New+Economy+and+Technological+Changes+Summary

During the **Market Revolution**, the economy underwent a significant development due to major technological changes, which all relate to Americans trying to improve their financial system. A majority of these technological changes were an effort to improve the **infrastructure** in America. Before the Market revolution, little changes were made to roads, sailboats, and the way that people manufactured materials. Roads, steamboats, and Railroads were built, decreasing the cost of travel and **transportation**. These benefits changed the economy by making it easier for businesses to sell their products. Before the Market Revolution, things were done very slowly and inefficiently because the only way that people knew how to manufacture goods was to have skilled craftsmen produce them. With the advantage of factories, the economy improved dramatically. The improvements in infrastructure during the Market Revolution gave the Americans an advantage in transportation and **communication**, compared to their previous lack of communications. The **Cumberland road** was built, along with other roads allowing horse drawn carriages to travel faster and further. The Cumberland Road stretched from Maryland to Illinois. It was a series of turnpikes, which had tolls that funded either the roads or the government, who originally funded the building of the roads. The addition of the **Erie** **Canal** was another major improvement in transportation. It was America’s largest man-made waterway. Goods were now able to travel from the great lakes to New York City, creating a key port for trade and manufacturing. **Steamboats** would carry the goods across the canal. Steamboats made transporting goods upstream possible. **Railroads** such as the Baltimore and the Ohio railroads were also built in order to make traveling cheaper and more efficient. They connected the lower Midwest to the Northeast. The **telegraph** **system** was the major technological change improving communication. All of these improvements were decreasing the cost of transportation and made shipping more efficient, improving the economy. The introduction of **factories** gave Americans the ability to manufacture through a new system called **capitalism**. Through this new system, wealthy investors paid for and profited from the factories. New machinery such as the **cotton** **gin**, which was one of the first mass production devices, was built to increase the amount of materials that could be built or manufactured in a shorter amount of time. It was a water-powered textile production system. Capitalism was growing rapidly due to the **division of labor**, which produced a working class. Many workers were employed for low wages. Farming also became more efficient with the deployment of horse-driven steel plows, and mechanical wheat mowers. Iron manufacturing was also a large industry during the introduction of capitalism. Capitalism transformed the economy by shifting the profit from the hands of the government to wealthy individuals. Bibliography: "market revolution." //American History//. ABC-CLIO, 2009. Web. 2 Nov. 2009. . Foner, Eric. __Give Me Liberty! An American History__. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009