02.01 Industrialization Changes America

Industrial Revolutions

What Were the Industrial Revolutions?

At the start of the Civil War, the U.S. economy was based on agriculture. A minority of people did factory work, mainly in the Northeast. Those factories were developed during the First Industrial Revolution.

Starting in Great Britain in about 1760, new manufacturing processes replaced traditional handcrafting. Machines were powered by water, coal, and steam. Factory workers produced goods such as iron and cloth in large quantities.

The First Industrial Revolution spread to the United States in the early 1800s. The need for factory workers led people to move from farming areas to urban settings. It also brought women and children into the labor force.

While manufacturing was centered in the Northeast, two farming products created during this period brought economic change to other regions. The cotton gin made cotton the most important cash crop in the South. The first companies to manufacture the cotton gin started in the 1820s. These factories employed workers in the North and the South. The second product, the mechanical reaper, was developed by Cyrus McCormick and used for harvesting grain. By the 1840s, manufacturers in the Midwest were selling reapers to farmers in the region. These machines did the work of many men, which meant that farms did not need as many laborers.

The First Industrial Revolution Characteristics:

The Civil War (1861-1865) is usually considered the transition between the First Industrial Revolution and the Second Industrial Revolution. After 1865, factory-produced machines such as threshers and seed drills meant that even fewer farm workers were needed. Americans from rural areas continued to move to cities. In addition, immigrants arrived in major cities in waves. The number of factory workers increased sharply. By the end of the 19th century, the United States had become a manufacturing economy.

Now it's time for a game! You know about the characteristics of the First Industrial Revolution and have some knowledge of the Second Industrial Revolution. Identify each characteristic as an agricultural, business/political, social, technological, or transportation innovation associated with the Second Industrial Revolution. As you complete the game, think about how each characteristic built upon a characteristic of the First Industrial Revolution.

Agriculture

• Farm production increased as new farm technology developed

• Fewer farmers were needed to produce enough food for the country's population

• The U.S. economy shifted from an agricultural-based economy to an industrial-based economy

Business/political

• Large business organizations began to form, squeezing business from smaller operations

• A small number of business owners began to control specific industries, such as the railroads

• Labor unions became more organized as workers began to fight for equality and fairness

Social

• People moved to the United States in large numbers to work in industries

• New social classes, upper, middle, and lower, developed in cities

• Cities began to grow up and out with more than half of the population living in urban areas

• Living conditions in cities deteriorated as populations increased and sanitation and inadequate housing issues emerged

Technology

• An abundance of steel helped launch the construction of heavy machinery and railroads

• Development of a process to refine oil improved transportation and machine operation

• Advancements in communication, such as the telephone and telegraph, united the country

Transportation

• Cheap steel led to the completion of the transcontinental railroad

• Railroads linked isolated regions of the country to the rest of the United States

Second Industrial Revolution

What Factors Led to the Second Industrial Revolution?

The Second Industrial Revolution succeeded for many reasons. Advances in transportation and technology allowed businesses to expand. The labor force grew. The settlement of the West made natural resources easier to access. Government policies led to economic growth. Review the flip card interactive to learn more about the factors contributing to the Second Industrial Revolution and its success.

Transportation

After the Civil War ended in 1865, the U.S. rail network grew explosively. This expansion connected distant markets and allowed raw materials to be shipped cheaply and quickly from sources in the West and Midwest to factories in the Northeast. More than 70,000 miles of railroad track were laid in the 1880s alone. Most of these tracks were on land that had been given to railroad companies through government grants. As shown in the picture, bridges were necessary to maintain level track elevation in remote locations where mountains and valleys were common.

Transportation

After the Civil War ended in 1865, the U.S. rail network grew explosively. This expansion connected distant markets and allowed raw materials to be shipped cheaply and quickly from sources in the West and Midwest to factories in the Northeast. More than 70,000 miles of railroad track were laid in the 1880s alone. Most of these tracks were on land that had been given to railroad companies through government grants. As shown in the picture, bridges were necessary to maintain level track elevation in remote locations where mountains and valleys were common.

Communication

New inventions such as the telegraph helped connect Americans by allowing people to send messages over large distances. Some historians have even dubbed the telegraph the "Victorian Internet." These connections aided business growth and helped expand markets.

Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs

Andrew Carnegie, who revolutionized the steel industry, and other entrepreneurs played vital roles in the rise of the Second Industrial Revolution. These entrepreneurs funded and managed growing industries. The huge profits that industrialists made earned them two distinct nicknames. They were known as "captains of industry" for the services they provided to workers and society and "robber barons" by those who felt the industrialists got rich at the expense of society.

Technology

New industrial technology was the foundation of the Second Industrial Revolution. The Bessemer process* (*a method of removing impurities from pig iron to produce molten steel), for example, allowed the mass production of steel from iron. Steel was stronger than iron and became one of the main industrial products of the era.

Labor

Labor

The size of the U.S. labor force increased as newly freed African Americans and immigrants from Europe and Asia joined the workforce. They were a vital part of the labor force needed for new factories. Workers were also important, as they became consumers who spent part of their wages on new manufactured goods.

