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In the United States from the late 18th and 19th centuries, the Industrial Revolution affected the U.S. economy, progressing it from manual labor, farm labor and handicraft work, to a greater degree of industrialization based on wage labor. There were many improvements in technology and manufacturing fundamentals with results that greatly improved overall production and economic growth in the U.S.
The Industrial Revolution occurred in two distinct phases, the First Industrial Revolution occurred during the later part of the 18th century through the first half of the 19th century and the Second Industrial Revolution advanced following the American Civil War. Among the main contributors to the First Industrial Revolution were Samuel Slater's introduction of British industrial methods in textile manufacturing to the United States, Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin, Éleuthère Irénée du Pont's improvements in chemistry and gunpowder making, and other industrial advancements necessitated by the War of 1812, as well as the construction of the Erie Canal, among other developments. [1] [2]
As Western Europe industrialized in the mid-to-late 1700s, the United States remained agrarian with resource processing, gristmills, and sawmills being the main industrial, non-agrarian output. As demand for U.S. resources increased, canals and railroads became important to the economic growth as transportation necessitated and the U.S. population was sparse, especially in areas where resources were being extracted such as the American frontier. This made it necessary to expand technological capabilities, which led to an Industrial Revolution in America as entrepreneurs, businesses competed with and learned from each other to develop better technology, fundamentally altering the U.S. economy. Some technologies that advanced the Industrial Revolution in the U.S. were appropriated from British designs by ambitious British entrepreneurs hoping to use the technology to create successful companies in the U.S. [3] [4] [5]
Much of the Industrial Revolution in the U.S. originated in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, where anthracite coal, iron ore, steel, textile, and industrial sectors experienced breakthroughs and emerged as global manufacturing leaders. [6]
One entrepreneur who is most associated with starting up the textiles industry in the U.S. and who initially brought the textile technology to the U.S. was Samuel Slater. Slater learned that Americans were interested in textile techniques used in England, but since exporting such technical designs were illegal in England, he memorized as much as he could and departed for New York City.
Moses Brown, a leading Rhode Island industrialist, secured the services of Slater, with Slater promising to recreate British textile designs. After an initial investment by Brown to fulfill initial requirements, a mill successfully opened in 1793 being the first water-powered roller spinning textile mill in America. By 1800, Slater's mill had been duplicated by many other entrepreneurs as Slater grew wealthier and his techniques more and more popular with Andrew Jackson calling Slater the "Father of the American Industrial Revolution". But Slater also earned the pejorative "Slater the Traitor" from many in Great Britain who felt he betrayed them in bringing British textile techniques to the Americas. [7] [8]
With the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1794, American slaveholders had the means to make cotton production significantly more profitable. The era of King Cotton was underway by the early 1800s to such an extent that by the mid-19th century, southern slave plantations supplied 75% of the world's cotton. The introduction of the cotton gin was as unexpected as it was unprecedented. British textiles had expanded with no change in ginning principles in centuries. For the American planter class, up front costs were higher but productivity improvement among their slaves were clear and Whitney's original 1794 gin design was copied by many and improved upon. [9] [10]
The du Pont family emigrated to the United States due to repercussions from the French Revolution, bringing with them expertise in chemistry and gunpowder. E.I. du Pont observed that the quality of American gunpowder was poor, and opened Eleutherian Mills, a gunpowder mill on Brandywine Creek in 1802. The mill served as home for du Pont's family as well as a center of business and social life, with employees living on or near the mill. The company grew rapidly and by the mid-19th century had become the largest supplier of gunpowder to the United States military. [11] [12]
In the late 1700s, Robert Fulton of Pennsylvania proposed plans for steam-powered vessels to both the United States and British governments. Having developed significant technical knowledge in both France and Great Britain, Fulton returned to the United States, working with Robert R. Livingston to open the first commercially successful steamboat operating between New York City and Albany. Fulton built a new steamboat sturdy enough to take down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, he was an early member on a commission to plan the Erie Canal, and Fulton designed the first working muscle-powered submarine, the Nautilus . [13] [14]
In the 1780s, the Erie Canal was proposed, then re-proposed in 1807 with a survey being funded in 1808. Construction began in 1817 and the original canal was about 363 miles with 34 numbered locks from Albany to Buffalo. Prior to the Erie Canal, bulk goods were limited to shipping by pack animal, there were no railways and water was the most cost-effective way to ship bulk goods. [15] [16] Use of this new canal was faster than using carts pulled by draft animals and cut transport costs by about 95%.
