Railroads During The Industrial Revolution

Beginning in the mid eighteenth century, the Industrial Revolution promoted new and innovative ways to manufacture products. This changed the world forever by introducing factories to create products quicker than before. Another component of the industrial revolution involved the implementation of railways. Railways allowed for mass amounts of newly manufactured products to be more easily and quickly transported. Specifically, according to The Louisville, Cincinnati, and Charleston Rail Road by H. Roger Grant, around the 1830s and 1840s was when the earliest tracks were laid in Charleston, South Carolina. According to Grant, before the installation of railways in Charleston, traveling with goods was “slow, difficult, and dangerous.” Roads were nowhere near as advanced as they are now. Travelers dreaded walks as they were full of harsh terrain, and could take months depending on how the distance of the journey. There were not proper vehicles to transport goods in, so less good were transported than what would come to be transported due …show more content…
By providing a means for reliable transportation, the railroads made the regular shipping of manufacturing supplies and manufactured goods in mass quantities possible. As a result, the railroads laid the groundwork for the global Industrial Revolution through providing a foundational need in the development of industry.
This source provides information to historians looking to explore how the earliest of American railroad tracks, starting in Charleston, impacted trading and production of goods throughout the entire country. In terms of a global Industrial Revolution, Grant mentions that this is an ideal source for discussing the “later cultural, economic, political, and physical environments,” impacted by this advancement in transportation