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Andy Oxfeld Keith Bare Peter Snyder Jacob Mudrick Karl Hillenbrand |
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Industrial Revolution | National Market System | The Value of Money
Science and Technology | Transportation | Capitalism | Immigrants
Urbanization
Industrial Revolution
An Industrial Revolution is a major change in the methods of production of goods. When we think of the Industrial Revolution we think of steam engines and waterwheels. These sources of power were used to drive automated machinery that performed the repetitive high-labor processes instead of humans.
National Market System
The development of a national market system and the Industrial Revolution occured concurrently, since some of the things useful for use in factories were also useful to farmers and vice versa. The improved transportation technology allowed farmers in the inland to sell their crops throughout the country. The farmers could profit more by producing excess food and shipping it away and selling it in the national market than they could by simple subsistance farming.
The Value of Money
At this point in time the government backed up every dollar with precious metals. Theoretically a person could exchange a dollar for its value in gold and silver. Now, however, the government does not back up every dollar with gold and silver.
Science and Technology
Science and technology played very large roles in the Industrial Revolution. It was mostly the innovation of the steam engine that allowed the whole event to occur. The entire Industrial Revolution was mostly about finding out how things could be done more efficiently and cheaply, and the answers came from science and technology.
Transportation
One of the most important applications of technology was in transportation both with railroads and steam ships. As discussed above, cheaper transportation was necessary in order to establish a national market system, and was also important in the transportation of goods. While the trans-continental railroad would not be built until later, local railroads still greatly decreased the cost and time involved with transporting cargo.
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on supply, demand, and capital. Capital, the root word of capitalism, is the money and supplies that are required initially to start a business. Wealthy people known as entrepreneurs are usually the people that provide the capital. Entrepreneurs take this as a risk and either lose all the capital if the business fails, or gain large amounts of profit if the business suceeds. Capitalism played a role in the Industrial Revolution because large amounts of capital were necessary to start building factories.
Immigrants
Immigrants, especially the Irish immigrants, were the main driving force for the Industrial Revolution. These immigrants provided the vast majority of the cheap, unskilled labor necessary in the factories.
Urbanization
The cities were important during the Industrial Revolution because they were where most of the landless immigrants ended up. Factories were setup near and in cities because of the proximity to all the immigrants that would work in the factories. The innovations in transportation also allowed cities to become larger due to the increased availibility of food from the surrounding farms.