American society in the industrial age

Industrial Age, sparked by innovations in technology, Westward expansion, and the subsequent discovery of massive amounts of raw materials, dramatically altered the nature of American society. What was formerly a rural and largely agrarian culture rapidly grew into an increasingly urbanized and industrial one. Improvements in transportation infrastructure through the railroads enabled the movements of goods and of people over long distances. Therefore, one of the key ways industrialization changed American society was by making Americans more interconnected via a network of transportation and communications systems. Small farms gave way to large, cash crop farms as individuals looked to the new factories and to the cities for work. Agricultural produce could be shipped over large distances eliminating the need for each family to have its own farm.

The industrial Age altered gender relations. Women worked on family farms, but after the Industrial Age, many women worked outside the home, in textile mills, factories, and later as nurses, secretaries, and educators. Young, unmarried women frequently found work in factories before they were married.

Industrialization changed the concept of time in American society. The need for increased productivity and profit led to a rigid work day and work week schedule. Factory workers found themselves working long hours, their pace set by the machines with which they worked. The poor environmental conditions in factories and low wages gave rise to the labor movements in the early twentieth century. The Industrial Age also did away with the traditional artisan system of labor, in which an individual would train as an apprentice. Factories made the employer-employee relationship far more impersonal.