Market Revolution And Westward Expansion Essay

The market revolution and westward expansion had deeply affected American livelihoods by the 1830s and 1840s. These important events reinforced old ideas of freedom and created new ones. Available land in the West had long been linked to the dream of American freedom. During this time, the phrase "manifest destiny", which is the belief that American settlers were destined to expand and occupy all of North America and extend freedom, disregarding the people that were already existing there. This idea of freedom and economic independence was widely known among the people of the United States. To many people, the settlement and utilization of the West gave America the opportunity to avoid becoming like Europe. There, society was made up of previously sorted social classes and elephantine numbers of poor people. Free or cheap land was ample in the West along with factory labor becoming less common. The West offered men faced with rising land prices and wage labor in the East a chance to achieve economic independence. …show more content…
Chances for individual growth gave a new definition of the pursuit of happiness that clearly conveyed a new America in which market relations and westward expansion destroyed old social boundaries. A group called “transcendentalists” conveyed these feelings within their activities and writings; they were persistent that individual judgment should take over the present standing social customs. Ralph Waldo Emerson defined freedom as a process of self-realization, in which individuals could make life how they wanted it to be for themselves. Henry David Thoreau commanded for individuals to rely solely on themselves, this was later known as