Influential People during the Industrial Revolution

1204 Words3 Pages

America reaped great benefits from the new wave of Industrialization during the 1890’s. There was an abundance of advanced, new technologies that made large-scale production easier and more achievable. These new factories produced more goods than ever before, and they were open to the middle-class. Yet this modernization was not all for the best, with the result being a decent amount of civil unrest. There were large issues with immigration. Everyday, there were thousands of Europeans who were coming to America looking for work. Despite the fact that the working conditions were awful and the wages weren’t much better, they were better than the work overseas. There was also the rising issue of anarchists becoming more and more of a problem as they were becoming more vocal. The worker’s strikes also contributed to some of the chaos of the Industrialization period. Strikes soon turned violent as the strikes came one after the other. Unemployment numbers continued to grow as the capitalists slowly grew richer. People such as Theodore Roosevelt, Jane Addams and Edward Bellamy and his followers each had different opinions with that what was wrong with industrialized America and how to fix it. Theodore Roosevelt rose to his power of influence over the course of many years. It started off during the Spanish-American war, when he commanded a group of volunteer cavalry known as the Rough Riders. From his triumphs in at the Battle of San Juan Hill and the rest of the war, Roosevelt’s popularity quickly escalated. Shortly thereafter, he became the governor of New York. The Republican Party, however, grew quickly concerned with Roosevelt’s ascension to both fame and power. This was entirely due to the fact that Roosevelt had a very different... ... middle of paper ... ...mount of goods being produced daily. During this time, however, there were a great deal of thinkers and important political people who heavily influenced the America people. People such as Theodore Roosevelt, Edward Bellamy and his followers and Jane Addams changed the landscape of America by successfully understanding what was wrong with the new Industrial America and how to go about fixing it. In their own ways, each individual contributed a great deal to the American society, as they helped advanced it on its path of becoming what it is today. Works Cited Foner, Eric. "The Progressive Era." In Give me liberty!: an American history. Seagull Fourth ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2014. 709-710; 715. Rauchway, Eric. "Killer Anarchism." In Murdering McKinley: the making of Theodore Roosevelt's America. New York: Hill and Wang, 2004. 93-95; 133-138; 168-170 .

Open Document