Industrialization in the United States and Summary
Overview
Statewide Dual Credit Modern World History: Unit 8, Lesson 3
A discussion of the Industrial Revolution in the United States, including key inventions and inventors, the impact on society, and the rise of industrial giants. It also details the challenges faced by workers and their attempts to organize.Includes excerpts from Harriet Hanson Robinson's autobiography about Lowell Mill Girls.
In 1783, the United States emerged from the American Revolution as an overwhelmingly rural nation. Yet in just a century, the nation would become one of the world’s most advanced industrial nations. After World War II, the United States became the strongest and most productive in world history, a distinction it continues to hold.
British law that restricted trade and manufacturing in certain industries hindered American subjects from creating their own factories during the colonial period. A few daring merchants experimented with “putting out” or “cottage industry” systems whereby they hired different groups of artisans to make machine parts (such as gun barrels, gun stocks, ramrods, bullets, shot and powder). Other craftsmen would then combine these parts into a final product.
American merchants and industrialists borrowed copiously from European precedents throughout the 19th century while making their own innovations. In the 1780s, New England mechanic and industrialist Samuel Slater (1768-1835) toured British cotton spinning factories, memorized their technological layout and management systems, and then used this knowledge to open his own water-powered spinning mills in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. In 1803, Slater created a firearms factory that used interchangeable parts to produce cheap, easily repairable muskets in significant quantities. The availability of abundant waterways, coal deposits, state governments willing to grant patents and charters of incorporation to aspiring inventors, and a well-educated labor force quickly allowed the American Northeast to emerge as the center for industrialization in the U.S.
The burgeoning factory systime in New England, New York and New Jersey created a demand for cheaper and faster ways of bringing goods to market. In 1807, Robert Fulton (1765-1815) piloted his North River Steamboat, the first functional steamboat in America, on its maiden voyage from New York City to Albany. Although powered by a British Boulton and Watt steam engine, the North River Steamboat proved that two-way travel along America’s coasts and rivers was now not merely possible but also cost-effective. This innovation revolutionized inland transportation, facilitating the westward expansion of the nation and laying the groundwork for a robust domestic market. The widespread adoption of steamboats connected burgeoning industrial centers with growing agricultural regions, fostering a vibrant national economy that would eventually serve as a foundation for American global trade.
In 1837, Yale-trained Massachusetts inventor and artist Samuel F. B. Morse (1791-1872) obtained a patent for his “American Recording Electro-Magnetic Telegraph.” Morse’s invention provided an inexpensive single-wire method of carrying electromagnetic current over extended distances. He also created an alphabet based on long and short telegraph signals. In time this “Morse Code” would become the international language of the telegraph, allowing for the reliable, instantaneous transmission of news and information across the nation.
Borrowing from British precedents, New England industrialist Francis Cabot Lowell (1775-1817) created the first textile mill in Waltham, Massachusetts, in 1814. To pesuade skeptical New England patriarchs to embrace industrialization, Lowell suggested that young women between the ages of 15-35 staff his factories, a move that would later be chronicled in Harriet Hanson Robinson's 1825 autobiography of Early Factory Labor in Lowell Mill.
One of Lowell’s factory employees was a young inventor and mechanic named Elias Howe (1819-1867). Following the Panic of 1837 (a financial crisis that led to a depression), Howe began to experiment with creating a mechanical sewing machine. In 1846, he secured a patent for a lockstitch sewing machine that used a steam-powered shuttle to feed garments into an automatic needle and thread processor. Faced with competition from other industrialists like Isaac Singer (1811-1875), Howe defended his invention in court. By the American Civil War, the sewing machine had transformed the clothing industry across the United States, allowing for the creation of mass-produced, high-quality garments which allowed working class and middling-sort Americans to adopt the refined tastes of the nation’s elites.
Spotlight On | LOWELL MILL GIRL SYSTEM
Francis Cabot Lowell’s plan to use young women from New England farming families to staff his textile mills proved a bold experiment in the 1830s. Dominated by large, religiously conservative landowning families, Massachusetts political leaders remained wary of industrialization. They acknowledged Britain’s rapid industrial success but lamented the damage such success had wrought among Britain’s poor working classes. However, Lowell argued that by hiring young women to work in his factories for a set number of years, he would provide his young charges with not just wages but job skills, work experience, educational opportunities, room and board, proper chaperoning and religious instruction. A portion of their salaries would be sent home, helping to sustain their family’s farms. They would return home poised to become hard-working, sensible wives and mothers. In this regard, industrialization would support rather than endanger traditional New England family values. However, in reality, Lowell women worked long hours in dangerous conditions. To be specific, many did gain crucial workplace skills and a sense of working-class solidarity. For instance, Lowell women participated in one of the first labor strikes for higher wages. However, Lowell factory managers replaced them with poor Irish and German factory laborers. By training such immigrants to perform simple industrial tasks, factory owners could easily replace troublesome or rebellious workers. Furthermore, unlike the Lowell girl system, factory owners felt no compulsion to house, feed or educate their immigrant labor forces.
