Emerging from ConflictSo many changes have occurred in just 20 years that America is almost an entirely different place. The biggest change, of course, is the mighty rise of industrialism, built on iron and fueled by coal. Cities are no longer limited to a few deep-water harbors, but have now blossomed at every major rail hub. Industry has moved in everywhere, with immigrants providing the manpower, and railroads providing access to markets. Many Americans are still streaming west, as others are beginning to leave the farm to move to nearby cities. Some miners are searching for riches in isolated western mountains, but elsewhere the new trend is mobility. |
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Bigger and Stronger The most obvious change since 1850 is the size of the country. California has been a state since 1850, but completely isolated on the Pacific coast. Railroads have now bridged the gap, and steam power has arrived in San Francisco. The great coal fields (GRAY) are located within easy reach of almost every state east of the prairie. Indians, meanwhile, have been largely corralled onto reservations across the West (BROWN highlights), though not all have yet been subdued. The US Army, which is no longer needed to suppress Rebels, will soon be sent west to finish this job. | |||||||||
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More Smokestacks As manufacturing activities mushroom, corporations continue to grow in number and diversity (top left). Land companies are second only to railroads, while corporations are now being formed to erect grand hotels and meeting halls. Cities find they need companies to supply gas (converted from coal) and water. Finance is also growing as a sector, with insurance companies overtaking banks. Meanwhile, railroads are consuming huge amounts of iron, for everything from locomotives to wheels on passenger and freight cars. By the 1870s, factories like the Colt Armory in Connecticut (lower right) are being constructed from the ground up to run on steam power. Unlike previous hand-crafted products, the Colt 45 revolver is almost completely machine-made. | |||||||||
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Still Racing West This map shows growth. The brightest BLUE highlights indicate regions with the highest growth rate. RED areas are actually shrinking in population, dramatically so in some areas of the Deep South. This continues a trend that began decades earlier, but the effects now are more pronounced. Notice all the red running in a broad diagonal band from Ohio down to Louisiana. There are areas that were showing strong growth just 20 years earlier. But now, the rush into cheap western land has become a frenzy, stoked in large part by new railroad companies pushing past established population centers. But the limits to growth are already starting to become apparent, as new settlers in Nebraska need to sink deep wells just to get fresh water (lower right). | |||||||||
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Getting Bigger 1870 marks the middle of a transition from small-town America to the emerging urban landscape. Most towns are still small, with a single main street (top left). In the Midwest, there are few towns of any size. Most letters are addressed to a county, rather than a town. Missouri, for instance, has only six cities with a population greater than 5,000, which is the lower limit for a city in US Census data. The county seat, which usually contains little more than the county courthouse and a few county offices, is often the only real town in the county. Entire counties in Missouri typically contain just 15,000 residents, with a county seat inhabited by perhaps 500. Meanwhile, real cities continue to grow rapidly. Washington now has 130,000 residents (bottom right). | |||||||||
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Enjoying Life Entertainment and 'leisure' are still fairly new concepts in America during the 1870s. The largest cities have luxury hotels (bottom left) which host gala events, but neighborhood theaters have more limited entertainment. Shining brighter than anything else is P.T. Barnum's 'Greatest Show on Earth.' Barnum (center) is America's first grand empresario of entertainment, who blends grand spectacle with variety show. It tours the country as a traveling circus, menagerie and museum of freaks. | |||||||||