Industrialization During The Progressive Era
Industrialization During The Progressive Era
Industrialization changed the lives of many, including immigrants and the working class in the United States. As a result of industrialization, many Americans were drawn to cities since that is where most of the industrial reform took place. This obviously created more jobs and became a major advantage for the working class, especially immigrants. Once people started industrializing and saw the tremendous positive effects they continued in the same fashion with bright ideas and kept the economy flowing in the right direction.
There were many benefits of this progressive revolution. Among the benefits were specialization and mass production of different products ranging from clothes and textiles to agricultural goods and the processing of natural resources. Industrialization also promoted independence of the nation as a whole. We were no longer as dependent on Europe and other countries for capital and goods. The United States gradually became a key exporting nation.
Other positive changes included the availability of mass transportation and a very influential economic state. Mass transportation subdivided cities by creating a real means of getting around and sure enough helped businesses in corporate America. The economic change helped bring human and economic resources together within the cities. Together these two co-existing forces finally created a decent sense of organization in a country which was in desperate need of some whether people realized it or not.
With the reforms came challenges. The biggest problem was for citizens and immigrants of different backgrounds to find some common ground and work together as one big organized unified effort to promote stability, peace and real progression of the nation. Maybe that’s when the saying “easier said than done” was created because this era epitomized it as good as any. As much as idealists wanted for the American population to become a “melting pot,” it was not happening. People had their own philosophical views and immigrants felt the need to preserve their culture and keep their identities for themselves and their children. For the most part, no matter how hard native-born citizens tried to Americanize immigrants, these newcomers would not allow for themselves forget their roots.
This new experience and the needs of people itself called for further changes to meet the demands of this diverse population. Such changes included housing reform, improvement of...