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Week 2-Notes

Industrial Revolution

When the silver war began in 1861, Agriculture was the leading source of economic growth making America an agrarian nation but this changed by 1900 where manufacturing became the leading. The industries concentrated on textiles, clothing and leather goods or on processed agricultural and natural resources (Reeves, 2019). New inventions such as the Bessemer furnace was invented in 1856 by Henry in England for steel production growing the steel manufacturing and usage. Besides, proponents such as Andrew Carnegie were among the first pioneers for the success of the industries in the early years. New power sources also facilitated this growth of industries until electricity replaced the steam sources. The train building was initiated by private investors with the government providing the free land in America thus by 1900, the train network was so intense aiding in the fast spread of the industrial products. By 1900, more than 1000 American industries were able to acquire services of large numbers of people in their companies hence these transformations required a lot of funds.

Accordingly, there were risks associated with these industries since one makes money out of his investment in an industry if it is gambling well making it a game of the rich. People began to seek a mortgage so as to make investments people have the largest shares of wealth in America (Reeves, 2019). Horatio Alger Jr began writing books of this are such as from Rags to Riches and Helping Himself reflecting rapid rise in the American economy. However, the issue of only the white native-born Americans was still an issue since it formed the rich and poor social classes. Even preachers began supporting this by stating that God helps those that help themselves so if you worked hard, then you would definitely become rich making it a gospel of wealth. The publishing of other books such as Survival for the Fittest by Herbert Spencer in 1820-1903 clearly showed the racial supremacy and imperialism.

America experienced two depressions between 1873 to 1879 and 1893 to 1897 where the 1873 depression was the chaotic and the later was panic. These were due to the industrial economy and unemployment since the business competition was at its peak. The 1893 depression was from the building of the rural roads and the competition to do it perfectly leading to some selling up their shares leading to a decrease in the economy (Reeves, 2019). Banks and majority business where bankrupt forcing closure of many leading to unemployment which ignited a mass demonstration from the unemployed Americans. Issues such as disease and pollution caused a concern from the upper-middle-class activists to resolve these issues. The hardships that these people were facing were so intense that even religious leaders became concerned and condemned it all. Therefore, it was time for the white protestant middle-class people to start fixing things.

References

Reeves, D. (2019). 3 IR in the US. Industrial Revolution

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