Wales, an agricultural depression led to the passage of the Corn Laws (which were to polarize British politics for the next three decades), and placed great strain on the system of poor relief inherited from Elizabethan times. [1]

Contents

After the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, a brief boom in textile manufacture in England was followed by periods of chronic industrial economic depression, particularly among textile weavers and spinners (the textile trade was concentrated in Lancashire). [2] Weavers who could have expected to earn 15 shillings for a six-day week in 1803, saw their wages cut to 5 shillings or even 4s 6d by 1818. [3] The industrialists, who were cutting wages without offering relief, blamed market forces generated by the aftershocks of the Napoleonic Wars. [3]

At the same time, the Corn Laws (the first of which was passed in 1815) exacerbated the situation. They imposed a tariff on foreign grain in an effort to protect English grain producers (agricultural landowners). The cost of food for working people rose as people were forced to buy the more expensive and lower quality British grain, and periods of famine and chronic unemployment ensued, increasing the desire for political reform both in Lancashire and in the country at large. [4] [5]

In Ireland, wheat and other grain prices fell by half, and alongside continued population growth, landlords converted cropland into rangeland by securing the passage of tenant farmer eviction legislation in 1816, which led, because of the Irish workforce's historic concentration in agriculture, to a greater subdivision of remaining land plots under tillage and increasingly less efficient and less profitable subsistence farms. [6] [7]

In Scotland, the depression ended in 1822. [8] Samuel Jackson of Pennsylvania theorised that the Panic of 1819 and resulting depression in the United States were caused by the post-Napoleonic depression, holding that the end of the Napoleonic wars had led to the collapse of export markets and resulting underconsumption. [9]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Corn Laws</span> 19th-century trade restrictions on import food and grain in Great Britain

The Corn Laws were tariffs and other trade restrictions on imported food and corn enforced in the United Kingdom between 1815 and 1846. The word corn in British English denoted all cereal grains, including wheat, oats and barley. They were designed to keep corn prices high to favour domestic producers, and represented British mercantilism. The Corn Laws blocked the import of cheap corn, initially by simply forbidding importation below a set price, and later by imposing steep import duties, making it too expensive to import it from abroad, even when food supplies were short. The House of Commons passed the corn law bill on 10 March 1815, the House of Lords on 20 March and the bill received royal assent on 23 March 1815.

The Panic of 1819 was the first widespread and durable financial crisis in the United States that slowed westward expansion in the Cotton Belt and was followed by a general collapse of the American economy that persisted through 1821. The Panic heralded the transition of the nation from its colonial commercial status with Europe toward an independent economy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Middle Colonies</span> Subset of British American Thirteen Colonies

The Middle Colonies were a subset of the Thirteen Colonies in British America, located between the New England Colonies and the Southern Colonies. Along with the Chesapeake Colonies, this area now roughly makes up the Mid-Atlantic states.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scottish Lowlands</span> Cultural and historic region of Scotland

The Lowlands is a cultural and historical region of Scotland.

The Long Depression was a worldwide price and economic recession, beginning in 1873 and running either through March 1879, or 1896, depending on the metrics used. It was most severe in Europe and the United States, which had been experiencing strong economic growth fueled by the Second Industrial Revolution in the decade following the American Civil War. The episode was labeled the "Great Depression" at the time, and it held that designation until the Great Depression of the 1930s. Though it marked a period of general deflation and a general contraction, it did not have the severe economic retrogression of the Great Depression.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Economic history of Ireland</span>

Ireland's economic history starts at the end of the Ice Age when the first humans arrived there. Agriculture then came around 4500 BC. Iron technology came with the Celts around 350 BC. From the 12th century to the 1970s, most Irish exports went to England. During this period, Ireland's main exports were foodstuffs. In the 20th century, Ireland's economy diversified and grew. It is now one of the richest countries in the world by GDP per capita.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albanian Americans</span> Americans of Albanian birth or descent

Albanian Americans are Americans of full or partial Albanian ancestry and heritage in the United States. They trace their ancestry to the territories with a large Albanian population in the Balkans and southern Europe, including Albania, Italy, Kosovo, North Macedonia and Montenegro. They are adherents of different religions and are predominantly Muslims and Christians, while some are irreligious.

