Between two great wars -- the Civil War and the First World War
-- the United States of America came of age. In a period of less
than 50 years it was transformed from a rural republic to an
urban state. The frontier vanished. Great factories and steel
mills, transcontinental railroad lines, flourishing cities and
vast agricultural holdings marked the land. With this economic
growth and affluence came corresponding problems. Nationwide,
businesses came to dominate whole industries, either
independently or in combination with others. Working conditions
were often poor. Cities grew so quickly they could not properly
house or govern their growing populations.
"The Civil War," says one writer, "cut a wide gash through the
history of the country; it dramatized in a stroke the changes
that had begun to take place during the preceding 20 or 30
years...." War needs had enormously stimulated manufacturing,
speeding an economic process based on the exploitation of iron,
steam and electric power, as well as the forward march of science
and invention. In the years before 1860, 36,000 patents were
granted; in the next 30 years, 440,000 patents were issued, and
in the first quarter of the 20th century, the number reached
nearly a million.
As early as 1844, Samuel F. B. Morse had perfected electrical
telegraphy, and soon afterward distant parts of the continent
were linked by a network of poles and wires. In 1876 Alexander
Graham Bell exhibited a telephone instrument and, within half a
century, 16 million telephones would quicken the social and
economic life of the nation. The growth of business was speeded
by the invention of the typewriter in 1867, the adding machine in
1888 and the cash register in 1897. The linotype composing
machine, invented in 1886, and rotary press and paper-folding
machinery made it possible to print 240,000 eight-page newspapers
in an hour. Thomas Edison's incandescent lamp eventually lit
millions of homes. The talking machine, or phonograph, too, was
perfected by Edison, who, in conjunction with George Eastman,
also helped develop the motion picture. These and many other
applications of science and ingenuity resulted in a new level of
productivity in almost every field.
Concurrently, the nation's basic industry -- iron and steel --
was forging ahead, protected by a high tariff. Previously
concentrated in the Eastern states, the iron industry moved
westward as geologists discovered new ore deposits, notably the
great Mesabi iron range at the head of Lake Superior, which
became one of the largest ore producers in the world. The ore lay
on the surface of the ground and was easy and cheap to mine.
Remarkably free of chemical impurities, it could be processed
into steel of superior quality at about one-tenth the previously
prevailing cost.
"Upon the sacredness of property, civilization itself depends."
-- Andrew Carnegie, 1889