How industry and technology shaped America

U.S. (after 1865)

Impact of industry and technology in the shaping and making of America since 1877

At least according to its own mythology, America is a new nation with no class system based upon lineage -- only upon money. America is a young nation, when compared to the long histories of the nations of Europe. Industrialization enabled the swifter creation of new wealth, and enabled America to dominate its old, European rivals in productive economic power, at least until recently. Industrialization and new technology created the promise of the American dream that anyone who worked hard could succeed in the U.S. And pull him or herself up from the gutter. Industrialism took America far, far away from the original Jeffersonian ideal of America as a land made up of gentlemen farmers and instead created an ideal of a land populated by Horatio Algers and venture capitalists.

Technology has created many positive changes in America. It brought America closer together through an interlocking system of railroads, and later airports. Now Americans on one side of the coast can know what it is like to live in a different fashion, yet still in America and as Americans, on the other side of the coast. Americans can travel all over the world, provided they have the financial resources to do so, and bring what they learn back to the United States and further culturally enrich the land. Travelers come to the United States by plane to learn and to spend money, culturally and also financially enriching America. Technology has allowed America to be exposed to a diversity of other cultures and peoples. Industry eradicated one of the worst abuses of the earlier agricultural America, that of slavery. Yet technology and expanded travel also made America less protected from external conflicts. When America was founded, George Washington took comfort in the existence of two protective oceans hemming in America's shores. World War I changed that for good, and America is now a leading participant in keeping the global peace, enforcing human rights and some would argue, having undue political influence upon other nations. This perception has also opened America to attack from foreign nationals and generated hatred of America in some lands. Industrialism and technological development made it easier to wage more destructive wars in general, and America has paid the price for this -- America has been paralyzed by fears of atomic and nuclear destruction, and also subject to more surveillance by a government perhaps overly anxious to shield itself from internal threats.

But perhaps the most notable aspect of industrialization is the creation of wealth in the form of capitalist entrepreneurship. For the first time, because of early industrialism Americans had access to plentiful, cheap, factory-produced goods, freeing them from the constant labor of the farm, and enabling even ordinary people to have leisure time. However, for those who lost their farms and worked in factories, the expansion of industry did not always seem like such a boon. Yes, industry allowed for workers to earn money, such as the immigrant laborers flooding America's shores in search of a better way of life. But the work in such factories was often dull and dehumanizing, and until child labor and worker's compensation laws were passed, horrific abuses often occurred within factory walls.

The boon of technology for American labor, and the diversification of American society are interlinked. Without American industrialization, America would not have proven such an attractive nation for Irish, Italian, German, Asian, and other waves of immigrants seeking to find refuge from persecution and poverty in their native lands. Some of these immigrants, or their children, became quite wealthy as a result of American technology and industrialization. Even those who did not financially prosper beyond their wildest dreams added their cultures to America, in the form of more diverse foods and products. Every time someone orders in Chinese, orders a Guinness, or celebrates St. Patrick's Day, they are experiencing part of the legacy of American industrialism and technological expansion.

But for all of the mobility propagated by industrialization, even today, as the result of technological entrepreneurship, the rich continue to get richer and the poor get poorer. The so-called digital divide has only broadened, as the richest man in the world, Bill Gates, profits off of his technological system, but the poorest of the poor cannot even afford basic necessities, much less a computer. Although new communicative technology and means of travel, such as the telephone, telegraph, trains, airplanes, cars, the Internet, etc. have brought Americans closer together culturally, the class divisions and different cultures of the upper, middle, and lower classes in America have grown increasingly disparate, and made the poorest of the poor, one could argue, all the more desperate.