The U.S. Civil War represented a watershed moment in the history of American industrialization. By the 1860s, 90% of America’s industrial and financial centers existed in the northern states. Thousands of new factories sprang up overnight to meet the federal government’s incessant demand for weapons, uniforms, telegraphs and warships. The north’s industrial output played a crucial role in the eventual northern victory as Union forces outpaced the ability of the south to manufacture or import its wartime material. Following the outbreak of peace in 1865, many of these factories were recalibrated for civilian use.
In 1869, corporate leaders of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads and government officials gathered in Promontory Point, Utah, to drive a golden spike into a rail line. The act symbolized the uniting of the first transcontinental railroad, which allowed for the rapid settlement of the American west. By building railroad lines through tribal lands and shooting buffalo from railroad cars, Anglo-American settlers brought thousands of Native Americans to the edge of starvation. They accelerated the displacements of dozens of tribes onto reservation land.
Throughout the Gilded Age, a new class of American entrepreneurs emerged on the scene. In 1872, Scottish- born industrialist Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) witnessed “Bessemer steal” production in England. Pioneered by British inventor Henry Bessemer (1813- 1898), the “Bessemer process” called for the injection of oxygen into molten metal to burn off impurities and thus create high-quality steel. In 1892, Carnegie started the U.S. Steel Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and soon came to dominate the fledgling American steel industry. He pioneered vertical development, buying up mines for extracting ore, mills for processing it, and railroads to distribute final goods to markets. One of America’s first billionaires, Carnegie championed the cause of self-improvement. He funded the creation of lending libraries across the United States (many of which remain in operation today). He poured funds into institutions of higher learning, such as Carnegie- Mellon University
Spotlight On | ANDREW CARNEGIE
Born into a poor Scottish weaving family, Andrew Carnegie migrated with his family to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as a young boy in the 1840s. Using the newly emerging telegraph industry, Carnegie learned morse code and became a successful telegraph operator. Investing in railroad and bridge companies, he multiplied his fortune many times during the Civil War. A firm believer in self-cultivation, Carnegie gave generously to foundations, schools and churches. Most significantly, he funded a series of first-rate libraries in poor urban neighborhoods and small rural towns across the nation. Boasting an impressive array of not just technical or business manuals, these libraries also sported great works of literature and history. Carnegie and his supporters argued that the goal of these libraries was not just to allow men and women to prepare for professional careers but to make them refined citizens of a national culture that rewarded risk-taking and self-improvement.
Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937) proved an interesting contrast to Carnegie. Originally a commission merchant and salesman, Rockefeller created an oil refining business in the 1860s. Buying out several competitors, Rockefeller established the Standard Oil Company in 1870. By the 1890s, critics charged that Rockefeller and his lieutenants were engaging in horizontal expansion, strongarming smaller oil companies into selling out to U.S. Steel to cut down on competition and keep oil prices high. Rockefeller also successfully provided financial support to Congressmen who passed laws providing U.S. Steel with tax breaks, free land, and tariffs to discourage foreign competition. However, like Carnegie, Rockefeller became a leading philanthropist late in life.
Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) changed the world with his invention of the telephone. Bell initially sought to create a machine that would help his young wife, Mabel Hubbard, and other hearing-impaired Americans distinguish between sounds. Quickly realizing his invention’s commercial application, Graham obtained a patent for his “acoustic telegraph” in 1876. In time the telephone would revolutionize the transmission of knowledge across the world.
While Bell experimented with transmitting sound, his contemporary Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) poured his time and energy into illuminating the world. In 1880, he created the first practical, long-lasting electrical lightbulb at his Menlo Park laboratory in New Jersey. The lightbulb allowed for the nighttime illumination of large American cities, reducing the need for dangerous gaslight systems and allowing ordinary Americans to partake in nighttime jobs, shopping, education and recreation. Edison also helped establish the first motion picture industry, perfected early phonographs, and experimented with dynamos. The World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 showcased American technological advancements in steel manufacturing, oil production, steam power and electricity. More importantly, the Exposition signaled America’s rise as one of the world’s leading industrial powers.