Government

The government encouraged railroad expansion and supported free trade among the states. At the same time, the government placed heavy tariffs on imports that made domestic goods much cheaper. This protected U.S. manufacturers from external competition. These policies helped businesses and industries grow.

Natural Resources

Natural Resources

The settlement of the West increased access to already abundant natural resources. U.S. lands offered manufacturers extensive stores of coal, iron, oil, lumber, and other raw materials for industrial development.

Places and Regions

What Are Places and Regions?

Think about some different cities in the United States: New York, Los Angeles, Miami. Each of these cities probably conjures up a different mental image for you. These differences reflect the uniqueness of the geographical idea of place. Characteristics of a place, such as weather, types of buildings, and recreational activities, influence how people living in a certain location view the area around them. They also shape how people living in other locations think about a certain place. This means that historians may study place to learn not just about the characteristics of a certain location but also about broader ideas such as point of view.

Places are usually part of a larger human-made geographical area known as a region. A physical region may contain an area with a shared climate or terrain, and a human region may include an area where people speak the same language or have a similar culture. People use regions to organize Earth's vast surface into manageable spatial units.

Because humans create and interpret regions, ideas about regions can change over time. Changes in population may create new regions that are organized differently than their predecessors. People living in different areas or in different time periods may not see or think about regions in the same way. Historians study these changes to better understand historical events and ideas.

This map below shows the census regions that subdivide the United States for the presentation of census data. The Census Bureau defines four census regions: Northeast, Midwest, South, and West. Each of these regions has distinct characteristics. For example, before the Industrial Revolutions, people in the Northeast relied on fishing and forestry as part of their economy. People in the Midwest grew grains and other foods. Southerners grew cash crops such as rice and tobacco. Historians compare and contrast information like this to learn about the characteristics of these regions.

Census Regions
Text Version

Background Image: Map showing the four census regions of the United States: Northeast, South, Midwest, and West. Each region shows the states included in each region.

• Northeast

  Good transportation systems, including four important railroad lines, ensured that raw materials could flow into the region and that products made in the Northeast could reach distant markets. The Northeast's high population also made it the nation's most important market, or region in which there is a demand for a specific good or service, for manufactured goods.

• South

  By 1880, new railroads stretched as far south as Florida, and textile mills, ironworks, and other industries existed across the South. Nevertheless, overall production levels remained low. By 1890, the South's industrial output was just half that of the state of New York.

• Midwest

  The Midwest became the national center of meat processing and goods shipping. In 1890, the city of Dayton, Ohio, led the nation in patents granted per capita. The steel and automotive industries became the economic foundations of Cleveland and Detroit.

• West

  The West was thinly populated, with little industrial development. Its rich natural resources, such as timber and metals, provided necessary raw materials for production back east.

  The Second Industrial Revolution by Region

  How Did the Second Industrial Revolution Affect the Different Regions?

  The Second Industrial Revolution affected regions of the country in different ways. Not all areas industrialized equally. The economy of some regions was still dominated by agriculture. However, in all regions, the development of transportation was crucial. Railroad lines connected the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts. Freight trains carried livestock and grain from farms to cities. The development of steel-hulled cargo ships meant that heavier loads of raw materials and goods could be transported on waterways. Here are the ways in which the Industrial Revolution affected the regions of the United States:

  
  

Northeast

The Northeast was at the center of industrialization during the First Industrial Revolution. It remained the leading industrial region in the Second Industrial Revolution. New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania produced more than 85 percent of all U.S. industrial products in 1890.

Almost 200,000 miles of railroad line connected cities in the Northeast by 1900. The growth of railroads created a number of supporting industries. Chief among these was the steel industry that was centered mainly in western Pennsylvania. The need for coal to fuel furnaces and iron ore as raw material led to the growth of the mining industry in the region.

This rapid growth of a manufacturing economy created a need for workers. Cities in the Northeast became destinations for the immigrants that came to the United States. By 1870, about 15 percent of the U.S. population was foreign-born. About one in every five industrial workers was an immigrant. Most of these immigrants settled in the Northeast and the upper Midwest along the Great Lakes to Chicago.

The growth of industry also highlighted the gap between rich and poor in this region perhaps more than any other. As a result, political views often clashed. Wealthy entrepreneurs wanted to increase profits. Workers wanted better wages and working conditions. Labor unions formed first in the Northeast. Miners and steelworkers were some of the first workers to use the strike as a bargaining tool against business owners.

Midwest

This large region experienced economic growth in both farming and manufacturing. The upper Midwest states along the Great Lakes—Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois—became centers of industry and a hub for shipping and transport. Cities grew rapidly, attracting large numbers of immigrants. Chicago, Illinois, became one of the nation's largest cities during this period. In 1860, the city's population was about 110,000. In 1890, more than one million people lived there.

