The pre-Market Revolution was a time of labor-intensive work and strong-knit American culture. While many were fighting for individual rights from Britain, and splitting up due to the Great Awakening, others were working in a professional capacity. Jobs such as fishing, farming, building ships, and other manual occupations were performed by locals while small business owners, skilled workers, and craftsmen thrived in the colonial American economy. However, the nineteenth century was a different story. Known as the “Age of Progress,” improved technology was one of the major hallmarks of the century. Between 1810’s and 1860’s, American capitalists and workers had turned towards the innovations of the steam engine, power loom, and other new technologies …show more content…
The possibilities of technology were thought to be “limitless” leading towards independence, wealth, and eventually, took control over the American economy. With the growth of large-scale domestic manufacturing, the class of working men split as some ruled industries, and others were replaced by factories. The combination of technology and operational efficiencies during the Market Revolution was the decrease of the small-scale, individual business owner who couldn’t keep up with the production rates of factories as well as the increase in regional interdependence, defining the North’s identity.
In the early Colonial republic, laborers in manufacturing worked every stage of production. It was often done in people’s homes, using hand-made tools or basic machines. Cottage industries emerged in communities where spinning clubs developed
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The production of cotton in the South nurtured the industrialization in the North as they supplied raw materials to manufacturers. The same occurred in the Midwest as farmers provided livestock and other resources to eastern cities and foreign markets. Preservative innovations invented by the merchants processed the food which was then distributed to other areas. It was crucial to collaborate with other markets in the United States to create the industrial identity of the