World history has undergone a series of drastic historical changes in the 19th century. The transformation happened due to the fact that all the basic economic and social structures were to be adopted in order to comply with industrial breakthroughs and the aftermath of the Second Agricultural revolution. Indeed, the latter introduced a completely new perspective of labor and the adoption of technology in the context of manufacturing.
As a result, some of the major landowners were willing to escalate the process of manufacturing while using human resources. Such a desire eventually led to the rapid development of industrialization, which stands for the process of reorganizing manufacturing and labor in favor of profit and systematization. Undoubtedly, such a modification resulted in the emergence of working places, as manufacturers were willing to find more workforce prior to the automatization of certain processes.
However, industrialization created a gap between the rural and urban areas, as the former were financially incapable of implementing new means of manufacturing, whereas the patterns of agriculture were no longer sufficient for one’s well-being. Naturally, an increasing number of rural residents started to move to larger towns and cities in order to make a living for their families and encounter new opportunities in terms of financial and social status.
Moreover, society in the 19th century was overwhelmed with the number of technological advancements introduced to the broad public, including the telegraph, telephones, practical lightbulbs, engines, and, finally, the four-wheeled automobile. Having never seen anything like that, rural residents were spontaneously moving to the cities in the pursuit of happiness, freedom, and financial well-being.
Such a public idea eventually introduced the notion of the “American Dream,” as the United States at the time was one of the fastest-growing labor and economic markets in the world while representing the idea of liberty in terms of choice and ambitions. As a result, the process of mass migration to the cities catalyzed a much broader process of immigration, claiming the process of thousands of foreigners entering the United States in pursuit of independence, development, and self-sufficiency. Moreover, the rapid development of industrialization and new approaches to the economy contributed to the emergence of alternative sources of profit and business.
Thus, at the end of the 19th century, residents of California discovered gold within their territory, and the precedent immediately attracted hundreds of people eager to make a fortune overnight. Although the gold rush resulted in disappointment, the overall tendency of immigration and urbanization continued to escalate.
In the beginning, such social patterns were beneficial for the American employers, as they could use an extremely cheap workforce for the sake of profit, whereas immigrants were not legally entitled to claim discrimination and exploitation. As a result, the United States obtained a status of a cosmopolitan state, and the ongoing immigration flow allowed American landowners to gain a significant financial advantage over the other states that experienced population decrease due to the increasing levels of emigration and people abandoning their homeland for the sake of wealth and bright future.
Eventually, such a process led to the introduction of rather racist and discriminatory policies that ruined immigrants’ illusions. Still, having taken all these aspects into consideration, it may be concluded that the interrelation of industrialization, urbanization, and immigration had a paramount influence on the overall historical context of the 19th century. Thus, the process of rapid industrialization caused a wave of resettlements in the urban areas, which eventually led to the economic development of the US and the emergence of the American Dream as a catalyst for mass immigration.