Introduction

When the United States gained independence from England, the new nation's economy was overwhelmingly agrarian. Small-scale industrial production increased substantially during the first half of the nineteenth century, however, and by 1870 the United States was second only to Great Britain among the world's industrial powers. Nonetheless, most Americans still worked on farms through the decade of the Civil War. But between 1870 and 1930, a much more explosive era of industrial growth took place. This module presents three key indicators of that new era, two in graph form and one as a map. The first graph displays the number of people employed in agriculture as compared to the number of people employed in industry. A second graph displays the industrial production of the United States in comparison with other nations. Finally, the map shows those areas of the United States most intensely involved in industrial production in 1900.