Introduction
The following paper is an investigation into the issue of the development of the American nation as well as the development of the Industrial Revolution. The present study seeks to investigate both the side of the issue by the side. It aims to look for the relationship that both historical milestones offered to the American Nation. Therefore, the development of the nation here is studied in the connection of the Industrial Revolution. The paper aims to look for one prime factor which played an important role in this very regard.
The present examination is thus a study prior to the time of 1850. The structure of the paper holds first of all the review of literature in which major themes of the paper are elaborated; afterward, the paper moves ahead to examine one important factor that was, according to the personal investigation of the present researcher, eminently manifest for the development of the nation simultaneously playing a role in the development of the Industrial Revolution.
In the last chapter (Conclusion), the paper aims to bring forth an analysis based on the present investigation. This analysis is aimed to open new ways for further research, which can be conducted both in the revision of the previously set paradigm regarding the same issues and setting up newer horizons in the understanding of the past times as well as trying to shed some light from this analysis to the upcoming future of the very nation.
Literature Review
Today, at the start of the twenty-first century, the American nation has come to stand at a standpoint where it is seen in the “surprising dominance around the world” (Lipset, p. 31). When an attempt to chase back the history of this remarkable achievement by this nation is made, it is found out that the long journey of sublime dominance over the globe was “a triumph of ideas and values perhaps even more than of power” (Lipset, p. 31). Thus, today, the United States of America enjoys the lead way in the world as other countries “are also following the American lead way from class awareness and organization” (Lipset, p. 31). It becomes an important point to look at the process of this enormous change toward development by going back to a time when it was really happening. One of the reasons that the author points out in this regard is that the United States of America “differed from all the European nations in lacking a feudal past and in being more socially egalitarian, more meritocratic, more individualistic, more rights-oriented, and more religious” (Lipset, p. 31). As such, these tendencies came into play and led the nation to the presently enjoyed prosperity.
In the words of More (2000, p. 1), the word revolution gives the meaning of an abrupt movement as for example, the American Revolution. However, according to more, the Industrial Revolution was not something that can be regarded as a sudden change or movement of event. It is a process of change taking place over a larger span of time. According to the author, some see revolution as “shorthand for large-scale structural change in the economy; such a dramatic word is used to highlight the extent of the changes” (More, p. 1).
In this way, it is very difficult to date the time period of the Industrial Revolution. There is a controversy of analysis amongst both historians and economists alike in this area. There is not a single researcher who can claim that single years have anyhow contributed to the revolution in the sense that they can be put to give exact dates. It is right to remark that “decadal turning points are usually taken for dating purposes, but this is purely for convenience.” There are others who point out the later period of 1760. One of the reasons for this is that it was the very period after which “a number of important inventions appeared soon afterward” (More, 2000, p. 1). For example, one prime invention is most quoted in this connection: the railways, which “can be seen as marking the beginning of a new stage maturity” (More, p. 1). However, one point worth noting is that it was the period of 1760 to 1780 when the production rate grew sharply and continued in a slower manner in the coming period as well. Thus the discussion about the important contributory factors regarding the Industrial Revolution and its period suggests that it can be a more expanded time that may be cited here.
Thus, to More (p. 2), 1750 to 1850 is the period which has enough expansion that can encircle all the major evolutionary steps taking place being the share of the Industrial Revolution. In this period of time, one of the important factors can be chosen for the purposes of the present study.
Land and Market
It was 1815, which saw so much happening in the national boundaries of America. It was the very time when the strong military power, the British, came upon an agreement to leave the United States of America. It was also the time when land became the sole force to the pavement of a track of development for the crisis-stricken nation. In the initial phase, the land served as the prime cause of prosperity, power, and independence for only a minority of the people in the nation. However, with the passage of time, there arrived the European mercantile capitalists, Asian spices took way into the market, as well as African people brought there in chains, all contributed to the development of land-based production by the nation. The market thus was in the movement to produce commodities that were in demand, especially by the European investors. Gradually, these trends matured. The result, after a time, was that the division of labor came to a rational distribution; production sprang manifold; “money value allocated natural resources and human energy. As traditional cultures gave way to a spreading market culture, new beliefs, behaviors, emotions, and interpersonal relations spurred work and consumption” (Sellers, p. 4). It also happened that American acreage was plentiful. And what backed this abundance was the enormous capital provided by England’s capital. This all resulted in the emergence and development of a new society. Thus the people sought great prospective in the expansions lying about in long acreage in the new world: “New World land–fertile, abundantly watered and wooded, and easily wrested at first from its aboriginal populace–elevated them to landowning security and respect” (Sellers, p. 4).
