An early landmark moment in the Industrial
Revolution came near the end of the eighteenth
century, when Samuel Slater brought new
manufacturing technologies from Britain to the
United States and founded the first U.S. cotton
mill in Beverly, Massachusetts. Slater’s mill, like
many of the mills and factories that sprang up in
the next few decades, was powered by water, which
confined industrial development to the northeast at
first. The concentration of industry in the Northeast
also facilitated the development of transportation
systems such as railroads and canals, which
encouraged commerce and trade.
The technological innovation that would come to mark
the United States in the nineteenth century began
to show itself with Robert Fulton’s establishment of
steamboat service on the Hudson River, Samuel F. B.
Morse’s invention of the telegraph, and Elias Howe’s
invention of the sewing machine, all before the Civil
War. Following the Civil War, industrialization in the
United States increased at a breakneck pace. This
period, encompassing most of the second half of
the nineteenth century, has been called the Second
Industrial Revolution or the American Industrial
Revolution. Over the first half of the century, the
country expanded greatly, and the new territory
was rich in natural resources. Completing the first
transcontinental railroad in 1869 was a major
milestone, making it easier to transport people, raw
materials, and products. The United States also had
vast human resources: between 1860 and 1900,
fourteen million immigrants came to the country,
providing workers for an array of industries.
The American industrialists overseeing this
expansion were ready to take risks to make their
businesses successful. Andrew Carnegie established
the first steel mills in the U.S. to use the British
“Bessemer process” for mass producing steel,
becoming a titan of the steel industry in the
process. He acquired business interests in the mines that produced the raw material for steel, the mills
and ovens that created the final product and the
railroads and shipping lines that transported the
goods, thus controlling every aspect of the steelmaking process. Other industrialists,
including John D.
Rockefeller, merged
the operations of many
large companies to form
a trust. Rockefeller’s
Standard Oil Trust came
to monopolize 90% of
the industry, severely
limiting competition.
These monopolies
were often accused of
intimidating smaller businesses and competitors in
order to maintain high prices and profits. Economic
influence gave these industrial magnates significant
political clout as well. The U.S. government adopted
policies that supported industrial development such
as providing land for the construction of railroads
and maintaining high tariffs to protect American
industry from foreign competition.
American inventors like Alexander Graham Bell
and Thomas Alva Edison created a long list of
new technologies that improved communication,
transportation, and industrial production. Edison
made improvements to existing technologies,
including the telegraph while also creating
revolutionary new technologies such as the light
bulb, the phonograph, the kinetograph, and the
electric dynamo. Bell, meanwhile, explored new
speaking and hearing technologies, and became
known as the inventor of the telephone.
For millions of working Americans, the industrial
revolution changed the very nature of their daily
work. Previously, they might have worked for themselves at home, in a small shop, or outdoors,
crafting raw materials into products, or growing
a crop from seed to table. When they took factory
jobs, they were working for a large company. The
repetitive work often involved only one small step
in the manufacturing process, so the worker did not
see or appreciate what was being made; the work
was often dangerous and performed in unsanitary
conditions. Some women entered the work force, as
did many children. Child labor became a major issue.
