CHAPTER

The Industrial Age

17

Learning Outcomes
After reading this chapter, you should be able to do the following:

LO 1 Describe and discuss the development of the Industrial
Revolution in America after the Civil War, concentrating on the major industries and their leaders.

LO 2 Explain why the late 1800s in America have sometimes been called the “Age of Innovation.”

LO 3 Describe how America’s regional and local markets merged into one truly national market, and how this influenced the consumer demand for products and services.
9781133438212, HIST2, Volume 2, Kevin M. Schultz - © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved. No distribution allowed without express authorization

“

The world that had consisted of small farms, artisans’ workshops, and small factories transformed into a full-scale industrial society.

”

The Art Archive / Culver Pictures

As the process of ensuring political, economic, and social rights of African Americans waned during the 1870s, most Americans turned their attenNo invention had more lasting impact than the incandestion to another transformacent light bulb. tion brought on by the Civil Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree War: the Industrial Revolution. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 During the half-century between 1865 and 1915, the United States evolved from a relative economic backwater to become the most powerful economy in the world. Industrialization played a key role in the nation’s advances, and both the Civil War and a core group of innovative, aggressive, farsighted, and opportunistic entrepreneurs were the main stimulants of growth. They embodied the optimism and inventiveness of the late nineteenth century, although they often pushed too far and engaged in practices we now see as unethical and corrupt, leaving wide gaps between the rich and the poor, between black and white, and between immigrant and native. Like