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The developments in transportation changed the American economy and society from 1820 to 1860 in ways of an increased land value, faster traded goods, new cities, and a deeper sense of nationalism. Before these changes came about, the US economy and society was based on an agrarian setting. After this time frame, American Society turned into a capitalist marketplace. In the northern US, there were few changes in terms of industry because they were involved in an industrial revolution. However, the new Transportation Revolution blasted the West into an agricultural empire that provided consumable exports to the other parts of the country. New technology regarding transportation changed the economy in terms of reduced land cost, more exports, and cheaper modes of travel. One of the worst ways to travel before 1790 was by wagon: the crude roads were bumpy, it was slow, and altogether transportation was unpleasant for the travellers. This was unappealing to many settlers, which explains why there was minimum westward movement from the Appalachian Mountains. This was felt in the bones of a private company who then built the Philadelphia-Lancaster Turnpike, named so for the spikes that would turn after a traveller paid his or her toll. Although paved roads were expensive, state governments and some individuals paid for them. The new roads enticed settlers to go …show more content…
Canals, steamboats, and railroads allowed for faster travel of exports and the creation of bigger cities. The invention of the Pony Express, specialized regions, and infrastructure permitted Americans to keep in touch over long distances and the creation of market towns, which inspired a deep, national connection from all corners of the country. The giant leap made by the Transportation Revolution changed America greatly in ways of their economy and
The changes in American agriculture was molded by three key factors, economic change, government policy and technology, in the period of 1865-1900.Technology helped facilitated production of good as well as their transportation. Farmers were able to produce more goods, yet they overproduced and it resulted in economic hardship for them. They could not afford to export goods through the rail roads high rates, and led to clashing with the government, for the lack of support. Such factors resulted in change of American agriculture.
The Pony Express helped the two coasts connect. It traveled to St.Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento ,California. The mail system was the fastest at that period in time. It was faster than stagecoaches and steamboats. Traveling across the country in ten days or less depending on the distance. With four-hundred fast horses, one-hundred and ninety stations, and about eighty riders. People could connect with loved ones who have moved or tell important people about wars coming, or news about the government. The Pony Express helped people get the word travel faster than it ever has before.
The growth of agriculture and railroads in Texas and in the United States helped form our economy today. Railroads today pass through a lot of Texas, and even in big cities like Houston or Dallas. Since there are so many farms and open farmland (especially in south and west Texas), railroads can carry the produce and livestock to their destination. James Watt invented the first steam engine in about 1769, and from then on, railroads were a must for transportation, since cars had yet to be invented. Railroads began to be built before the Civil War. It originally took about 6 months to get from the west of the US to the east, but now it only took 7 days. With railroads expanding all across the country, agriculture was affected in a mostly positive way. Now, crops and other goods could be transported by train anywhere in the US, and fast.
Between 1865 and 1900 technology, economic conditions, and government policy influenced American Agriculture greater than it ever had before. Technologically, Railroads, factories, and farm equipment changed American agriculture by allowing the production of farmed goods to be increased substantially, while economic conditions caused the prices of these goods to go down and then fluctuate. Farmers hurting from the economic disarray began influencing the laws being passed to help them in their economic troubles. Because of the influence of technology, government policy, and economic conditions between the 1865 and 1900 American agriculture was affected.
From 1865 to 1900, technology transformed the United States during the period known as the Gilded Age. During this time, the lives of the American people ultimately changed, for many Americans, including farmers, were able to share better food, yield more land, and help contribute to the overall standard of living. However, in order to attain a profit, farmers had the precarious responsibility of gathering the essential tools and crops to meet the nation’s demands. As a result, more raw materials, such as wood were being consumed in factories. In order to uphold the continuum of the vast growing nation, there was a demand for faster and easier means of transportation.
As the need of human transportation and various forms of cargo began to rise in the United States of America, a group of railroads with terminal connections along the way began to form across the land mass of this country, ending with the result of one of the most influential innovations in American history, allowing trade to flow easily from location to location, and a fast form of transportation, named the Transcontinental Railroad.
Railroads opened new areas as settlement and stimulated the mining and manufacture. At the same time, the telegraph appeared. It brought uniform price of the country. Because of these improvements, many people migrated to west. The market revolution and westward expansion heightened the nation’s sectional divisions. The most dynamic feature of the American economy in the beginning of the nineteenth century was the rise of the Cotton Kingdom. But the increasing demand of cotton lead to larger number of slaves. For white people, westward expansion was a chance to get more freedom, but for black people, it means that they would have less freedom and their families will be broken. In the north, Market Revolution turned it to commercial system. Farmers focus on producing crops and livestocks. In some industries, the factory superseded traditional craft production. Both men and women could earn money by taking jobs from factories. Market Revolution changed the time concept of Americans. In cities, time of work and relax is divided clearly. Early New England textile mills largely relied on female and child labor.