The canal gave New York City's port a significant advantage over all other U.S. port cities and contributed to a growth in population in New York state and regions farther west. [17] [18] It inspired canals elsewhere, bringing a canal age.
In response to British aggression against the U.S., Congress passed the Embargo Act of 1807. The embargo was a cumulative addition to the Non-importation Act of 1806 (2 Stat. 379), which was a "Prohibition of the Importation of certain Goods and Merchandise from the Kingdom of Great Britain," the prohibited imported goods being defined where their chief value, which consists of leather, silk, hemp or flax, tin or brass, wool, glass, and paper goods, nails, hats, clothing, and beer. [19]
The prohibition of imports under the Embargo Act resulted in the expansion of new, emerging US domestic industries across the board, particularly the textile industry, and marked the beginning of the manufacturing system in the United States, reducing the nation's dependence upon imported manufactured goods. [20] [21]
The early Industrial Revolution, which lasted into the mid-19th century, was marked by shift in labor, from an outwork system of labor towards a factory system of labor. Throughout this period, much of the U.S. population remained in small scale agriculture. [22] Despite a small percentage of the population then working in industry, the U.S. government took action to promote the expansion of U.S. industry. An important example is Alexander Hamilton's proposal of the "American School" ideas which supported high tariffs to protect U.S. industry. [23] This idea was embraced by the Whig Party in the early 19th century with their support for Henry Clay's American System. This plan, proposed shortly after the War of 1812, promoted not only protective tariffs, but also canals and roads to support the movement of manufactured goods around the country. [24] As in Britain, the First Industrial Revolution in the United States revolved heavily around the textile industry. Early U.S. textile plants were located next to rivers and streams as they would use the running water to power the machinery in the plant. Thus, many of the factories of the First Industrial Revolution were in the Northeastern United States [25]
To aid the expansion of industry, Congress chartered the Bank of the United States in 1791, giving loans to help merchants and entrepreneurs secure needed capital. However, Jeffersonians saw this bank as an unconstitutional expansion of federal power, so when its charter expired in 1811, the Jeffersonian-dominated Congress did not renew it. [26] State legislatures were persuaded to charter their own banks to continue helping merchants, artisans, and farmers who needed loans, and, by 1816, there were 246 state-chartered banks. With these banks, states were able to support internal transportation improvements, such as the Erie Canal, which stimulated economic development. [27]
The Industrial Revolution altered the U.S. economy and set the stage for the United States to dominate technological change and growth in the Second Industrial Revolution and the Gilded Age. [28] The Industrial Revolution also saw a decrease in labor shortages which had characterized the U.S. economy through its early years. [29] This was partly due to a transportation revolution happening at the same time, low population density areas of the U.S. were better able to connect to the population centers through the Wilderness Road and the Erie Canal, with steamboats and later rail transport, leading to urbanization and an increased labor force available around larger cities, including Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York City, and labor force shortages elsewhere as workers fled to these highly populated cities. Also, quicker movement of resources and goods around the country drastically increased trade efficiency and output while allowing for an extensive transport base for the U.S. to grow during the Second Industrial Revolution. [30]
Techniques to make interchangeable parts were developed in the U.S., and allowed easy assembly and repair of firearms or other devices, minimizing the time and skill needed to repair or assemble devices. By the beginning of the Civil War, rifles with interchangeable parts had been developed, and after the war, more complex devices such as sewing machines and typewriters were made with interchangeable parts. [31] In 1798, Eli Whitney obtained a government contract to manufacture 10,000 muskets in less than two years.
