The Industrial Revolution had a major impact (both positive and negative) on the economic, political, social and cultural life in America, changing it from an agrarian (agricultural) and cottage (small specialized) society which was Thomas Jefferson's vision to a modern advanced and technological society which are Alexander Hamilton's vision. The concept according to Alexander Hamilton is one of the greatest visions that he had. Alexander Hamilton was born as a British subject on the island of Nevis in the West Indies on the 11th of January 1755. In the young United States, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton called for an Industrial Revolution in his Report on Manufactures (1791).
Many Americans felt that the United States had to become economically strong in order to maintain its recently won independence from Great Britain. In cities up and down the Atlantic Coast, leading citizens organized associations devoted to the encouragement of manufactures. The Industrial Revolution unfolded in the United States even more vigorously than it had in Great Britain. The young nation began as a weak, loose association of former colonies with a traditional economy. More than three-quarters of the labor force worked in agriculture in 1790. Americans soon enjoyed striking success in mechanization.
By the end of the century, the United States was the world leader in manufacturing, unfolding what became known as the Second Industrial Revolution. The American economy had emerged as the largest and most productive on the globe.Alexander Hamilton was a man of vision as well as economic genius. The amazing staying power of Alexander Hamilton's economic policies and the success that they have produced is clearly evident in today's modern economy. One of the most profound things about the visionary economic policies of Hamilton is that they not only solved the immediate problems facing the United States, but they also accounted for many of the challenges that the United States would be forced to contend within the distant future. Hopefully it has been made clear that Alexander Hamilton was a genius and a visionary.
Nearly every one of his policies that he suggested to Congress while he was the Secretary of State. He was an advocate for the national bank, the creation of a system of canals and roads; He was in favor of Manufactures and believed in a strong, balanced economy. He was a loose constructionist, which was a position with increasing popularity amongst politicians. All of his positions on the issues at the time were, however being stolen by the other side, which essentially proves him right.
The most important of the changes that the Industrial Revolution brought was the invention of machines to do the work of hand tools, the use of steam, and later of other kinds of power, in place of the muscles, and the adoption of the factory system. The Industrial Revolution came gradually. However, when measured against the centuries people had worked entirely by hand, it happened in a short span of time. Until the inventions of the flying shuttle in 1733 and the spinning jenny in 1764, the making of yarn and the weaving of cloth had been much the same for thousands of years.
By 1800 a host of new and faster processes were in use in both manufacture and transportation.
In technology, steam power must have been the biggest advancement in its field. Fuels such as coal and petroleum were ideas used for the power of the steam engines. This new idea of steam power revolutionized many industries including textiles and manufacturing. In communications, Samuel Morse, an American inventor, had made a working model of the telegraph using a language of dots and lines. It carried information at high speeds, which made communications between Europe and North American cities a lot quicker.
In the field of medicine new ways to keep food from spoiling were invented by the scientist Louis Pasteur. New methods were used to make surgeries safer, less painful, and keep germs from spreading inside the body in which surgery was being performed. Vaccinations for smallpox were created by Edward Jenner who believed that people who had contracted cowpox never caught smallpox. One of the problems in the Industrial Revolution was the high growth rate of people. People moved into the cities causing fewer jobs and leaving some people unemployed and even homeless. Most factories were mainly looking for cheap labor, which in turn caused the problem of child labor.
They put the children to work from the crack of dawn to the late hours of the afternoon and were only paid enough to buy a portion of their family's food.
Another problem that was caused by the growth of cities was steam engines, and mass productions was pollution. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was increased by two times the amount as before.
The Industrial Revolution has greatly influenced life today.
The Industrial Revolution began by making old materials more quickly, less expensive, and it led to the development of new products. Some of these new products are washing machines, radios, television sets, and the computer. The computer decreased the amount of time needed to write a paper. With a typewriter, if a person made a typographical mistake, he had to start the page over again. With the computer, you can delete the mistake by the touch of a button. The internet allows someone to
exchange information with someone on the opposite side of the world in seconds.
Alexander Hamilton's views and movement on the Industrial Revolution changed the way people live and work in today's society. Without Alexander Hamilton's vision and persistence we still might be living in a world according to Thomas Jefferson. Machines took over most of the workplace and make our lives easier than manual labor although some things just seem to come out better the old-fashioned way.
