The Effects of the Market Revolution oin American Society

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The Market Revolution transformed various aspects of American society because of the development of new inventions, ideologies, and lifestyles. From 1790 to 1840, the improvement of national transportation methods, the commercialization of the American market system, and the beginning of industrialization fostered the Market Revolution and affected the country economically, socially, and even religiously. The Industrial Revolution occurred in Western European countries such as France, England and Germany beginning in 1760 and completely altered the European market, workplace, and society by the time the inventions and technological ideas diffused into the United States. In 1791, Alexander Hamilton expressed “the necessity of enlarging the sphere of our domestic commerce”1 and therefore supported and funded American industries. With the help of the government, the Market Revolution initiated the expansion of the marketplace due to the connection of distant communities, such as western cities with seaboard cities, for the first time due to the advances in infrastructure. This would cause the shift away from local and regional markets to national and international markets abroad. The Market Revolution changed aspects of American life such as labor, transportation, commercialization, family life, new values produced by evangelical religion, sentimentalism, and transcendentalism, and the birth of the new middle class from 1790 to 1840. Pre-industrial labor mostly consisted of farming and agriculture involving the entire family. In 1823, 97 percent of all Americans still lived in farms therefore the rural population and workforce was much larger than the urban population and workforce. The production and growing of food was used by the... ... middle of paper ... ...new middle class was an important transition for American society assisted by the Market Revolution. The Market Revolution, from 1790 to 1840, inspired by the developments of commercialization, industrialization and the advances in transportation altered the lives of Americans in areas such as labor, transportation, commercialization, family life, new values and the new middle class. American entrepreneurs with new technology created an entirely different economy which shaped and affected all other aspects of society. The Market Revolution gradually shifted society from a rural agricultural lifestyle to the focus of work in the urban cities as it is today. While the vast majority of American citizens participated in agriculture and farming in 1800, the percent of farmers working in 2013 is less than 1 percent: this is the everlasting effect of the Market Revolution.

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