Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Timeline of Events
- 1 An Early History: From Settlement to Colonization
- 2 The American War of Independence
- 3 The Formative Period: The Era of Solidarity and Expansion
- 4 ‘Two Americas’: Regional Differences and Sectional Conflicts
- 5 Agrarian and Industrial Revolutions
- 6 Resisting Voices
- 7 American Foreign Policy: Post-Monroe Doctrine to World War I
- 8 The Great Crisis and Its Recovery
- 9 The Rise of America: WWII and After
- 10 The Quest for Equality
- 11 American Environmentalism and Environmental History
- Epilogue: Perceiving American History Beyond the ‘Exceptionalist’ Framework
- Index
5 - Agrarian and Industrial Revolutions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 April 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Timeline of Events
- 1 An Early History: From Settlement to Colonization
- 2 The American War of Independence
- 3 The Formative Period: The Era of Solidarity and Expansion
- 4 ‘Two Americas’: Regional Differences and Sectional Conflicts
- 5 Agrarian and Industrial Revolutions
- 6 Resisting Voices
- 7 American Foreign Policy: Post-Monroe Doctrine to World War I
- 8 The Great Crisis and Its Recovery
- 9 The Rise of America: WWII and After
- 10 The Quest for Equality
- 11 American Environmentalism and Environmental History
- Epilogue: Perceiving American History Beyond the ‘Exceptionalist’ Framework
- Index
Summary
This chapter provides an economic history of the two most important revolutions of America in the post-Civil War period: the agricultural and the industrial revolutions. Along with exploring the reasons behind these phenomena, the most important inventions are mentioned that changed the course of American History in the subsequent decades. The Industrial Revolution has been studied by a number of scholars across disciplines, the thrust varying from economics to social, technological, and environmental history. A brief discussion on the historiography of the industrial revolution covers all the important works from 1860s till the recent times.
a. Agricultural Revolution
The post-Civil War Agrarian Revolution resulted out of a combination of several factors. Huge availability of arable lands, equally large numbers of tillers of soil, startling inventions in agricultural implements, scientific researches in plant genetics, and techniques of crop production, all combined and brought about a spectacular breakthrough in the agrarian sector.
By the mid-nineteenth century, America came to possess a vast amount of arable lands which, between 1860 and 1900, increased from three million to 60 million and the number of farms from two million to six million. On an average the production went up by three times or 300 per cent. For example, in 1860 the production of wheat was 250 million bushels which jumped up to 655 million bushels by 1900. Similarly, the production of corn was a little less than one million bushels which leapt up to two and a half billion bushels in 1900.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- An Introduction to the History of America , pp. 119 - 134Publisher: Foundation BooksPrint publication year: 2014