Industrialization is the widespread development of profitmaking
businesses that manufacture products on a large
scale, using labor-saving machinery. Understanding the history
of the development of industrialization in the United
States, which took place over two centuries, involves learning
about some of its technical elements, such as technology and
the economy. But the history of U.S. industrialism is also a
dramatic story of people rising and falling from power or
struggling desperately to make the world a better place.
Industrialization fueled the national culture, economy,
daily life, and politics, creating such tremendous social
changes that it is impossible to imagine what life in the
United States would be like without it.