industrialization definition us history

industrialization definition us history

The Impact of Industrialization on the United States: A Comprehensive Analysis

1. Introduction to Industrialization in the United States

In order to complete this lesson, students will need the printing of documents, if available. Students will also need to read information on industrialization and take notes in preparation for testing. Students also will need to know how to write a document-based essay.

From the era of Reconstruction to the end of the 19th century, the United States underwent an economic transformation marked by the maturing of the industrial economy, the rapid expansion of big business, the development of large-scale agriculture, and the rise of national labor unions and industrial conflict. Progressives promoted federal legislation to place restrictions on the trusts, promote consumer protection and workers’ rights, and ensure the protection of America’s natural resources. As a point of debate, was industrialization a blessing or a curse to the nation and its citizenry?

In this module, students will learn about the impact of industrialization on the United States. They will write a document-based essay, making specific references to standards that can be found at the bottom of this page.

2. Key Factors Driving Industrialization

In this section, we will provide a comprehensive analysis of the key factors that have driven this unparalleled period of industrial advance. From this analysis, we will be able to better understand the post-World War II and modern experience. At the most general level, industrialization involved the widespread use of machines. Machines are important not only as means of reducing manpower for repeated physical activity but also to replace rather than just augment human brainpower. In the field of tasks, which cannot be reduced to absurd reductionism, should not be as well, but a sign of a long, slow progression of an economy on a path of industrialization. Another signal of an industrializing economy is a rising proportion of the population engaged in nonagricultural work at a rising average level of productivity per capita. The most important feature of industrialization is that it is nearly synonymous with a twentieth-century sense of rapid economic growth. Industrialization is central to the period’s problems, as a period of slow growth is to one hundred eighty years after the Roman Empire. It is logical that we go back and search for a definition beforehand.

3. Social and Economic Consequences of Industrialization

With the implementation of the factory system, the standard of living for unskilled workers contributed to the continued interest and emphasis on production. It was during this era that concepts of freemasonry, trade unionism, and other types of labor organizations began to increase in popularity and demand. Labor chose to fight against conditions that were considered inhumane, and by doing impeded the pace of progress and of the period. The demand for shorter hours, increasing wages, improved working conditions, and workers’ rights added a vocal group to discuss working conditions. Members of the working class could now afford them due to the greater availability and higher quality of these items and luxuries. Their style of living was diminished by the factory system employer’s capitalist incentive to minimize the cost of labor. While factory owners profited due to the accumulated wealth of the members of the labor force, protests were ignored which imposed working within set guidelines, and stronger demands formed under developing systems the Lexington Massacre on striking workers at the Pemberton Mills in Lawrence, Massachusetts during protests portrayed the only two of the few violent actions committed at the time of these protests. The labor abuse protestors represents.

The Industrial Revolution had a profound impact on American life economically, socially, politically, and morally. While many explain the Industrial Revolution as the guest of the factory system, the increase in opportunity and improvement in the quality of life for the working class, with other benefits enhancing the overall well-being of others in society. For the majority of laborers, this era marked the end to their subsistence-level existence. The majority of factory workers and other laborers began to earn living wages, which produced a general improvement in their standard of living. A working class, and with money to spend, businesses were able to increase production with a related increase in purchasing power dedicating a larger portion of national growth.

4. Technological Innovations and Industrial Growth

They converted largely hand fashioning into mass production. Steam engines did away with the limitations of running machinery by use of water or wind power, for a steam engine could be placed anywhere. Greatly improved power and transmission machinery were set in motion and were no longer restricted by semi-skilled labor and the speed with which it could be energized. The combinations of power plants and machinery led to the rise of factories, providing the most visible evidence of the machine age and the conversion from manual to machine methods. More than any other event, the construction and operation of factories symbolized the birth of a new economic era.

Technological innovations of great impact were numerous. Labor-saving mechanisms were generally designed to save not only the worker’s strength but also his time. Labor was adjusted to the use of the machine and performed its function, repeated and monotonous though it often was, more effectively. As a result, more goods could be made, and they could be made at lower costs. Spinning jennies, power looms, sewing machines, reapers, and threshers revolutionized the growing and making of cloth and garments, the harvesting of crops, and the separation of grain from the chaff.

5. Conclusion: The Legacy of Industrialization in the United States

This chapter will attempt to synthesize some of the main components, both thematic and analytic, of the Industrial Revolution and its impact on the United States. From episodes of slavery to the expansion of women’s opportunities in the labor force; from increasing urbanization to the remarkable population growth of the national community; from the enduring combination of technologies and capital goods with a dynamic labor force to the unprecedented rise in the standard of living – the occurrences of the Industrial Revolution are truly comprehensive in economic, political, social, and cultural motives and implications. The result has been a United States with a global attraction, impact, and leadership. The world has become an audience of industrialization, and the United States has become the protagonist.

In many respects, the history of the United States is the history of its industrialization. Instead of economic and social matters merely shaping the fabric of the nation, industrialization has helped to create and define America, its landscape, its people, the quality of opportunities made available, as well as the character and aspirations that are uniquely American. In ending, in part, with the twentieth century, it should be apparent that this legacy is not only hard to overstate, but also difficult to fully understand, in large part, because industrialization is a comprehensive phenomenon. It is at once an economic transition, social upheaval, and broad technological advance. Industrialization quickly becomes a shorthand reference to a complex period of American history.