The Industrial Revolution and the Railroads

To understand how an invention that postdated the onset of the Industrial Revolution became the key to industrial success, it is instructive to consider the status of industry prior to the revolutionary stage. In a curious way, the promise of the railroads for strengthening the force of multiple changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution is centered not in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries but rather as early as the ancient period. Roman sea power, combined with well-engineered roadways, were vital to its economic, military, and trade strength. Rome's reach extended northward up the boot of Italy and into the Continent, and as far as Britain (Vialls, 1982).

With the decline of Rome maintenance of the transportation network declined, and stone paving for roads was appropriated for local building purposes. Thus transportation between settlements became difficult, and settlements became insular pockets of activity consistent with the emergence

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Fremdling, 1977). That would help explain why stagecoaches were used to transport goods and passengers from the late 1850s through the 1860s and why the Pony Express began as late as 1860 (Fradkin, 2002). Only after 1850 did more or less systematic development of infrastructure-scale U.S. railroads occur. Meanwhile, America's Industrial Revolution was proceeding apace. In 1834 Cyrus McCormick and Obed Hussey invented mechanized harvesters, which transformed agriculture much as interchangeable parts had transformed manufacture and steam had transformed locomotion. Cotton development in the South created demand for working livestock and farm products from the Northwest Territories (Howard, 1972; Moody, 1921). Yet rail construction was not exactly systematic. The whole matter was complicated by rival political and economic interests, although events and successful technology overtook them: "Opposed initially by the canal supporters, who were fearful of its competition, the rail industry by 1850 had brought a new dimension to U.S. life" (Wren, 2005, p. 83). That dimension was speed. By 1850 the fact that railroads would eclipse canals in shipping and transportation was inescapable. Government subsidy facilitated (however tardily) ca
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Approximate Word count = 2831
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)