In addition to the expansion of the several economic interests of the various sections of the country, inventions and improvements were taking place which affected the general problems of production and distribution. Improvements in machinery saved forty to eighty per cent. of the time and labor demanded in the production of important manufactured goods. Cheapened steel affected all kinds of industry. The development of steam-power and the beginnings of the practical use of electricity for power and light multiplied the effectiveness of human hands or added to human comfort. Cheaper and quicker transportation almost revolutionized the distribution of economic goods. The increased use of the telegraph and cable shortened distances and brought together producers and consumers that had in earlier times been weeks of travel apart.
The necessarily statistical character of an account of economic development should not obscure the meaning of its details. Increased population, with its horde of incoming aliens, created a demand for standing room, necessitated westward expansion, and made the West more than ever a new country with new problems. The growth of agriculture enlarged a class that had not hitherto been as influential as it was destined to be, and brought into politics the economic needs of the farmer. Manufacturing brought great wealth into the hands of a few, created an increasing demand for protective tariffs and gave rise to strikes and other industrial problems. The concentration of especial interests in especial sections made likely the emergence of sectional antagonisms. Back of tariff and finance, therefore, back of transportation and labor, of new political parties and revolts in the old ones, of the great strikes and the increasing importance of some of the sections, lay the economic foundations of the new era.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
No thorough study of the economic history of the United States after the Civil War has yet been made. E.L. Bogart, Economic History of the United States (1907), and various later editions, is the best single volume; E.E. Sparks, National Development (1907), is useful. On the South, consult articles by St. G.L. Sioussat, in History Teachers' Magazine (Sept., Oct., 1916); P.A. Bruce, Rise of the New South (1905); J.C. Ballagh (ed.), South in the Building of the Nation (1909), vol. VI; M.B. Hammond, Cotton Industry (1897). R.P. Porter, West from the Census of 1880 (1882), is a useful compendium. The Plains in the day of the cowboy are well described in Emerson Hough, Passing of the Frontier (1918); Emerson Hough, Story of the Cowboy (1898); F.L. Paxson, Last American Frontier (1910); and F.L. Paxson, "The Cow Country," in American Historical Review, Oct., 1916. N.A. Miles, Serving the Republic (1911), contains reminiscences of Indian conflicts. On the Far West, in addition to Porter, Hough and Paxson, Katharine Coman, Economic Beginnings of the Far West (2 vols., 1912); H.K. White, Union Pacific Railway (1898); L.H. Haney, Congressional History of Railways (2 vols., 1908-1910); S.E. White, The Forty-Niners (1918).
There is also an abundance of useful illustrative fiction, such as:
Bret Harte, Luck of Roaring Camp, and other stories (Far West);
Edward Eggleston, Hoosier Schoolmaster (Indiana); W.D. Howells,
Rise of Silas Lapham (New England); G.W. Cable, Old Creole Days
(New Orleans); C.E. Craddock, In the Tennessee Mountains; F.H.
Smith, Colonel Carter (Virginia); Hamlin Garland, Main Travelled
Roads and Son of the Middle Border (Middle West); P.L. Ford, Hon.
Peter Sterling (New York); S.E. White, Gold (California); and
Riverman (Lake Superior lumber); John Hay, Breadwinners (industrial).
For other references to economic aspects of the period, see chapters
IX, XI, XIV.
* * * * *
[1] The ratio was 151,912 but, by a provision of the Constitution, states are given a representative even if they do not contain the requisite number.
[2] The most important advances in municipal street railway transportation were made between 1875 and 1890. In 1876 New York began the construction of an overhead or elevated railway on which trains were drawn by small locomotives. The first electric street railways were operated in Richmond, Va., and in Baltimore. Electric street lighting was introduced in San Francisco in 1879.
[3] Hamlin Garland, Main Travelled Roads, portrays the hardships of western farm life.