Influence of Industrial Revolution on American Art
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The industrial revolution took permanent hold in the United States around 1850 and its influence on American art is felt to the present day. But this influence was quite diffuse and ranged from direct responses to the changing nature of American society to the ability of new wealth to support styles of art that took little cognizance of anything as mundane as industry. In the second half of the nineteenth century America was transformed by its rise to immense power and wealth from a middling nation with limited influence to its twentieth-century position as a world leader. In domestic terms the growth of industry signaled the start of great waves of immigration that changed the ethnic makeup of the young country and it heightened the contrast between agrarian and urban economies that had been a source of conflict since the time of Jefferson. In international terms the brash new confidence of Americans covered some insecurity about their upstart status but also stood for the growing belief that America could now pursue what was best in Old World culture and adapt it to its own purposes. The very limiting, self-conscious nationalism of the Jacksonian era had the tentative feel of a people unsure of what it meant to be Americans. But after the Civil War American identity was increasingly defined in relation to the country's seemingly unlimited potential for economic and territorial growth. The conflicts engendered by new conceptions of American identity (along with the n
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loyment, a growing immigrant population, and totally inadequate social, health, and educational services" (Baigell 98). Blythe exposed these problems in urban scenes that went strongly against the current taste for placid genre scenes that disguised the growing evils of industrialism. And he was nearly alone in this.
The Civil War proved to be a turning point. But the increase in wealth meant more opportunities for the arts without engendering greater criticism of industrialism's effects. Horrible as it was the war was very good for American industry. The war "brought wealth to a growing class of people interested in an urbane life-style with ample room for the arts, especially painting" (Morgan 3).
Postwar industrialization, despite periods of recession and a serious economic depression, was an unprecedented case of economic growth. In the decades after the war railroads increased from 60,000 to 165,000 miles of track, the production of anthracite coal went jumped from 11 million to 57 million tons, and petroleum production, at half a million barrels in 1860, reached 63 million by 1890. The potential of the frontier was being realized as Kansas, for example, went from empty territory to the major producer of corn for t
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1859
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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