The Industrial Revolution in the US - Essay Example

The period after 1870 in America has been described as the golden age for America when the industrial revolution in the country began; this is because; it is the period when the America emancipated itself from poverty to become the world’s super power. This rise for United States of America has happened through a series of events and activities that seemed to favour the country. This paper will study events that happened in United States of America during the industrial revolution, which have shaped the country, and in addition, explain the causes for these events. One of the events that shaped America history is the 15th amendment that prohibited discrimination or denying the right to vote by American on the excuse of race or colour (Berkin, Miller, Cherny, and Gormly, 78). This event happened after the whites had passed a legislation that disallowed people of black origin not to vote in elections. Black human rights activists, who put pressure on the government to amend the legislation opposed this move. As a follow up to the 15th amendment, a 19th one was made on the constitution that allowed women to vote in national and local elections. These amendments were made under the congressional reconstruction, which saw the southern states divided into military districts. Under this period, Andrew Johnson was impeached for violating the tenure of office act by removing Staton but the main reason was his defiance for reconstruction of the congress; 18th amendment was also enacted in 1930’s , and it banned production and sale of alcohol in United States of America. Although this amendment received huge support from the masses, there were not enough police officers to enact it, and therefore the leaker takers found a way to brew their own beer. With time, the authorities found out that prohibition of production and sale of alcohol contributed a lot to law breaking, this led to the abolishment of the regulation. During the period from 1877 to 1913, United States grew in terms of industrialization to become the leading industrial nation with well-organised railroads, labour and industries; the income of non-farm workers grew by about 75 per cent by 1900 and grew further by 33 per cent by 1918. The first industrial revolution that occurred in America saw production move from artisan to factories, while the second revolution saw the expansion of the factories to in terms of size, coordination and organisation to industry level, which was facilitated by advancements in technology and improvements in transport networks.. In order to finance these large-scale businesses corporations, mergers, joint ventures of competing firms, which created monopolies, were a common practice. This period of industrialisation also led to emergence of powerful industrialists such as john Rockefeller, Jay Gould and Andrew Carnegie among other industrialists. The industrial revolution period is also referred to as the Gilead age, which was enjoyed by a large number of American elites after the recovery from the 1873 panic, which threatened the industrial revolution in the country. This period was characterised by a massive transfer of wealth, which led to changes in the social organisation in the society as it created a class of super-rich individuals, who controlled the industry and whose networks of business, family and friends ruled the Anglo-Saxon white protestants. Some reformers started to argue that the Gilead age had created corrupt and powerful parties and encouraged voters to participate in the elections. This was evident in voter enthusiasm in elections of 1882 where almost all persons allowed to vote participated in the elections where the main issues were modernization, money, corruption and railroads. Immigration of people from other areas of the world characterised this period up to 1918. It is estimated that about 27.4 million people moved to United States of America in this period with 89 per cent of the total immigrants coming from Europe (Goloboy, 98). These immigrants, combined to industrialization that was being experienced in the country, led to growth and development of cities such as New York, which was the main entry point for the immigrants. The immigrants were encouraged to come to America due to poverty levels in their countries or religious threats, and moreover, there was the promise of jobs in America in the factories that were being established as industrialization took root. However, despite the large number of immigrants into the country, Asians were not welcome and the Chinese who were living in the country were confined to construction of railroads and were seen as part of a foreign culture, a behaviour that was not seen with the Europeans. Intense lobbying against Chinese population in the country led to passing of Chinese exclusion act in 1882 and later gentleman’s agreement that stopped immigration of Japanese into the country. In the period, starting from 1890’s marked the start of progressivism in united states of America, this period was after war with Spain and efforts were being made to boost trade by adopting a free market policy to allow imports from other countries. This period also saw Roosevelt rise to presidency and enactment of his ‘square deal’, which was aimed at increasing federal supervision in enforcement of antitrust laws and later the supervision of railroads. World war I and II also happened during this period where US was involved. In world war I united states at first not involved physically although it was in support of German forces, however, after Germany offered Mexico to go to war against USA, America became physically involved in the war. World war II was not different from world war I for the united states because it was helping its allies who had been attacked by Japan. In this period, some of the most notable inventions included the cotton gin, which was used to separate cotton fibre from the cottonseeds much faster; this invention was by Eli Whitney (Conlin, 134). This led to increase in production of cotton in the south which was used in the north to manufacture clothes which by then was being done in factories after Francis Lowell brought weaving and spinning machines together in one factory Invention of interchangeable parts was another characteristic of the American revolution, which increased the pace of the second revolution. Eli Whitney, in 1798 came up with the idea to introduce interchangeable parts in the making of muskets, where he thought that if standard parts could be made for machines, then it would be easier to assemble them in the end or to replace some worn out parts. With the increase in the size of population of the united states, communication became a necessity especially in business transactions; Samuel Morse came to solve this gap by inventing the first telegraph, which by the end of the 19th century had spread to large parts of the country. Transportation during this period was made more efficient by construction of the first road, the Cumberland road; in addition, water transport was made more efficient by the assembling of the first steamboat ‘the Clermont’ by Robert Fulton. The creation of Erie canal that connected Atlantic ocean to the great lakes increased the connectivity of Newyork making it a major trading hub within the region. During this period, the major remarkable invention is the start of mass production of steel, which is characterised as the second industrial revolution; this began in 1860 when sir Henry invented a new furnace that could convert molten pig iron in to steel. This second revolution grew overtime to include setting up of chemical industries, refining of petroleum products and invention of hydroelectric power, in early 20th century the manufacture of automobiles and aircrafts marked the end of the revolution (Grayson, 85). With the setting up of major industries in America, the concept of capitalism was introduced where the major factories were owned by members of the elite classes in the society while the rest of the population worked in those factories (Sheriff, Katzman, Blight and Chudacoff, 101). This led to exploitation of workers who were receive a minimal pay that could barely sustain them in addition to the poor working conditions in the factories; the main concern of the factory owners were the profits that they were receiving. The industrial revolution in USA is one of the most important times in history since the events that happened shaped the country to what it is today, these included industrial expansion, immigration, political realignments and trade. These vents not only affected united states but they also had an impact on the other parts of the world especially those that had direct contact with USA Read More