How Did the Federal Government Actively Promote Industrial and Agricultural Development?
Kamran Shaikh
APUSH
December 9, 2014 1. The American economy thrived because of federal involvement, not the lack of it. How did the federal government actively promote industrial and agricultural development in this period? The rapid expansion of factory production, mining, and railroad construction around the country specifically the North signaled the change of America to a mature industrial industry. Most manufacturing took place in industrial cities, with New York a symbol for dynamic urban growth. Cities financed industrialization and westward expansion. While all this happened in the
North, agriculture boomed in the West. The federal government had given plenty of land to territorial and state governments who were in turn eager to sell the land and acquire population.
Through Eastern and European advertising, settlers flooded the West to work the fresh virgin land. More land came into cultivation in the thirty years after the Civil War than in the previous two and a half centuries in American history. The federal government had also issued the
Homestead Act, which helped hundreds of thousands of families establish farms, further promoting agricultural development in the West. 2. Describe the importance of the nation’s railroads in the rise of America’s second industrial revolution. The amount of railroads in the United States tripled between 1860 and 1880 and then tripled again by 1920. With this expansion, new areas were open to commercial farming and a national market was able to be established for manufactured goods. Companies developed ways to use each others tracks allowing for a wider range of deliveries, connecting the east coast to the west coast. With the hugely expanding market with the railroads, a modern industrial economy was able to flourish. National chains were able to develop in this time and symbolized the
integration of the nation and its businesses.
APUSH
December 9, 2014 1. The American economy thrived because of federal involvement, not the lack of it. How did the federal government actively promote industrial and agricultural development in this period? The rapid expansion of factory production, mining, and railroad construction around the country specifically the North signaled the change of America to a mature industrial industry. Most manufacturing took place in industrial cities, with New York a symbol for dynamic urban growth. Cities financed industrialization and westward expansion. While all this happened in the
North, agriculture boomed in the West. The federal government had given plenty of land to territorial and state governments who were in turn eager to sell the land and acquire population.
Through Eastern and European advertising, settlers flooded the West to work the fresh virgin land. More land came into cultivation in the thirty years after the Civil War than in the previous two and a half centuries in American history. The federal government had also issued the
Homestead Act, which helped hundreds of thousands of families establish farms, further promoting agricultural development in the West. 2. Describe the importance of the nation’s railroads in the rise of America’s second industrial revolution. The amount of railroads in the United States tripled between 1860 and 1880 and then tripled again by 1920. With this expansion, new areas were open to commercial farming and a national market was able to be established for manufactured goods. Companies developed ways to use each others tracks allowing for a wider range of deliveries, connecting the east coast to the west coast. With the hugely expanding market with the railroads, a modern industrial economy was able to flourish. National chains were able to develop in this time and symbolized the
integration of the nation and its businesses.