The American Industrial Revolution occurred between 1820 and 1870 and characterized with a rapid growth of industries. The mechanization of agricultural and textile manufacture, as well as a power revolution involving steamships and railroads, influenced social, cultural, and economic situations during this time. Most Americans were living as farmers and lived in rural villages prior to the revolution. For the first time people started to work for enterprises headquartered in urban areas as industries advanced. Wages were frequently poor, and working conditions were brutal, yet working for a company paid better than farming.
The Industrial Revolution’s technology was incorporated into a new type of commercial economy by Americans. Steam power, which powered steamboats and railroads, spurred the expansion of the industry by generating mills and igniting new national transportation networks, resulting in the “market revolution” (Arehart et al., 2018). Such a rapid growth and changes in people’s labour gave a rise for cities and factories across the country.
The market revolution ushered in unprecedented economic expansion and personal prosperity, but it also ushered in a growing population of landless labourers and a series of severe depressions known as “panics” (Arehart et al., 2018). Many Americans were forced to work for minimal wage and got imprisoned in the cycle of poverty. Some workers, mostly women from other countries, worked thirteen hours a day, six days a week (Arehart et al., 2018). Others worked as slaves and did not receive any payment. Although northern states abolished slavery, their factories drove a need for slave-grown southern cotton, and their banks provided the funding that ensured the American slave system’s profitability and continuous survival.
Overall, the American Industrial Revolution and the Market Revolution provided a new direction for the US to further exploit people and their labor for a lower price although the country was free from slavery.
Works Cited
Kelly Arehart et al., “Market Revolution,” Jane Fiegen Green, ed., in The American Yawp, eds. Joseph Locke and Ben Wright. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018.