The expansion and immigration of the late 1800s merged with this industrialization to provoke the growth of American urban society. As the needs of industrial workers became ever more important, the national political scene became dominated by the discrepancy in needs between America's rural and urban populations, as well as the needs of the new classes created by industrialization and the abolition of slavery.
Canals cut the cost of transporting materials, improved railroads which helped the movement of heavy wagons, railroads linked manufacturing cities with different materials.