Canadian Americans are American citizens or in some uses residents whose ancestry is wholly or partly Canadian, or citizens of either country who hold dual citizenship.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oscar Handlin</span> American historian

Oscar Handlin was an American historian. As a professor of history at Harvard University for over 50 years, he directed 80 PhD dissertations and helped promote social and ethnic history, virtually inventing the field of immigration history in the 1950s. Handlin won the 1952 Pulitzer Prize for History for The Uprooted (1951). Handlin's 1965 testimony before Congress was said to "have played an important role" in passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 that abolished the discriminatory immigration quota system in the US.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Latvia–United States relations</span> Bilateral relations

The United States established diplomatic relations with Latvia on July 28, 1922. The U.S. Legation in Riga was officially established on November 13, 1922, and served as the headquarters for U.S. representation in the Baltics during the interwar era. The Soviet invasion forced the closure of the legation on September 5, 1940, but Latvian representation in the United States has continued uninterrupted for 85 years. The United States never recognized the forcible incorporation of Latvia into the U.S.S.R. and views the present government of Latvia as a legal continuation of the interwar republic.

Commodity price shocks are times when the prices for commodities have drastically increased or decreased over a short span of time.

Stephan Thernstrom is an American academic and historian who is the Winthrop Research Professor of History Emeritus at Harvard University. He is a specialist in ethnic and social history and was the editor of the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups. He and his wife Abigail Thernstrom are prominent opponents of affirmative action in education and according to the New York Times, they "lead the conservative charge against racial preference in America."

Vaba Eesti Sõna is an Estonian expatriate weekly newspaper published in New York City, United States established in 1949.

Oldham Limiteds were the 154 cotton manufacturing companies founded to build or operate cotton mills in Oldham in northwest England, and predominantly during the joint-stock boom of 1873–1875.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Appalachian Americans</span> Ethnic group in the United States

Appalachian Americans, or simply Appalachians, are Americans living in the geocultural area of Appalachia in the eastern United States, or their descendants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Recoinage of 1816</span> Attempted reformation of British currency

The Great Recoinage of 1816 was an attempt by the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland to re-stabilise its currency, the pound sterling, after the economic difficulties brought about by the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars.

Ethnic history is a branch of social history that studies ethnic groups and immigrants. Barkan (2007) argues that the field allows historians to use alternate models of interpretation, unite qualitative and quantitative data, apply sociological models to historical patterns, examine more deeply macro-level policies and decisions, and, especially, empathize with the ethnic groups under study.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sociology of Manchester</span>

Manchester has historically influenced political and social thinking in Britain and been a hotbed for new, radical thinking, particularly during the Industrial Revolution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Irish Americans</span> Americans of Irish birth or descent

Irish Americans are ethnic Irish who live in the United States and are American citizens. Most Irish Americans today are descendants from immigrants who moved into America during the 19th century.

The Macedonian People's League was a leftist organization, founded in the USA.

References

  1. Lord Ernle, English Farming Past and Present. Fifth Edition. (London: Longmans, Green & Co., Ltd. 1936), Chapter XV: Agricultural Depression and the Poor Law 1813-37
  2. Frangopulo, N. J. (1977), Tradition in Action: The Historical Evolution of the Greater Manchester County, EP Publishing, p. 30, ISBN   978-0-7158-1203-7
  3. 1 2 Hernon, Ian (2006), Riot!: Civil Insurrection from Peterloo to the Present Day, Pluto Press, p. 22, ISBN   978-0-7453-2538-5
  4. Farrer, William; Brownbill, John (2003–2006) [1911]. "The city and parish of Manchester: Introduction". The Victoria history of the county of Lancaster. – Lancashire. Vol.4. University of London & History of Parliament Trust. Retrieved 27 March 2008.
  5. Glen, Robert (1984), Urban workers in the early Industrial Revolution, Croom Helm, pp. 194–252, ISBN   0-7099-1103-3
  6. Blessing, Patrick J. (1980). "Irish". In Thernstrom, Stephan; Orlov, Ann; Handlin, Oscar (eds.). Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. p.  529. ISBN   978-0674375123. OCLC   1038430174.
  7. Jones, Maldwyn A. (1980). "Scotch-Irish". In Thernstrom, Stephan; Orlov, Ann; Handlin, Oscar (eds.). Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. p.  904. ISBN   978-0674375123. OCLC   1038430174.
  8. Richard Saville (1996). Bank of Scotland: a history, 1695-1995. Edinburgh University Press. p. 484. ISBN   978-0-7486-0757-0 . Retrieved 9 March 2011.
  9. Murray N. Rothbard, The Panic Of 1819: Reactions and Policies, p.213

Further reading