The Industrial Revolution transformed the United States of America in many ways. The central industries of the Industrial Revolution were railroads, steel, and petroleum. Each industry had its own leader who took control of the development. Railroad, Steel and Petroleum Leland Stanford was one of the captains of the railroad industry. His partners were Collis Huntington, Charles Crocker, and Mark Hopkins. These four were known as the “Big Four”. All four men were Republicans from New York who had headed to California during the gold rush. They believed the war would promote the expansion of railroads. All four men invested their money and energy in creating a transcontinental network of tracks. Without the Industrial Revo-lution, railroads would not have come to exist to the extent that they …show more content…
In the North, small factories emerged and took on gigantic proportions. Jobs in the factories drew in people from all over. Which spurred the rapid growth of cities. The American economy became dominated less by small family businesses and more by large-scale corporate firms. Powerful machines required workers to perform simple tasks over and over again. They worked six days a week and 10 to 12 hours each day. Between the 1880s and 1900s about 35,000 workers died on the assembly line. As employers were searching for workers who would work for low pay, women and children en-tered the work force. About twenty percent of the work force was female. Many states passed child labor laws but most employers ignored them. Therefore, the number of child workers re-mained high. With the population quickly growing some factories provided housing to their workers. Independent builders threw up inferior houses. Due to the lack of building codes tene-ment homes weren’t so great. They had thin walls and usually lacked windows. The growing population often pushed people out into the streets sometimes creating a dangerous street