Industrialization

Kamraan Iqbal

Mr.Kuegler

American Studies

October 23, 2007

Industrialization

Industry is a huge part of American Society. Industry played a major part in improving the American economy and creating job opportunities. At the start of industrialization, there were more goods and more inventions made to make the goods faster and cheaper. Not every aspect of business and industry was good or acceptable in today's standards, but although there were some negatives, the positives outweighed them. Without industry America would not be as wealthy and as powerful as it is.

As more businesses developed, there were some negative aspects such as unhealthy and dangerous environments, long hours and low wages, and child labor. With these dangerous and unhealthy environments people had a higher chance of getting hurt or poisoned by toxic fumes released by machines. Long hours and low wages made factory workers tired and they did not have much free time.

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As long and as hard as they worked, they had low wages which were hard to live on so they had to have there children work to make extra money to support the family. Children also had a high danger of getting killed in the factory. Although there were some negative things about industry, there were more positives that outweighed them. For example, there were inventions made to make products not spoil and others to make things cheaper, business owners went from rags to riches, and book writers, like Horatio Alger, got wealthy off writing books about business giants who went from rags to riches and their lucky breaks.

One business giant was Gustavus Swift who started a meat packing company. Some inventions such as the refrigerated railroad cars helped Swift's meat packing company grow. Another industrialist was Andrew Carnegie; to make his steel

With industry came many benefits to America. More jobs were created and goods were made more quickly. With new businesses developing, there were many more job opportunities for Americans and new immigrants. With more people doing different jobs in one factory, goods were made much faster by big companies than by smaller companies. For example, if a large company or factory made the same toy as a smaller shop, the smaller shop many have only one person making that product and it

might take him two hours to make it. If the big company is making a similar product, it might take them less time to make the same product and as a result, they could sell it at a lower price which is good for big companies to have people happy with their lower prices. America has many resources to make products quickly so they can sell them to different countries. Companies make money and have control of that product.

Although there were some negatives to industry, the positives were even greater. Without people like John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and others, industrialization would not have been the same. These business giants helped inspire many people to start businesses and try to get to the top. If industry did not develop as it did, America would not be as powerful or as wealthy as it is today.