Industrialization is the widespread development of profit-making businesses that manufacture products on a large scale, using labor-saving machinery. Understanding the history of the development of industrialization in the United States, which took place over two centuries, involves learning about some of its technical elements, such as technology and the economy. But the history of U.S. industrialism is also a dramatic story of people rising and falling from power or struggling desperately to make the world a better place. Industrialization fueled the national culture, economy, daily life, and politics, creating such tremendous social changes that it is impossible to imagine what life in the United States would be like without it.

Though the Industrial Revolution, a period of rapid industrial growth causing a shift in focus from agriculture to industry, first began in England and Europe in the middle of the eighteenth century, industrialization did not begin to take root in the United States until after the American Revolution (1775–83). Even then American industrialization had a slow start, due to overwhelming obstacles. At the time, the vast majority of Americans lived independent lives as farmers in remote areas. For the most part, they had little connection with anyone but neighboring farmers, since there were few good roads or systems of communication. Most people did not even own clocks; time was determined by the seasons and the rising and setting of the sun. Few people worked for wages, and those manufactured goods Americans could afford generally came from Europe. The new nation had vast natural resources, such as land, timber, metals, minerals, water power, and ports, but without transportation or manufacturing it was nearly impossible to make industrial use of them.

Once begun, the American Industrial Revolution took on its own character, differing from that of other countries. This was primarily because Americans themselves had been shaped and selected by a unique set of forces. After fighting hard to gain independence from England, most Americans were passionate about the ideals of liberty and equality for all (although to many Americans at the time this meant only white males), and they were determined to create a society in which any individual could rise and prosper through his or her own efforts. They were also driven by the desire for wealth. Though many Europeans immigrated to America to find religious or social freedom, the majority came seeking riches. Many had faced bitter hardships and were prepared to take major risks to obtain wealth. Another key trait of Americans was a spirit of innovation; it had been a necessary attribute for emigrants who left Europe in the seventeenth century, for they would have to reinvent the most basic aspects of their daily lives in the New World. The combined spirit of individualism, greed, and innovation came to characterize U.S. industrialism.

In the years between the American Revolution and the American Civil War (1861–65), innovation and invention were highly esteemed by the American public. Most industrial designs and ideas came initially from Europe, but once they reached the machine makers, or "mechanicians," of American shops, they were improved until they became distinctly American, suited to the land and its people. The times produced an extremely talented group of inventors and innovators, and from their workshops, which were mainly located in the northeastern United States, the "American System," or mass production and the use of interchangeable parts, emerged. It would forever change the nature of manufacturing worldwide.

With new advances in technology, some enterprising business people built the first U.S. factories, and most of them flourished. However, from the start the stark division in wealth and position between industry owners and their workers was at odds with the popular belief in American liberty and equality. Despite early factory owners' efforts to humanize factory work, workers faced low wages and poor working conditions. Many claimed they were slaves to wage labor. It was not long after the first industrial workforces were hired that the first labor strikes took place. The conflict between employers and employees continued, and the factory owners' early attempts to create ideal circumstances for workers were abandoned. Professional managers were hired to get as much work from the workforce as possible. A huge influx of immigrants from Europe and Asia from the 1840s until the 1920s supplied inexpensive labor, but labor strikes continued.

After a slow beginning in the Northeast industrialization began to spread at a rapid pace with the nationwide building of transportation and communications systems. The construction of the transcontinental railroad spanning the nation from one coast to the other—a mammoth undertaking—signaled the start of a new way of life for all Americans. Where railroads went, towns and cities with bustling new commerce arose. The construction of the railroads spawned giant new industries in steel, iron, and coal. Railroads brought farmers' crops to distant markets and were instrumental in bringing the industrial society to the West.

For the railroads to be built and industry to advance, capital, or vast quantities of money, was required. The art of raising large amounts of capital and applying it to industry was mainly accomplished by a generation of extremely capable industrialists who built the gigantic industries that dominated the nation and ruled its economy. These legendary men, admired as the "captains of industry" by some and loathed as ruthless crooks, or "robber barons," by others, included railroad owner Cornelius Vanderbilt, steel empire founder Andrew Carnegie, Standard Oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, investment banker J. P. Morgan, and many others. Though some of them came from wealthy backgrounds, many were born in humble circumstances and rose to wealth and power through their own efforts. These industrialists created new systems of doing business that are still in place today. Their tactics almost always included creating monopolies, huge corporations that dominated their industry nationwide and limited attempts at competition by others. As the industrialists prospered, most of the wealth of the nation fell into their hands. This period became known as the Gilded Age, the era of industrialization from the early 1860s to the turn of the century in which a few wealthy individuals gained tremendous power and influence. During the Gilded Age the power of industrialists and their corporations seemed unstoppable.

The number of U.S. companies dwindled from thousands to hundreds as the most powerful industrialists bought out or crushed their competitors. Once again, the national spirit of liberty and equality was aroused. Farmers, laborers, poor immigrants, and labor unions as well as middle class reformers sought relief from the power of the corporations, giving rise to the Progressive Era, or the period of the American Industrial Revolution that spanned roughly from the 1890s to about 1920, in which reformers worked together in the interest of distributing political power and wealth more equally. It was during this time that the strong hand of the federal government was finally felt in American industry, as it began to leave behind its laissez-faire, or non-interference, policies in order to regulate businesses, curb monopolies, and protect workers.

By the twentieth century, the United States was the richest and most powerful industrial nation in the world, but the process of industrialization continued. During the twentieth century industry was shaped by scientists like Frederick Winslow Taylor, who devised measurable methods of business management designed to produce top levels of efficiency. The best-known follower of "Taylorism" was Henry Ford, who began to mass produce affordable automobiles in 1909. The Great Depression (1929–41) and World War II (1939–45) both had profound effects on American industrialism, causing government controls and assistance to individuals to increase even more. In recent decades, computers and globalism have been the active agents of change in U.S. industrialism.

Finally, it is worthwhile to note that the development of U.S. industrialization is not finished. It took more than one hundred years for the United States to transform from a farming society to an industrial world power. Adjusting to industrialism has already taken up another century and will continue for many years to come.

Sonia G. Benson