Apart from the social injustices, the progression and good far outweighed the bad. It was two steps forward and one step back while the economic effects were one huge leap forward and a just as big step back. There were more than a handful of inventions and discoveries that revolutionized American society, led to urban sprawl, made tasks exponentially easier, and were the centerpiece for recreation. Cars were mass produced and people decided to live outside the cities and take vacations more frequently. They produced many new jobs with the need for new roads since the American landscape was drastically expanding.
Which was the next key point of the chapter. It was due to diseases being less common thousands of immigrants came to the new world. By the eighteenth century, growth in non-European immigrants grew dramatically. Germans were the most common of the new immigrants. As well, religious diversity in the colonies was greater than in Britain.
A single factory might hire thousands of workers. These jobs brought people to the cities. Third, the factory system allowed ordinary Americans to own all kinds of things. There were more goods to buy, and they became cheaper as methods of manufacturing continued to improve. For example, the first cars were so expensive that only rich people could afford to buy them but cars became cheaper when Ford invented the moving assembly line and the work went faster.
This was of obvious importance because they had more citizens to defend their side of the war. The North’s population totaled to a rounded estimation of 22 million people, while the South only had the quivering 9 million. Another important advantage of the Union included the fact that they had 70% of the nation’s railroads. This was hugely beneficial because railroad, at the time, was the fastest means of transportation. This transportation could have easily included people, but more importantly: weapons.
Waterways were also a way for transportation, to cut out a lot of land, and cut out time. Waterways are a faster way for trade and barter. Steam boats were what pioneers used to travel down the waterways to trade and sell goods. Railroads were still used for closer travel, with items that did not need to get there as fast as possible, because railroad cars do not move very fast, although the steam engine improved the speed of transportation also. The United States did make rather large changes over 100 years, from 1776 to 1870.
One of the most important of all social changes was The Second Great Awakening. The era of good feelings wasn't just about social change but economic change too. The north was rapidly changing with the inventions of "iron horses" and steamboats and roads. The "iron horse" was the original name for trains in the US. They were called this because they moved as fast as a horse but they were more efficient because these "iron horses" didn't need rest which took a lot of time off travel.
On-time performance has improved dramatically — almost to the point where delivery by train is almost as reliable as by truck. Rising fuel prices are a help, too. Freight rail more energy efficient than trucks over long distances — trains can move one ton of freight about 500 miles on a gallon of fuel, making them three to four times as energy efficient as trucks. The U.S. freight rail system is even becoming a source of national
Commercial goods can be transported across the country much easier than before. Anything from food to toys are easily delivered from one side of the country to the other. For most commuters, highways are taken for granted. Without highways, things like getting to and from work or visiting family may take much longer. People who work in cities would have to liv closer to their work, and therefore suburbs would be much less popular and
In the 20th century, the automobile was a welcome change to American life, as it granted workers and families a new mobility and thus a new sense of freedom and urgency, and we became a nation excessively dependent on our cars. More than anything else, the car was the symbol of American post-war prosperity. However, that prosperity has cost us, in various ways, the American dream. Whereas we once thought of cars as the epitome of personal freedom, more and more we are becoming limited by the expense of that freedom. The American Public Transportation Association estimates that it costs a resident of the Boston area, for example, $13,000 a year to own a car.
Ambitious targets of an annual 1% per capita immigration rate were hindered by financial limits. The Liberals made a commitment to raising actual immigration levels higher in 2005. Many of the political parties are now nervous about criticizing the high level of immigration. Canada still gets more immigrants per capita than any other major country in the world. The per capita immigration rate in Canada has been pretty constant since the 1950s, and recent years have seen a gradual increase in the skill level and education of immigrants to Canada.