The Early Industrialization of America: "From Wharf to Waterfall"

In our disenchantment with an increasingly mechanistic age, we often look back at our self-sufficient rural past with nostalgic longing. We tend to forget the back-breaking drudgery of existence, the lack of choice in food, clothing, and careers that faced the colonial settlers. Human beings have always been technological animals, expertise in the application of knowledge and skill is one of the many aspects of humanness, but there are some periods in history when technology surges ahead, changing the lives of everyone around it. Such a period occurred in America simultaneously with the political birth of the nation. The first hundred years of Unites States history saw social, scientific, and technological transformations so far-reaching that they can indeed be called revolutionary. This primary source portfolio presents the early industrialization of America, its ingenuity and daring, its exploitation and reward, as America struggled to gain economic independence and political stability. Included is a Study Guide with reproducible student activities. 5 Illustrated Broadsheet Essays: * Patriotism with Profit * Dollars and Sense * Many Revolutions * "Bone and Sinew" * Web of Communications 12 Primary Source Documents: * Subscription agreement to the Incorporation of the Middlesex Canal, September 2nd, 1793 * A letter from Samuel Slater to his employer, William Almy, August 19, 1795 * Oliver Evans's design for a fully automated grist mill, 1794, and his Columbian Steam Engine, 1804 * A letter from Eli Whitney to Decius Wadsworth, Commissary of Ordnance, August 9, 1814 * Two pages from the Thomas Hurd Mill Wages Book of 1827 * Amoskeag Mill Regulations, Manchester, New Hampshire, 1859 * A mechanic's certificate awarded to Amos Dow by the Amoskeag Mills, 1871 * A broadside, "Enlarge the Canals!" probably New York, 1832 * Maps showing the principal canals, railroads, and highways in 1840 and 1860 * "Steamship Savannah / The First Ocean Steamer," from Gleason's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion, Boston, May 20, 1854 * A certificate for nine shares of stock in the California Petroleum Company, 1865 * "Contributions to Technology," a picture sheet