INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT.—Industries once carried on in the household or in small factories were conducted on a large scale by great corporations. The machine for making tin cans made possible the canning industry. The self- binding harvester and reaper made possible the immense grain fields of the West. The production and refining of petroleum became an industry of great importance. The great flour mills of Minneapolis, the iron and steel mills of Pennsylvania, the packing houses of Chicago and Kansas City, and many other enterprises were the direct result of the use of machinery.
[Illustration: STEEL MILL.]
RISE OF GREAT CORPORATIONS.—Trades and occupations, industries of all sorts, began to concentrate and combine, and large corporations took the place of individuals and small companies. In place of many little railroads there were now trunk lines. [12] In place of many little telegraph companies, express companies, and oil companies there were now a few large ones.
[Illustration: SETTLED AREA IN 1880.]
IMMIGRATION.—This industrial development, in spite of machinery, could not have been so great were it not for the increase in population, wealth, the facilities of transportation, and the great number of workingmen. These were largely immigrants, who came by hundreds of thousands year after year. From about 90,000 in 1862, the number who came each year rose to more than 450,000 in 1873; and then fell to less than 150,000 in 1878. The population of the whole country in 1880 was 50,000,000, of whom more than 6,500,000 were of foreign birth.
SUMMARY
1. The discovery of gold and silver near the Rocky Mountains in 1858 and later brought to that region many thousand miners.
2. Their presence in that wild region made local government necessary, and by 1868 seven new territories were formed (Colorado, Dakota, Nevada, Idaho, Arizona, Montana, Wyoming), and one of them (Nevada, 1864) was admitted into the Union as a state.
3. Means of communication with California and the far West were improved. First came the Pony Express, then the telegraph, and finally the railroad.
4. The construction of the railroad across the middle of the country was followed by the building of another near the northern border.