By 1801, he had failed to produce a single musket and was called to Washington to justify his use of Treasury funds. There, he created a demonstration for Congress in which he assembled muskets from parts chosen randomly from his supply. [32] While this demonstration was later proved to be fake, it popularized the idea of interchangeable parts, and Eli Whitney continued using the concept to allow relatively unskilled laborers to produce and repair weapons quickly and at a low cost. Another important innovator is Thomas Blanchard, who in 1819 invented the Blanchard lathe, which could produce identical copies of wooden gun stocks. [33]
Interchangeable parts made the development of the assembly line possible. In addition to making production faster, the assembly line eliminated the need for skilled craftsmen because each worker would only do one repetitive step instead of the entire process. [34]
The first Industrial Revolution had a profound effect on labor in the U.S. Companies from the era, such as the Boston Associates, would recruit thousands of New England farm girls to work in textile mills. These girls often received much lower wages than men, though the work and pay gave young women a sense of independence that they did not feel working on a farm. The First Industrial Revolution also marked the beginning of the rise of wage labor in the United States. As wage labor grew over the next century, it would go on to profoundly change American society. [35]
Eli Whitney Jr. was an American inventor, widely known for inventing the cotton gin in 1793, one of the key inventions of the Industrial Revolution that shaped the economy of the Antebellum South.
The Industrial Revolution, sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution, was a period of global transition of the human economy towards more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes that succeeded the Agricultural Revolution. Beginning in Great Britain, the Industrial Revolution spread to continental Europe and the United States, during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going from hand production methods to machines; new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes; the increasing use of water power and steam power; the development of machine tools; and the rise of the mechanized factory system. Output greatly increased, and the result was an unprecedented rise in population and the rate of population growth. The textile industry was the first to use modern production methods, and textiles became the dominant industry in terms of employment, value of output, and capital invested.
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus Gossypium in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor percentages of waxes, fats, pectins, and water. Under natural conditions, the cotton bolls will increase the dispersal of the seeds.
A cotton gin — meaning "cotton engine" — is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation. The fibers are then processed into various cotton goods such as calico, while any undamaged cotton is used largely for textiles like clothing. The separated seeds may be used to grow more cotton or to produce cottonseed oil.
This timeline of clothing and textiles technology covers events relating to fiber and flexible woven material worn on the body. This includes the making, modification, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, and manufacturing systems (technology).
Samuel Slater was an early English-American industrialist known as the "Father of the American Industrial Revolution", a phrase coined by Andrew Jackson, and the "Father of the American Factory System". In the United Kingdom, he was called "Slater the Traitor" and "Sam the Slate" because he brought British textile technology to the United States, modifying it for American use. He memorized the textile factory machinery designs as an apprentice to a pioneer in the British industry before migrating to the U.S. at the age of 21.
The American system of manufacturing was a set of manufacturing methods that evolved in the 19th century. The two notable features were the extensive use of interchangeable parts and mechanization for production, which resulted in more efficient use of labor compared to hand methods. The system was also known as armory practice because it was first fully developed in armories, namely, the United States Armories at Springfield in Massachusetts and Harpers Ferry in Virginia, inside contractors to supply the United States Armed Forces, and various private armories. The name "American system" came not from any aspect of the system that is unique to the American national character, but simply from the fact that for a time in the 19th century it was strongly associated with the American companies who first successfully implemented it, and how their methods contrasted with those of British and continental European companies. In the 1850s, the "American system" was contrasted to the British factory system which had evolved over the previous century. Within a few decades, manufacturing technology had evolved further, and the ideas behind the "American" system were in use worldwide. Therefore, in manufacturing today, which is global in the scope of its methods, there is no longer any such distinction.
The technological and industrial history of the United States describes the emergence of the United States as one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world in the 19th and 20th centuries. The availability of land and literate labor, the absence of a landed aristocracy, the prestige of entrepreneurship, the diversity of climate and large easily accessed upscale and literate markets all contributed to America's rapid industrialization.
The Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures (S.U.M.) or Society for the Establishment of Useful Manufactures was a private state-sponsored corporation founded in 1791 to promote industrial development along the Passaic River in New Jersey in the United States. The company's management of the Great Falls of the Passaic River as a powersource for grist mills resulted in the growth of Paterson as one of the first industrial centers in the United States. Under the society's long-term management of the falls, the industrialization of the area passed through three great waves, centered first on cotton, then steel, and finally silk, over the course of over 150 years. The venture is considered by historians to have been a forerunner for many public–private partnerships in later decades in the United States.
