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Industry & Immigration
1.1 Innovation Boosts Growth
The Civil War encouraged industrial growth by challenging industries to make products more quickly and efficiently than before.
The country’s growth was also fueled by its vast supply of natural resources. In addition, industries had a huge workforce to fuel
growth. After the Civil War, many Europeans and some Asians immigrated to the United States.
Entrepreneurs fueled industrialization. Capitalism is a system in which individuals own most businesses. The heroes of this
system areentrepreneurs, or people who invest money in a product or enterprise in order to make a profit.
Government encouraged the success of businesses in the late 1800s. To encourage the buying of American goods, Congress
enacted protective tariffs, or taxes that would make imported goods cost more than those made locally. The government also
adopted laissez faire policies, which allowed businesses to operate under minimal government regulation.
Thomas Edison received more than 1,000 patents for new inventions. Edison and his team invented the light bulb. George
Westinghouse developed technology to send electricity over long distances. Electricity lit streets and powered homes and
factories. Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone. By 1900, there were more than one million telephones in the United
States.
To meet the growing demand for goods, factory owners developed a system known as mass production, which allowed them to
turn out large numbers of products quickly and inexpensively.
While industry boomed in some parts of the United States, the South grew more slowly and lagged behind the rest of the
country. Before the Civil War, the South had shipped its raw materials abroad or to the North for processing. After the war, the
South first had to repair the damages of war then attempt to catch up with the North's industrial development. In the 1880s,
northern money helped the South build its own factories. Southern leaders called for a "New South" and encouraged the
expansion of southern rail lines.
However, the South could not keep pace with the North in industrial growth. The South had plenty of natural resources, but it
did not have enough skilled labor and capital investment. Wages were low and most of the region’s wealth remained in the
hands of a few people.
Before the Civil War, most southern planters had concentrated on cash crops, such as cotton and tobacco, which they grew to
sell. Cotton remained the centerpiece of southern agriculture. However, many European textile factories had found other
suppliers during the war, so the price of cotton had fallen. In the 1890s, the boll weevil struck at cotton crops across the South,
causing cotton to continue to be an issue in the South as the 1900s began.
Industrialization touched every aspect of American life. Farms became mechanized. Mass production meant people had easier
access to goods. As the United States grew as an economic power, it became more involved in the affairs of other nations.