The development of railways made Chicago a gateway between the East and West. Trains carried goods from Eastern manufacturers, to be shipped north to the Upper Midwest and west across the Great Plains. Livestock and grains from Western regions arrived on trains in Chicago and were shipped east from there. The poet Carl Sandburg described Chicago with these words:

“Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders”

Like the Northeast, the Midwest had waves of immigrants come to its cities. The gap between rich and poor was a source of friction. Labor unions were active in cities. Social reform movements arose in Ohio and Illinois. In rural areas, farmers were also politically active. It was a region in which social and political campaigns took root.

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South

After the Civil War, the South had to rebuild and develop a new economic structure. Most industry and rail transportation were destroyed during the Civil War. The war also ended slavery, which took away the South's main source of labor. By the 1880s, however, the South had begun to rebuild. Although it remained mostly agricultural, the South began developing its timber industry. Coal and iron deposits in the southern Appalachian Mountains gave rise to steel production in Birmingham, Alabama.

The post-Civil War South continued to have problems related to race. Laws that allowed segregation and discrimination made it hard for Southern African Americans to enjoy the improved transportation of the Second Industrial Revolution. Many African Americans left the South to work in new factories in the North and Midwest. There they had a better chance of earning good wages and improving their economic and social standing.

West

The completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869 linked the coasts of United States. Railways transported natural resources like timber and gold from the West to the East. Immigrants from China arrived in the West looking for jobs on the expanding railroads. Their willingness to work for lower wages and the cultural differences between them and the white settlers led to friction. They faced problems, including riots and discriminatory laws.

The inventions of the period that made agriculture more efficient in the Midwest also encouraged settlers to obtain land in the West. However, the sparse population of the West did not support much industrial growth, and the economy continued to be based on natural resources. Review the map for a closer look at the railroads of the time period. You should see that although there are several connecting the East and West, the majority of railroads are still in the eastern half of the country.

The Transcontinental Railroad

How Did the Railroad Affect the Environment?

As people create human systems in physical environments, those environments change. Settlements, transportation lines, and economic activities all reshape the land. Historians and geographers study the changes that humans make to their physical environment. They also study how the physical environment influences the choices that people make. This helps historians to better understand how places change over time.

Centuries ago, the area that ultimately became the United States was a sparsely settled land with dense forests and plentiful natural resources. As settlers arrived, the human and physical spatial patterns of the land changed. Colonists built small settlements, and some of those settlements grew large. Settlers cut down trees and cleared land to grow crops. They built houses, public buildings, roads, and bridges. All these actions changed the land.

Several decades later, the Industrial Revolution brought factories and increased the need for mineral resources. Settlements grew near physical systems with valuable natural resources such as coal, iron, and oil. In time, the population distribution of the nation changed with the development of modern systems of transportation.

Railroad workers completed the first section of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869, at Promontory, Utah. In total, they laid track over roughly 2,000 miles of terrain. The lines connected the West Coast in San Francisco with the Midwest in Chicago. This new railroad allowed people and goods to travel more quickly from one side of the nation to the other. As a result, the West's population and economy grew greatly.

Study the map on this page. Notice how cities stretch westward to the coast along the transcontinental railroad. Historians study the connections between these two human systems—transportation and settlement. They also consider how the changes these systems brought reshaped the natural environment.

How do you think these railroad additions affected the environment?

© Maps 101, Map Title. 2021

Use the scale on the map on this page to estimate the total track miles that formed the transcontinental railroad. Think about how many resources must have been needed to construct the hundreds of miles of railroad track across the United States. It took people to extract those resources, build the railroads, and create the towns that sprang up along the way.

Consider how these acts changed the landscape of the West and impacted the human and physical systems that were already present in that area. Historians must think about all of these factors to fully understand the effects of the transcontinental railroad on the United States.

Growth of Cities

What Caused the Growth of Cities?

Numerous cities grew during the late 1800s as Americans and immigrants swelled urban populations.© 2012 The Exploration Company

Many immigrants to the United States came from rural, agricultural backgrounds, but most settled in industrial cities. Newly arrived immigrants and native-born Americans dramatically expanded the population of cities. In 1870, about 10 million people—less than one-quarter of the total U.S. population—lived in urban areas. By 1890, just 20 years later, urban areas accounted for about one-third of the total population. By 1920, the urban population was greater than the rural population. The map shows the explosive growth of cities during this era.

Urban living brought both positive and negative changes. New technologies such as streetcars made commuting easier in some cities. But disease, crime, and overcrowding became serious problems. By the late-1880s, immigrant populations from all parts of Europe and Latin American met in urban centers. Cultural differences led to racial and ethnic tension.

The growth of cities had far-reaching effects on society. Abandoning farm work for factory jobs changed family structure and roles. Family members no longer worked together on farms. Instead, they worked in separate factories or offices. Families often required multiple incomes. Some women and children worked long hours, contributing to their household's earnings. Some families took renters into their homes to supplement incomes.

As the economy grew, a new social class emerged between those with the lowest and highest incomes. The middle class was comprised of skilled laborers and office workers. These families educated their children in public schools rather than allowing them to work. Women often remained at home to run the household. On average, middle class families had fewer children than families with lower incomes. As transportation improved, middle class families were able to move from the overcrowded cities to surrounding areas. Men commuted from these suburbs to work in the cities.