American History

This is the continuous progression of social and economic modification whereby a human group, a state or even a country is transformed from a pre industrial society into an industrial one. This encompasses all sectors in the economy, be it agricultural, political and most importantly, the technological advancement. Industrialization is characterized by the subsequent growth of large industries, machine production and the concentration of workers in urban areas.

Industrialization brings with it a lot of effects and more precisely in this context we are going to look at the impacts that industrialization brought to the people of America in the American history, in relation to immigration, labor unions, and labor laws among others. We will realize that industrialization makes the phase of the countries economic development, in which the industry grows faster than agriculture and assumes the major role of production in the economy.

To start with, one of the major effects of urbanization to the Americans in the historic period is the rural urban migration. With the increase of industries in the urban areas, most people migrated to urban centers to seek for employment. This provided cheap labor and market for the new products that were being manufactured at that time. The immigrants also acquired jobs in the industries as this reduced chances of unemployment in the American states.

As people migrated to the urban centers, it created overcrowding in the urban centers. This was a derail to the living conditions of the Americans, they were benefiting well in the job market, but back in their homes they suffered this issue of overcrowding. Cities became overcrowded problems arose such as inadequate housing, poor transportation, crime, and lack of clean water and sanitation. Some of the crimes that came up included drug peddling, robberies, among others as the still unfortunate tried to get their daily bread.

As more and more people moved to the urban areas, the population rose steadily and over population began to emit negative effects. Immigrants also were increasing in each single day. This led to the intense overcrowding in multifamily tenements and even ventilation and sufficient light was not something one could obtain so easily. On the other hand crimes went high there was introduction to crimes such as rape, and even frauds. Everybody wanted to have a satisfied life, so some never bothered how to achieve this, they believed in whichever way that is easy, it could be done.

There were effects that just brought impact to the employees. The working hours were increased from the normal eight hours per day to twelve hours per day. Working hours also were increased to six days instead of five days per week. Much of the work was repetitive and tedious.

What made it look worse is the low wages they used to fetch for these jobs. Women earned significantly less than the male. May factories were poorly ventilated and employees often worked with dangerous machinery. Long working hours and unsafe conditions led to health problems and accidents. Workers in sweatshops or workshops in tenement buildings, worked long hours without breaks and earned the lowest wages. Child labor was common because all family members had to work to make ends meet. Statistics say that in 1890, there were 1.5 million workers under the age of 15 in the whole of America. Many of these children were injured or experienced stunted growth because of the hard work they did.

The above were some of the negative effects of industrialization in the America. There was also the good side of the whole issue. It was actually a quick process in America compared to other states at those times. It was the fourth to manufacture in 1860 in the world, but by the turn of the 20th century, it was the leading country in manufacturing in the entire world. This led to wealth accumulation in America. It improved the living and working conditions in the America. This excessive accumulation in the hands of a few business leaders was then invested into expensive manufacturing operations, which was used to extract massive amounts of natural recourses and import cheap labor from southern and eastern Europe.

Presence of enough money in America led to inventions and innovations. For instance, the bell telephone was invented at this time in the America. Prosperity and the want to prosperity were the signs that industrializations effects had reached communities across the United States. Other inventions there after took place as more and more scientists came up and discovered a number of things, the result of these all was that the human life began to become so simple, as medicines were invented, the drugs to various diseases were found and it greatly reduced the death rates of the Americans. With the invention of the wheel, transport became so cheap. People could move from on place to another without any problems.

Another major impact of industrialization is the expansion of the transport networks. It was noted that the rail transport developed steadily. The same applied to the air transport, there were well established air planes that began to be used in the transportation of people and even other goods. As transport developed steadily, trade followed the trend, then there came the development of towns and by 1900, America had grown steadily to great heights. As these went on, it bought big impact on the people of America and the America itself as a state. It surpassed its competitors like the European countries.