Industrialization in the United States had a significant impact on many spheres, including the economy, society, and environment. The extensive industrialization process took a long time and had a profound effect on workers as well as influenced manufactured goods and their perception among consumers. This paper will explore the origins of industrialization in the US, explain its role in workers’ rights, and define how industrialism caused the development of a consumerism culture.
Firstly, the origins of industrialization in the United States were sourced in the adaptation of technologies developed during the British Industrial Revolution, which started in the middle of the 18th century. According to Hahn (2020), Samuel Slater can be acknowledged as one of the pioneers of industrialization in the United States with his adaptation of the British cotton mill, which was powered by water. However, later, at the beginning of the 19th century, Slater revised the system to change the British apprentice system to a domestic system, developing the patriarchal branch of industrialization. An alternative branch of industrialization was founded by Francis Cabot Lowell, who mainly recruited women and girls as workers for cotton mills, providing them with employment and boarding houses where workers lived together (Hahn, 2020). Thus, the early industrialization in the United States influenced the population’s social structure by establishing opportunities for different forms of labor.
Furthermore, the shift of economic focus from agriculture to manufacturing caused increased urbanization rates, with more people from rural areas abandoning their farms in search of higher-paid work in bigger cities. For factories, the population growth in the cities presented an opportunity to increase production by recruiting more workers. In many cases, factory owners’ pursuit of increased production and revenues meant inhumane exploitative working conditions for factory workers. Moreover, child labor became common during the years of the industrial revolution, and despite more work opportunities and equal job responsibilities, women were often paid less than men. In response to the terrible working conditions, workers in the industrial age started striking and uniting in labor unions to claim the right to better conditions, such as a 10-hour workday (Pappas, 2022). Thus, industrialization had a significant effect on workers and caused the development of organized labor.
Lastly, industrialization and mechanized production substantially impacted the goods and their perception. Before the industrial revolution, goods were handcrafted by skilled professionals; craftsmen produced high-quality goods with individual character. With mechanized production, the process of creating goods took less time, and they became more affordable. With more buying options than earlier, people started consuming goods at a higher rate. Thus, in order to increase their sales in highly competitive conditions where factories produced similar products. Businesses started actively competing for consumers with each other through advertising. Handcrafted products became significantly more valued than machine-produced goods. Soon, the higher quality value became the basis for the creation of the category of luxury goods. Thus, industrialization defined the core perceptions of goods and mechanized production in consumers and provided the foundation for the future consumerism culture.
In conclusion, this essay explored the origins of industrialization in the United States in the adaptation of inventions from the British Industrial Revolution. Next, the essay explained industrialization’s role in defining workers’ rights and the development of organized labor. Lastly, the paper determined that higher consumption rates caused by the rise of mechanized production provided the foundation for the development of consumerism culture and influenced consumers’ perception of quality goods.
References
Hahn, B. (2020). Technology in the Industrial Revolution. Cambridge University Press.
Pappas, S. (2022). What are labor unions?LiveScience. Web.