Question

Reply to the discussion post 1 and 2 in your own words individually:

Discussion post 1: I think that transportation was one of the greatest challenges for anyone in the early 1800’s. If you cannot get inventory for your business or get your product to customers, what is the sense of being in business?  Steamboats were invented in the 1807, but it took several years for them to get established. Debris and water levels in the river could cause them to become stuck.  Roads were not that great and there was always the threat of being held up. If transporting by sea, voyages could take months. The ships could sink in a storm or pirates could rob it.

Discussion post 2: There were a lot of different factors that could mean a challenge for a young entrepreneur working in the United States during the Antebellum Period. The biggest hurdle would have been amassing capital to begin a business. During the beginning of the Antebellum Period, most capital was European. Even the United States government was using European capital at the time. In order to get some of this capital, a young entrepreneur would have to be able to conduct himself in a manner that would spark the interest of European investors. Later in the period, during the Free Banking years, there were panics that would stricken the financial markets, making it even more difficult to solidify funds for a start up entrepreneur.

Answer 1

1: In the early 1800s transportation was certainly one of the greatest challenge especially for entrepreneurs. The only way for them to transport their material was with the use of natural waterways. They also had to track through difficult mountains to transport their wares. For example in 1805 Lewis and Clark perform their expedition by canoe down the Mussoorie river and purchased 30 horses after trekking down the bitterroot mountains through the snow.

2. The United States experienced Industrial Revolution only in the Antebellum period. Since many of the Financial Institutions were set up in the Northern States the southern entrepreneurs had difficulty in obtaining capital for investment. Southern States faced greater difficulty since the soil and climate are most suitable for agriculture and there was a shortage of free labour