The Industrial Revolution's Impact On The American World

1024 Words3 Pages

The Industrial Revolution was a time of great inventiveness and insight which would change the world, forever. Machines were being developed that did not require manpower or horsepower, and did work at a far greater output than its human counterparts could ever hope match. Likewise, thanks to the inventions of mass transit resources, products, and people were being transported across the country in greater numbers, at far greater rates. Of course, this in turn had great impact, not only on the American’s whose world was built through these new machines and factories, forged in the Industrial Revolution, and who, themselves, came to enjoy the products of such inventions; It also had tremendous effect on how American society came to view During this time, greater resources could suddenly be pooled together, whether those resources were material or human, where they could not be a century or two before. Suddenly, people from completely different walks of life could suddenly meet each other, exchange ideas, form bonds, form new businesses and associations where they could never dream of doing so just in the previous generation. The vast networks of railroad lines running throughout the United States not only enabled people from seperate parts of the country to suddenly exchange goods and services, but and form new communities, in previously uncharted territories of the American West. +++====In short, American life was altered by the Industrial Revolution, not just in terms of materials, and increased production, but in American standards of living, but of how people in America lived and worked together. The American public began to praise advancements of technology as signifying advancements in society. However, we must remember there were other social, cultural, and political consequences of the Industiral Revolution’s influence on American society; ones which lead to things such as unions, as well as concerns with the rights of the Consider for example, the radio and television. The radio and television (before the advent of the internet) were monumental in their effects on transmitting culture, products, and ideas accross vast distances of the United States. Suddenly American’s could relate to the horrors of war overseas, as well as they could learn of each other’s culture, or product. Of course, this was not the same as being able to transport them there, though newer, better, faster forms of mass transit would be developed to help facilitate just this. But all of these developments pale in comparison to almost a half-century later, with the rise of the internet, and with the increasing array uses for it, in the modern day. +++==== Of course the internet (in some respects) is much like the steam engine and mass transit in the way it facilitates more commerce, more social interaction between Americans, greater senses of common identity. These forms of technology will definitely continue to change the social and cultural situation of the American people, compounding the effects of the industrial revolution in America’s history; i.e. compounding the social, cultural, economic, technological, as well as geographical changes accompanying technology. However, the variety of ways in which this

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