The Industrial Revolution wrought tremendous changes for businesspeople, factory owners and the millions of blue-collar Americans working in the industrial sector. In some ways, ordinary Americans benefitted from high- paying jobs which allowed them to pursue professional educations, move up the corporate ladder, purchase homes in newly created suburbs, pursue refinement, send their children to good schools, and devote freshly acquired leisure time to following sports and going on vacations. However, industrialization significantly altered the nature of work. Traditional artisans were often displaced by low-skilled assembly line workers who could be easily hired and fired. The repetitive and monotonous nature of factory labor took a significant toll on workers' physical and mental health. Factory environments were frequently hazardous, with inadequate safety measures leading to high rates of injuries, exposure to harmful dust and fumes, and increased risk of respiratory illnesses. Child labor was a particularly egregious example of this exploitation, with young children subjected to long hours and dangerous conditions. Furthermore, the influx of workers into rapidly growing industrial cities led to overcrowded and unsanitary living conditions, contributing to the spread of disease and exacerbating social problems. The constant threat of job loss, coupled with low wages and poor living conditions, pushed many working-class families into poverty and desperation, leading to increased rates of alcoholism, drug addiction, and social unrest.
Not surprisingly, the 1870s witnessed the first large- scale labor strikes in American history. Borrowing from European labor union techniques, American organizations such as the Knights of Labor, the American Federation of Labor, the Congress of Industrial Workers, and the National Grange led strikes for shorter hours, better wages and benefits. In the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, the Homestead Strike of 1892 and the Pullman Strike of 1894, state and federal officials intervened on the side of business owners to crush striking workers and restore industrial production.
SUMMARY
The Industrial Revolution radically altered society. It accelerated a host of processes and developments, including urbanization. It took advantage of new ways to harness energy and increased the productive abilities of humankind. The Industrial Revolution was not simply a physical revolution but a social and intellectual one. It has massively altered how we understand and approach work, capital and the individual. The Industrial Revolution provided the countries that best employed the new technological and productive capabilities with considerable advantage and buttressed attempts, especially by the West, to expand their global reach and control.
Primary Source | Lowell Mill
Harriet Hanson Robinson: Lowell Mill Girls (1883) [Abridged]
In what follows, I shall confine myself to a description of factory life in Lowell, Massachusetts, from 1832 to 1848, since, with that phase of Early Factory Labor in New England, I am the most familiar-because I was a part of it.
At the time the Lowell cotton mills were started the caste of the factory girl was the lowest among the employments of women. In England and in France, particularly, great injustice had been done to her real character. She was represented as subjected to influences that must destroy her purity and selfrespect. In the eyes of her overseer she was but a brute, a slave, to be beaten, pinched and pushed about. It was to overcome this prejudice that such high wages had been offered to women that they might be induced to become millgirls, in spite of the opprobrium that still clung to this degrading occupation....
The early millgirls were of different ages. Some were not over ten years old; a few were in middle life, but the majority were between the ages of sixteen and twentyfive. The very young girls were called "doffers." They "doffed," or took off, the full bobbins from the spinningframes, and replaced them with empty ones. These mites worked about fifteen minutes every hour and the rest of the time was their own. When the overseer was kind they were allowed to read, knit, or go outside the millyard to play. They were paid two dollars a week. The working hours of all the girls extended from five o'clock in the morning until seven in the evening, with one halfhour each, for breakfast and dinner. Even the doffers were forced to be on duty nearly fourteen hours a day. This was the greatest hardship in the lives of these children. Several years later a tenhour law was passed, but not until long after some of these little doffers were old enough to appear before the legislative committee on the subject, and plead, by their presence, for a reduction of the hours of labor.
The most prevailing incentive to labor was to secure the means of education for some male member of the family. To make a gentleman of a brother or a son, to give him a college education, was the dominant thought in the minds of a great many of the better class of millgirls. I have known more than one to give every cent of her wages, month after month, to her brother, that he might get the education necessary to enter some profession. I have known a mother to work years in this way for her boy. I have known women to educate young men by their earnings, who were not sons or relatives. There are many men now living who were helped to an education by the wages of the early millgirls.
It is well to digress here a little, and speak of the influence the possession of money had on the characters of some of these women. We can hardly realize what a change the cotton factory made in the status of the working women. Hitherto woman had always been a money saving rather than a money earning, member of the community. Her labor could command but small return. If she worked out as servant, or "help," her wages were from 50 cents to $1 .00 a week; or, if she went from house to house by the day to spin and weave, or do tailoress work, she could get but 75 cents a week and her meals. As teacher, her services were not in demand, and the arts, the professions, and even the trades and industries, were nearly all closed to her.
From Modern History Sourcebook, Fordham University
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/robinson-lowell.asp