The Industrial Revolution was overall good for the United States. Our willingness and capacity to invest in factories and state-of-the-art equipment made the United States a wealthy and prosperous country. In fact, it led to us becoming the largest economy in the world and a very powerful nation in the twentieth century. It also improved life for the average person and allowed many ordinary people to enter the middle class.
The United States is a resource rich country, which means we didn't have to take the path of industrialism. We could have done what often happens in Africa, which is for a small elite running the country to sell our natural resources to other countries, then use the money to buy luxury good for themselves. This has been called the curse of resources. This reliance on selling resources leaves the bulk of the population in poverty.
The Industrial Revolution was...
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not without its problems. Until labor law and government policy caught up with the realities of the industrial system, many people were exploited, forced to work for very low wages in often dangerous conditions. Up until 1938, it was legal too to employ young children in cotton mills and other industries. However, once these problems were solved and once restraints were put on environmental hazards, industrialism worked out to be a boon for the American people.
The answer to this is, of course, a matter of opinion. There is no objective way to determine whether an event is good or bad for a country. In this answer, I will list ways in which the Industrial Revolution seems to have hurt the US and ways in which it seems to have helped. You can determine for yourself which set of impacts outweighs the other.
The Industrial Revolution clearly helped the United States in economic terms. It definitely helped the country get richer. Without industrialization, the US would not have had a nation-wide railroad system. Without industrialization it would never have had all the automobiles and airplanes it now has. Without industrialization, the US would never have been able to mass produce all sorts of consumer goods. Industrialization allows a country to make more goods and to make them less expensively than they were made before industrialization.
On the other hand, we can say that the Industrial Revolution harmed the US in other ways. For example, industrialization has harmed the environment. Industrialization led to polluted air and water. It has now, apparently, led to global warming. It has led to the destruction of a great deal of animal habitat as the country has expanded and people have taken over places that used to be wild. As another example, we might say that industrialization has harmed the social fiber of the country. People used to live in small towns where they knew everyone else well. People cared about one another and took care of one another. Today, we live in large cities where we do not even know our neighbors. We no longer feel the same connection to other people that we felt in simpler times.
So, which impact is more important in your opinion? Would the US be better-off if it were poorer and less populated, but with a cleaner environment and more social cohesion? Is the US better-off now with the world that industrialization has created? Your answer to this will tell you whether you think the Industrial Revolution was good or bad for the United States.
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