Industrial Revolution in America

Beginning in the later half of the 18th century, the Industrial Revolution in America was the major shift to machine-aided, assembly-line production in factories. With wealth accumulating to the minority of owners, the working conditions and wages were limited for the majority. The Daily Dose provides microlearning history documentaries like this one delivered to your inbox daily: Learn more: Subscribe for daily emails: Become a Patron: Follow us on social media: Twitter: Facebook: Click to subscribe on YouTube: #IndustrialRevolution #Factories #GildedAge #Documentary #History #Biography Today’s Daily Dose short history film covers the Industrial Revolution in America, which transformed the daily lives of Americans more than any other singular event in American history. The filmmaker has included the original voice over script to further assist your understanding: Today on The Daily Dose, The Industrial Revolution in America. Beginning in the later half of the 18th century before ballooning in scope after the American Civil War, the Industrial Revolution in the U.S. witnessed a shift in production and scale of goods from hand-crafted home-based businesses to machine-aided, assembly line production in factories, which transformed the daily lives of Americans more than any other singular event in American history. Known as the father of the American Industrial Revolution, or Slater The Traitor to the British, in 1790, Samuel Slater brought British textile technology to the United States, helping to found the first U.S. cotton mill in Beverly Massachusetts followed by Pawtucket Rhode Island, leading to a concentrated rise in industrial development in the American northeast, which in turn sparked the development of transportation systems to facilitate a precipitous rise in commerce and trade. Other advances combined with Slater’s copycat technology before the divisions of the Civil War, included Robert Fulton’s steamboat service on the Hudson River, Samuel Morse’s invention of the telegraph and Elias Howe’s invention of the sewing machine. Following the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, industrialization spread across the American landscape, moving people, raw materials and finished products throughout the nation’s growing interior, including the arrival of some 14 million European immigrants from 1860 to 1900 (see Ellis). The 100-year Industrial Revolution also witnessed the rise of Gilded Age industrialists such as steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, financier J.P. Morgan and automaker Henry Ford, collectively earning the derogatory moniker “robber barons,” after they reaped obscene profits on the backs of unskilled, low-wage laborers who toiled in their factories, foundries and mills. Inventors such as Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison further accelerated the Industrial Revolution through the creation of new technologies that improved communication, transportation and industrial production techniques such as the advent of interchangeable parts. The period also witnessed a massive shift in worker demographics, as millions moved into fast-rising city slums that were unsanitary and dangerous at best. Factory working conditions were frequently filthy and hazardous for both working children and adults, where low wages and long hours eventually led to the Progressive Movement in the early 20th century, ushering in labor unions and an increase in federal and state regulations, making the Industrial Revolution in America, both a high and low water mark in American history. And there you have it, the Industrial Revolution in America, today on The Daily Dose.