A cotton mill is a building that houses spinning or weaving machinery for the production of yarn or cloth from cotton, an important product during the Industrial Revolution in the development of the factory system.
Textile manufacture during the British Industrial Revolution was centred in south Lancashire and the towns on both sides of the Pennines in the United Kingdom. The main drivers of the Industrial Revolution were textile manufacturing, iron founding, steam power, oil drilling, the discovery of electricity and its many industrial applications, the telegraph and many others. Railroads, steamboats, the telegraph and other innovations massively increased worker productivity and raised standards of living by greatly reducing time spent during travel, transportation and communications.
The factory system is a method of manufacturing using machinery and division of labor. Because of the high capital cost of machinery and factory buildings, factories are typically privately owned by wealthy individuals or corporations who employ the operative labor. Use of machinery with the division of labor reduced the required skill-level of workers and also increased the output per worker.
The economic history of the United States is about characteristics of and important developments in the economy of the U.S., from the colonial era to the present. The emphasis is on productivity and economic performance and how the economy was affected by new technologies, the change of size in economic sectors and the effects of legislation and government policy.
The textile industry is primarily concerned with the design, production and distribution of textiles: yarn, cloth and clothing. The raw material may be natural, or synthetic using products of the chemical industry.
The Eli Whitney Museum, in Hamden, Connecticut, is an experimental learning workshop for students, teachers, and families. The museum's main building is located on a portion of the Eli Whitney Gun Factory site, a gun factory erected by Eli Whitney in 1798. The museum focuses on teaching experiments that are the roots of design and invention, featuring hands-on building projects and exhibits on Whitney and A. C. Gilbert.
The Antebellum South era was a period in the history of the Southern United States that extended from the conclusion of the War of 1812 to the start of the American Civil War in 1861. This era was marked by the prevalent practice of slavery and the associated societal norms it cultivated. Over the course of this period, Southern leaders underwent a transformation in their perspective on slavery. Initially regarded as an awkward and temporary institution, it gradually evolved into a defended concept, with proponents arguing for its positive merits, while simultaneously vehemently opposing the burgeoning abolitionist movement.
The Market Revolution in 19th century United States is a historical model which argues that there was a drastic change of the economy that disoriented and coordinated all aspects of the market economy in line with both nations and the world. Charles Grier Sellers (1927–2021), a leading historian of the Market Revolution, portrayed it as a highly negative development that marked the triumph of capitalism over democracy. He argued that this was one of the most significant transformations of America within the first half of the nineteenth century—indeed, the defining event of world history—the evolution from an agrarian to a capitalist society. Sellers observed:
While dissolving deeply rooted patterns of behavior and belief for competitive effort, it mobilized collective resources through government to fuel growth in countless ways, not least by providing the essential legal, financial, and transport infrastructures. Establishing capitalist hegemony over economy, politics, and culture, the market revolution created ourselves and most of the world we know.
The history of cotton can be traced from its domestication, through the important role it played in the history of India, the British Empire, and the United States, to its continuing importance as a crop and commodity.
Industrial architecture is the design and construction of buildings facilitating the needs of the industrial sector. The architecture revolving around the industrial world uses a variety of building designs and styles to consider the safe flow, distribution and production of goods and labor. Such buildings rose in importance with the Industrial Revolution, starting in Britain, and were some of the pioneering structures of modern architecture. Many of the architectural buildings revolving around the industry allowed for processing, manufacturing, distribution, and the storage of goods and resources. Architects also have to consider the safety measurements and workflow to ensure the smooth flow within the work environment located in the building.
Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park is a National Park Service unit in the states of Rhode Island and Massachusetts. The park was created for the purpose of preserving, protecting, and interpreting the industrial heritage of the Blackstone River Valley and the urban, rural, and agricultural landscape of that region. The Blackstone River Valley was the site of some of the earliest successful textile mills in the United States, and these mills contributed significantly to the earliest American Industrial Revolution. The subsequent construction of the Blackstone Canal, a few years after the successful completion of the Erie Canal, helped to sustain the region's industrial strength.
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