The Effect of American Industrialization

Greater Macy’s 1926-1928 (Library of Congress)

The industrialization of America following the Civil War lead to enormous shifts in social and economic standings that would soon mold the landscape for the modern United States of America. The railfoad stretched across the plains deep into the west and coupled with the government offered over a half of a billion acres for homestead allowed those without land prior to the Civil War an oppurtunity to a new life. The nationalization of mass industry was magnetizing the quickly growing cities and urban areas. Factories began lining the city sky and America's first skyscraperes became filled with the middle and upper class marvel of the new department store.

The growth and innovation of American life happened so quickly it was not yet stable of perfect in any imagination. The economy felt the surges and the plunges of the inconsistent nature of the newly industrialized nation and this lead to declines in conditions throughout cities the workplace and all classes of sociey. As said by Andrew Carnegie in "Wealth", "Much better this great irregularity than universal squalor." In other words, isn't some growth a learning process?

Our government was not yet equipped with the experience and unfaltering honor needed to withstand the temptations of corruption, bribery, and intentional neglect. The organization of the new structure of the nation began to crumble. Only years of struggle between labor and management and learning through failure in the new American territories would bring this hardship to an end. Out nation felt many growing pains during this period in time but it also lead the way for many innovations in the way the common person carried out their everyday life. Things became easier, more efficient and also more complicated.

Krystal Clarkson