Was US industrial success built on resources or people?

The short answer

• A continent of resources. Pennsylvania's coalfields and the Lake Superior iron ranges appear as hatched patches on the map; their resources fed Pittsburgh's industry. Coal, iron ore, copper and oil were present in some of the world's largest deposits. Vast forests and farmland, taken from Native American nations by treaty and war, added to this abundance. Cheap materials encouraged technologies that consumed them freely, making American industry especially hungry for energy and resources.
• A huge protected market. A large plant needs many buyers. The American population grew from about 31 million in 1860 to 92 million in 1910, and railways connected those buyers without taxes on trade between states. Manufacturers could spread the costs of enormous plants across millions of customers. They also benefited from protection against British and German competitors. High tariffs, or taxes on imports, rose during the Civil War and remained afterward. This was the kind of shelter for young industries that the German economist Friedrich List had recommended for Germany.
• Immigrant and coerced labour. Mines, mills and railways drew workers from Europe, China, Mexico and the American countryside, often at low wages and in dangerous conditions. Immigration kept wages lower than they otherwise would have been, though they remained higher than in Europe and continued to attract migrants. In the South, Black people freed from slavery grew cotton that remained a leading export; debt and segregation constrained their lives and work.
• Capital, organisation and the state. Building railroads required money before the lines could earn it. British and European investors supplied capital, while federal loans and land grants reduced companies' risks. Railroads also pioneered firms managed by salaried employees. Alfred Chandler called their coordination the visible hand: managers planned activities previously coordinated by markets. Steel, oil and meat firms copied the organization. Government affected the distribution of gains as well. Courts and officials generally sided with employers, issuing injunctions—court orders banning strikes—and sending troops. Such support helped hold down labor costs and maintain profits, creating conditions in which private enterprise could flourish.

What it changed

America overtakes Britain. American steel output passed Britain's around 1886; by 1913 the United States made about a third of the world's manufactured goods. Its production methods traveled beyond its borders. In the twentieth century Europe and Japan adopted interchangeable parts—standard components that fit any copy of a product—and the assembly line. Americans, earning the world's highest wages, became the first mass market for cars and electrical goods. The lead in mass production had crossed the Atlantic from Britain's workshop of the world.

Grain and migrants remake Europe. From the 1870s railways and steamships delivered cheap American grain to Europe. Lower bread prices helped workers, but many farmers were ruined and millions of rural Europeans were pushed to emigrate. Germany and France protected farmers with tariffs on imported grain; Britain maintained free trade and allowed its farming to shrink. Ships and railways carried grain east and migrants west, linking the two changes.

The labour question goes national. At Homestead in 1892 strikers fought off guards from the Pinkerton detective agency, but Pennsylvania's state militia broke the strike. Federal troops broke the Pullman railway-car strike in 1894. Such confrontations made corporate power a national political question. Progressive Era reformers in the 1900s and 1910s sought to curb that power. Laws addressed monopolies, firms dominating a whole market, and unsafe food; states restricted child labor, while unions grew slowly. Political action had become part of the response to industrial power.