Much later, a wave of industrialization spread across the United States. Historians sometimes refer to this as the ‘Second Industrial Revolution’ or the ‘Technological Revolution.’ Prior to this era, more than 90% of the population was engaged in agriculture and lived in rural settings.
Industrialization changed various aspects of society. Increasing percentages of the population lived in cities: urbanization. Transportation and food-preserving techniques reduced the ability of a poor harvest to cause starvation. Standards of living, especially for the lower and middle classes, improved, as mass-produced goods fell in price.
Modern sewage and drinking-water systems improved public health. Specialization of the labor force made both skilled and unskilled labor more productive, which in turn improved wages.
Although the original Industrial Revolution included instances of child labor, the Second Industrial Revolution decreased child labor and replaced it with more years of childhood education.
The middle class expanded as upward mobility created opportunities for the lower class to increase their wages and join the middle class. As historian Tanya Lee Stone writes,
In the late 1800s, millions of Americans left small towns and farming areas to move to cities, where workers were needed more than ever before. Of course, they had to have places to life.
People were drawn to factory towns because they could earn better wages than they had earned on farms. Industrialization created opportunities.
The technological revolution meant that even the lower classes would obtain benefits like telephones and electric lights. Even the working classes could travel by train instead of long, uncomfortable trips on horseback or on a horse-drawn wagon.
A small number of wealthy people began to buy as much land as they could and build houses and apartments buildings. They charged people fees, or rent, to live there.
The real benefit of industrialization was the increase of wealth. The landowners received more money in the form of rent paid to them. The workers received increasing wages and could buy consumer goods at decreasing prices. The remaining farmers earned more because, as some people the farms to move to factory towns, the other farmers could farm larger areas of land and get more money when they sold their harvests.
As machinery for agriculture developed, one individual farmer could farm more land.
All the people in society can benefit when wealth is increased. If the system is a free-market system, then not only the rich, but also the middle class and lower class people have chances to earn better wages.
Not everyone was happy about this prosperity. Some people hoped to create unrest and conflict, so they began calling the rich people of this era ‘robber barons.’ They said that these factory owners were inflicting misery on the poor.
But the working class didn’t believe that the factory owners were so bad. The workers were experiencing rising wages and increasing standards of living, and they were paying lower prices for the products they wanted. So the factory workers didn’t want to organize a rebellion against the factory owners.
In the years between approximately 1870 and 1920, all social classes in the United States experienced rising standards of living. The economic foundation created during these decades helped the United States face the challenges of the 20th century.
