Urbanization In America

In the early 19th century, America’s economy was primarily agrarian, consisting mostly of farmers and tradespeople. However, as the nation progressed into the mid 1800s, a market economy began to emerge. Urbanization was able to increase due to the decline of agriculture in the Northeast, where the soil was unable to sustain further cultivation. Although some farmers moved westward into richer land, more and more people continued to flood into cities in search of work. Altogether, many different factors led to the rapid industrialization of the United States. Prior to the Civil War, the American industry was able to undergo immense growth due to the improvements in technology, the increase in the national population, and the development of
Earlier in the century, the boom in the population was due to improvements in public sanitation, which decreased epidemics and thus led to a decline in mortality rates. Immigration also became a significant contributor to the increase in population after 1830. Immigrants, most of whom were of Irish and German descent, flooded into America in search of work in unskilled labor, providing America with a large recruitable work source. As people, both natives and immigrants, moved into the cities, urbanization began to rapidly expand. The factory system relied heavily on the supply of labor, which included women within the Lowell System, and later on, immigrants. When immigrants became the primary source of labor, working conditions quickly deteriorated, and soon employers began paying piece rates, wages tied to how much a worker produced, to increase production. The population boom of the United States during the first half of the 19th century was tied directly to the rapid industrialization of the nation, as the larger population provided a greater supply of labor, thus allowing manufacturing to progress and
The new generation of bold and daring entrepreneurs was one of the reasons for this change. However, the most important cause was the change in laws that removed the legal obstacles which had previously discouraged groups from forming corporations. While before, a corporation needed to obtain a charter through state legislature, incorporation laws now required a small fee for groups to receive a charter. Another law that also facilitated the development of corporations was the system of limited liability, which meant that investors would not lose anything greater than their investments. The new corporations that rose from these new laws allowed the nation to accumulate more money, therefore leading to greater manufacturing and