Ahead, with the development of land and market, we’re awaiting the challenges. For example, cheap land, which was also absolutely free at the initial phase of this time, gave inclination to the mass as well as put a barrier to wealth because it caused the labor to become comparatively more costly. This all came to exist due to the fact the people were not ready to work for others because they had their own lands. If they worked, it was only possible on high monetary returns. Thus the popular labor, that time was family labor. Moreover, emerging European migration put a halt to this accumulating condition. However, from here, we see the stability in the land and market trend in the history of the United States of America.
In the later period, which can be considered a competitive era between the Americans and the European settlers, the people moved away from what lay within the boundaries of the New World. According to my personal analysis, this is the very time when a turn in the developmental process occurred in the history of the United States of America because people moved outlook for different prospects to enjoy profit and consequently power. In this connection, Seller notes that:
Along the seaboard, Virginia colonists quickly discovered a European market for tobacco and New Englanders for fish. As colonials learned to venture into shipbuilding and transatlantic commerce, the possibilities of wealth began to transform coastal society. Settlers clustered around the best ports–Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston–and in the lower valleys of navigable rivers–Connecticut, the Hudson, Delaware, the maze of Chesapeake estuaries, the Savannah. Here cheap water transportation gave access to the world market for furs, timber, wheat and flour, livestock and salted meat, indigo, and rice.
Additionally, the planters who dwelled in the southern territories where lay the tidewaters came to practice a new method of labor management. They made use of the slaves brought into the nation from Africa, as well as they put into labor work the European through a different agreement. This all resulted in newer markets meeting these traders wherever the sea channels made it possible for them. However, the distribution of wealth became limited only to a few hands, which, in turn, resulted in the giving way to the trend of status and economic strata came into existence; and on a nation that was once chained by “Old World Aristocracy,” “wealth conferred gentility, and law evolved a new conception of freely negotiable fee-simple property” (Sellers, p. 5). However, with the passage of time, newer challenges and trends emerged. For example, it seemed to be realized that moving goods to remoter areas through sea channels was far more complicated. The infrastructure was not reliable, so the transportation for product supply also was a teddy practice.
Hinged on all these trends were the differences of diverse kinds: cultural differences, status differences, and so forth. Hence, by 1815, a market revolution was surmounting the overland transportation barrier. While dissolving deeply rooted patterns of behavior and belief for competitive effort, it mobilized collective resources through government to fuel growth in countless ways, not least by providing the essential legal, financial, and transport infrastructures. Establishing capitalist hegemony over economy, politics, and culture, the market revolution created ourselves and most of the world we know (Sellers, p. 5).
Thus core analysis of all these attempts started from the land, and market reform came to a result that gave way to a new culture by overriding, stepping down other cultures such as Native American culture. Though there was an opting of the Native American culture by the white immigrants too, both peoples’ cultures were in sharp contrast to each other.
Moving along the line, we find that as the market was captured by the Euro/Americans, the Native Americans were also sidelined. Thus the growth of a different culture took a high pace. All that was focused by the farmer, as such, was to bring more and more prosperity to the family life, which was achieved by hard labor and, in the worlds of Seller (p. 10), by throwing back the element of romance from their life. This again resulted in more power on the side of the farmers because, with their growing offspring, they became more and more powerful, which gave them the opportunity to cultivate more land and make more profit.
By the second half of the nineteenth century, this all became more engraved in the roots of the nation. Henceforth, this all came to shape a society that was focused more on productivity. There were different cultures speaking with each other and fighting for survival. Along with the values carried by different cultures, the new world gave way to a number of other trends, which were to serve as major trends in the times to come for the nation. Some were gaining power; others were losing it, and yet some others were trying to find a way to settle in the battling cultures.
Conclusion
Thus, according to my personal analysis, if this trend gave way to higher productivity, immense land cultivation, and reaching out to newer and far-lying markets, it also gave way to the present trends such as capitalism, human resource management, conflict solving for better prospects, different terms in the economic and other fields all emerged from this very time when the American nation was learning to live as a productive nation as well as gaining more and more power and independence on the price of other things such as native cultural loss and change of values.
Although such assimilation is natural in the context of American national development, today, the need is to look more closely at the different factors and forces that lie behind (in the time of the early development). Examining the situation back there will surely give us a good understanding of the present trends in the land and market productivity.
Additionally, the need to repair the past loss is also there, which is only possible by examining history. The present study has also attempted to focus on the trends in the pre-1815 era to investigate the same phenomenon of cultural and other different trends going on at present.
Works Cited
- Lipset, S. M. (2000). Still the Exceptional Nation? The Wilson Quarterly. Vol. 24. Issue: 1. pp. 20-35.
- More, C. (2000). Understanding the Industrial Revolution. Routledge. Place of Publication: London. pp. 1-25.
- Sellers, C. (1991). The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815-1846. Oxford University Press. Place of Publication: New York. pp. 01-35.