Question

The Second Industrial Revolution in the United States was a time of immense change. What were the three most important factors that caused this economic and social revolution in the United States?

Answer 1

Answer) The second industrial revolution also referred to as technological revolution in the U.S. was at its extreme between 1870 and 1914. The three major factors that contributed towards its occurrence are:

1) Huge stock of natural resources: the availability of natural resources in large quantities helped extensively in providing cheap raw materials to the existing and new emerging industries.

2) Abundance of labour supply: it helped in keeping up with the demand for labour by various industries at a cheap rate.

3) Strong government policies: these policies helped in transformation of the U.S. from primarily an agrarian state to an industrialized nation which promoted rapid growth in the America.

Other factors include; new power sources, emergence of great inventions in the America and immigration (as a surge in people coming overseas brought with them new ideas) etc.

The economic impacts of this revolution included tremendous growth rates, improved infrastructure (for example, transport system which helped in connecting every localized community to rail roads which enabled opening up of newer markets for farmers), fall in both production costs and prices which led to an increase in productivity of labours such that the production process became more efficient and the overall output in the rapidly expanding industries increased.

As far as the social impact of the second industrial revolution is concerned, it helped in decrease in unemployment rate (since, greater population could be absorbed in industries than in agriculture), rapid urbanization with more and more people building houses in close proximity with the factories which also led to an increase in standard of living.

Overall, the second industrial revolution proved to be a great blessing for the the U.S. population with every event bringing up new opportunities and hence, creating an environment for rapidly increasing growth, both socially and economically.