Presidential Biographies | Wilson Administrations - Domestic Issues

Domestic Issues

The United States was changing more rapidly in the early decades of the twentieth century than ever before. National wealth doubled between 1890 and 1900, as the United States rapidly shifted from an agricultural to an industrial economy. Between 1900 and 1913 exports leaped from $1.2 billion to $2.4 billion, with manufactured goods rising from 35 percent of this total to nearly 50 percent. A nation that had not long before been almost entirely agricultural was now the world's largest producer of coal, iron, and steel.

The tremendous changes in the U.S. economy had equally enormous social consequences. Americans flooded from their farms in the country to seek employment at urban factories, and were joined by huge numbers of immigrants from Europe. This led to overcrowding in the cities, and desolation and unrest in rural areas. In business itself, the rise of industrial capitalism and finance had led to the...