Why Study the Industrial Revolution
Why is the American Industrial Revolution important, you ask? The Industrial Revolution in the United States (which began in Europe in the mid-1700’s) was a complete game changer for the nation as a whole. The only country to truly have a global advantage in this new era in American industry was Great Britain. Luckily for the colonists, new age wartime production wasn’t yet fully utilized within Great Britain, and the colonists (with some help from the French and Spanish) were able to repel our British cousins.
What’s interesting about the American Industrial Revolution is that it was a very slow, very incremental change. While many inventors, such as Samuel Morse and John Deere, were able to change and revolutionize American society, the United States was still primarily an agrarian (farming) state. The one major factor that revolutionized and drastically expanded American industry was the expansion of the railroads in the United States. While many railroads existed before the Civil War, American industrialists were on a quest to utilize our nation’s geographical resources.
This new fascinating age in American history led to the rise of the robber baron. In their own right, robber barons were revolutionaries. Andrew Carnegie, a Scottish immigrant to United States, left his job as a railroad manger to research the Bessemer process, a new, cost efficient way to mass produce steel. After his business, the Carnegie Steel Company, started, Carnegie himself instituted business practices that were mimicked by other robber barons. Carnegie, in order to enhance his profit margin, bought all the means of producing steel (including iron mines, railways to mines, etc.) and eventually bought out his competitors. Carnegie being ludicrously rich, supported the actions of other robber barons and himself in The Social Gospel: “That this talent for organization and management is rare among men is proved by the fact that it invariably secures for its possessor enormous rewards, no matter where or under what laws or conditions.” While robber barons, were rich beyond imagination, barons such as Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller donated small portions of their wealth to benefit American society to establish hospitals, schools, parks, etc.
One major drawback of the Industrial Revolution in the United States was how the workers were being treated by the end of the 1800s. Muckraking journalist Upton Sinclair highlighted the cruel conditions of factory worker in The Jungle. The Jungle is based on Sinclair’s observations of workers in a meat factory in Chicago and highlights that meat served to the American public and shipped abroad was packed as a result of grotesque production practices (I don’t want to spoil any part of the story but, meat not suitable for feed was served to the public).
The one good thing that came as a result of muckraking and social commentary was the progressive movement in the early 1900s. President Theodore Roosevelt and his administration reformed Washington politics. Before Roosevelt, the country was in period known as the Gilded Age. During the gilded age, industry, especially trusts, conquered national politics. Roosevelt was the first president since Abraham Lincoln to effectively use the power of the presidency and the will of the people to better the country.
What’s interesting about the American Industrial Revolution is that it was a very slow, very incremental change. While many inventors, such as Samuel Morse and John Deere, were able to change and revolutionize American society, the United States was still primarily an agrarian (farming) state. The one major factor that revolutionized and drastically expanded American industry was the expansion of the railroads in the United States. While many railroads existed before the Civil War, American industrialists were on a quest to utilize our nation’s geographical resources.
This new fascinating age in American history led to the rise of the robber baron. In their own right, robber barons were revolutionaries. Andrew Carnegie, a Scottish immigrant to United States, left his job as a railroad manger to research the Bessemer process, a new, cost efficient way to mass produce steel. After his business, the Carnegie Steel Company, started, Carnegie himself instituted business practices that were mimicked by other robber barons. Carnegie, in order to enhance his profit margin, bought all the means of producing steel (including iron mines, railways to mines, etc.) and eventually bought out his competitors. Carnegie being ludicrously rich, supported the actions of other robber barons and himself in The Social Gospel: “That this talent for organization and management is rare among men is proved by the fact that it invariably secures for its possessor enormous rewards, no matter where or under what laws or conditions.” While robber barons, were rich beyond imagination, barons such as Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller donated small portions of their wealth to benefit American society to establish hospitals, schools, parks, etc.
One major drawback of the Industrial Revolution in the United States was how the workers were being treated by the end of the 1800s. Muckraking journalist Upton Sinclair highlighted the cruel conditions of factory worker in The Jungle. The Jungle is based on Sinclair’s observations of workers in a meat factory in Chicago and highlights that meat served to the American public and shipped abroad was packed as a result of grotesque production practices (I don’t want to spoil any part of the story but, meat not suitable for feed was served to the public).
The one good thing that came as a result of muckraking and social commentary was the progressive movement in the early 1900s. President Theodore Roosevelt and his administration reformed Washington politics. Before Roosevelt, the country was in period known as the Gilded Age. During the gilded age, industry, especially trusts, conquered national politics. Roosevelt was the first president since Abraham Lincoln to effectively use the power of the presidency and the will of the people to better the country.