Samuel Slater's Transition From Agricultural-Based Economy To An Industrial Economy

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The transitions from an agricultural based economy to an industrial economy did not just happen in the span of a few years. The first stages of the Industrial Revolution began in the 1800s and by the 1900s the United States was en route to becoming one of the world’s leading industrial powers. The American Civil War ended in 1865 and had left everything north of the Mason-Dixon line in a really good place (economically, politically, socially, and industrially), the North was building up their industrial infrastructure. Whereas everything to the South was an economic hell, they were dependent on cash crops until Samuel Slater brought the textile business to the United States of America and even then they were still dependent. The textile business was one of the many businesses that started the American Industrial Revolution. The shift from …show more content…
All these industries built the United States of America into one of the world’s leading powers. Andrew Carnegie was an integral part in getting the USA to such a huge industrial power started at the bottom and worked his way up. He arrived in America as a preteen and ran errands for the Pennsylvania Railroad but quickly climbed the ‘managerial ladder’. He ended up leaving the railroad business to focus on other interests, particularly oil and steel. Through his experiences he learned about the railroad industry and business and at twenty-nine-years-old he became a self-made steel manufacturer. He started small and only sold to the people he knew of in the railroad business and then went on to build a steel mill, later known as “Carnegie Steel Company”. He built plants all around the country using vertical integration following Gustavus Swift. He would buy the mills in times of depression because he knew they would come back, it was a cycle to him. But the more mills he was able to purchase, the more work was available to

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