Rise of America

Following the Civil War, the South lay in economic shambles, and the slave-supported aristocracy was dissolved as plantations were divided up. Tenant-style farming or sharecropping became the predominant form of southern agriculture, particularly among the recently freed slaves. Indeed, those freed by the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 were hit hardest by the chaos of the southern economy, and the wildest ambitions of Reconstruction to improve conditions withered into a divisive era of segregation.

By the end Civil War, already a third of the national economy was powered by manufacturing, most of which was in the North. Following the war, the American economy was driven by innovation and invention that spurred tremendous growth of the industrial infrastructure. In short, there came a rapid development from which much of it a result of advances in mass production. Individual business enterprise became the backbone of the United States economy. It was a Gilded Age in America, built by entrepreneurs in manufacturing and commerce, which outpaced the economic contribution of agriculture by the 1880’s. The era was not without its economic recessions. Depressions (or Panics) of 1873 and 1893 were actually caused in large part by unrestrained development and financial over-speculation, as is true of even the most recent recessions. The Panics devastated small businesses and spiked unemployment rates.

In the economic history of the United States, the early twentieth century remains critical for major advancements in technology. The steam- and water-powered economy received a jolt by the spread of modern electricity, and the advent of the automobile. Entering late into World War I, the United States was primed to shift its industry and vast amounts of raw materials to wartime production. America mobilized not only millions of soldiers, but an economy to support their needs abroad. As during the Civil War, the question of financing the military became a focus of the...