When discussing change in the late 1800’s a few things come to mind, but the progression of capitalism was a major catalyst for most of them. Capitalism is an economic system of free market. It promotes private or corporate ownership of goods from investments based upon price, production, and distribution of goods. This new idea tended to promise wealth and stability, but when the distinction between the working lower class and bourgeoisie became more evident, people were irritated. Capitalism began to exploit the greed in man and bring fear to the strongest of wills. Many dreamed of this as the golden age of man kind and saw new prosperity as a benefit for all “for how could there be greed when all had enough.”(George, p.21) Poverty spread through the working class like disease and forced millions of Americans to fight for survival. In a trip to Chicago Rudyard Kipling furiously describes the dreary, money driven conditions that consumed the earth, water, and air. “I spent ten hours in that huge wilderness, wandering through scores of miles of these terrible streets, and jostling some few hundred thousand of these terrible people who talked money through their noses....
The transcontinental railroad would eventually become a symbol of much-needed unity, repairing the sectionalism that had once divided the nation during the Civil War. The construction of the transcontinental railroad was also an extension of the transportation revolution. Once commodities such as gold were found in the western half of America, many individuals decided to move themselves and their families out west in search of opportunity. Not only did the railroad help to transport people, but it also it allowed for goods to be delivered from companies in the east. In the end, the American transcontinental railroad created a national market, enabling mass production, and stimulated industry, while greatly impacting American society through stimulated immigration and urbanization.
The years after the civil war left one half of America, the north, satisfied and the other half, the south, mostly dissatisfied. Therefore the last third of the nineteenth century, 1865-1900, was a time period in which America was mending, repairing, improving, reshaping, and reconstructing its society, economy, culture, and policies. Basically it was changing everything it stood for. This continual change can be seen in the following events that took place during this time. These events are both causes and effects of why America is what it is today. These are some examples: the reconstruction of the south, the great movement towards the west, the agricultural revolution, the rise of industrialism, the completion of the transcontinental railroad, and America's growth to gaining world power. All of these are reasons and events that characterize America as being an ever-changing nation.
The development of canal, steam boats and railroads provided a transportation network that linked different regions of the nation together. When farmers began migrating westward and acquiring land for crops, cheaper forms of transportation provided the means to transfer their goods to other regions for s...
American had an economy based on manual labour which was replaced by one dominated by industry and the manufacture of machinery. It began with the expansion of the textile industries and the development of iron-making techniques, and trade expansion was enabled by the introduction of canals, improved roads and railways.
The Erie Canal created what was the first reliable transportation system, connecting the eastern seaboard (New York) and the western interior (Great Lakes) of the United States that did not require on land travel. Along with making water routes faster then travel on land it also cut costs of travel by 95 percent. The canal started a population surge in western New York, and opened regions farther west to settlement. This was the start of New York City becoming the chief U.S. port.
The rising of the market economy occurred between the end of the War of 1812 and the Civil War. It was a time of uprising for Americans of the United States. There were changes in the vast improvement in transportation, the growth of factories, and there were important developments of new technology that increased agricultural production. Americans advanced into new areas and produced an agricultural surplus that went to market farming. In the nineteenth century, manufacturing was the most important factor because it brought about industrialization. The expansion of both economic and technological advances also brought about the changes in American society. The growth and eventual dominance of market capitalism in the United States changed the lives of all Americans fundamentally. The Market Revolution and the rise of market capitalism influenced the working class because of new inventions, like the cotton gin, and it encouraged farmers to raise more cotton in the South, and brought people in the North greater opportunities in the work field.
The Market Revolution transformed various aspects of American society because of the development of new inventions, ideologies, and lifestyles. From 1790 to 1840, the improvement of national transportation methods, the commercialization of the American market system, and the beginning of industrialization fostered the Market Revolution and affected the country economically, socially, and even religiously. The Industrial Revolution occurred in Western European countries such as France, England and Germany beginning in 1760 and completely altered the European market, workplace, and society by the time the inventions and technological ideas diffused into the United States. In 1791, Alexander Hamilton expressed “the necessity of enlarging the sphere of our domestic commerce”1 and therefore supported and funded American industries. With the help of the government, the Market Revolution initiated the expansion of the marketplace due to the connection of distant communities, such as western cities with seaboard cities, for the first time due to the advances in infrastructure. This would cause the shift away from local and regional markets to national and international markets abroad. The Market Revolution changed aspects of American life such as labor, transportation, commercialization, family life, new values produced by evangelical religion, sentimentalism, and transcendentalism, and the birth of the new middle class from 1790 to 1840.