Page 334 - American Stories, A History of the United States

Watch the Video Mastering Time and Space: how the Railroads changed America 13.1

13.2

RAilRoAdS Railroads began to spread across the United states in the early 1830s, slowly at first and then
more rapidly, growing from zero in 1830 to three thousand miles in 1840, to nine thousand miles of railroad
track in 1850.

Private capital did not fully meet the needs of the early railroad barons. State
and local governments, convinced that railroads were the key to their prosperity,
loaned them money, bought their stock, and guaranteed their bonds. Despite the
dominant philosophy of laissez-faire, the federal government surveyed the routes of Quick Check
projected lines and provided land grants. In 1850, for example, the Illinois Central What new political and financial
was granted millions of acres of public land. Forty companies received such aid arrangements emerged to
before 1860, setting a precedent for the massive post–Civil War land grants to the encourage the growth of the
railroads. railroads?

the industrial Revolution takes Off
While railroads were revolutionizing transportation, American industry was growing
rapidly. The factory mode of production, which had originated before 1840 in the cot-
ton mills of New England, was extended to other products (see Chapter 9). Instead of
being done in different locations, wool was woven and processed in single production
units beginning in the 1830s. By 1860, some of the largest textile mills in the country
were producing wool cloth. In eastern Pennsylvania, iron was being forged and rolled
in factories by 1850. The industries producing firearms, clocks, and sewing machines
also adopted the factory system during this period.

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