Agriculture To Industry Essay Research Paper Agriculture

Agriculture To Industry Essay, Research Paper Agriculture to Industry One of the founding fathers of America had his own idea of how the American economy should operate. Thomas Jefferson, one of the most educated of the Fathers, envisioned the United States’ to be an agriculturally based nation. Many respected his idea, but it was destined to fail. When the colonies were founded in the early to mid sixteenth century their priority was agriculture. They needed food, shelter, and goods to relay back to England. In return, the colonists received manufactured products (such as furniture) from England. This system worked for many years. When new agricultural products appeared, such as sugarcane, a new market was founded, one with other European countries that England proclaimed

off limits. Now there was no doubt that the Americas had much to offer the rest of the world. After the American Revolution, the leaders debated how the economy should work. As mentioned, Thomas Jefferson asserted that an economy based on agriculture and agricultural goods was the best route. However, Mr. Jefferson did not foresee the one thing that doomed his ideal America. He saw only the foreshadowing of this historic change. The war of 1812 with England over trade routes with France and other countries changed Jefferson’s mind. However, this was only a hint of what the Industrial Revolution would bring. He saw the importance of industry during wartime and how effective it was when battling for the future of The United States economy and its people. He saw the U.S. becoming

more urban than he thought it would. Why was this? What made people opt for the city over the farm? In order for a civilization to survive through the years one problem needed to be solved. Many civilizations perished for they did not answer the question of how to obtain man’s material want through the material scarcity. A civilization must meet the needs of a two- pronged dilemma; production and distribution. America was plentiful in the resources department. The means of tapping into those resources was, in many minds of the day, solved. Man had the ability to maintain farms and crops, cultivate new ones, and irrigate land that needed to be farmed. One problem was that the large farms were away from the urban areas. This meant travel time which in turn meant rotting of food

or spoilage. Another was that the population could not grow if the production could not keep up. If everyone had their own farm then they could feed themselves. Farming in those days was not an easy living by any means. Hard, manual labor was needed throughout long days. The hard life of survival usually meant short life spans. Man and beast limited the amount of output a farm could produce. If only there were a way that would let the farmer cultivate faster, easier, and more abundantly. There was, only no one saw it coming. Steam powered machinery, tractors and other tools sprang to life during the Industrial Revolution. This allowed more to be produced at a faster, cheaper, and easier way. Hired hands were no longer needed. This saved the farmer money and the amount of the

production brought in more money. Food became abundant. Now that the problem of production was basically solved through the inventions and innovations of steam powered tools and machines, distribution was left. “Obviously, the system of distribution deeply influences the level of individual scarcity. The more equitable the distribution of goods and wealth, the greater share of every person. An inequitable distribution meant that the privileged few lived well while the rest had to content themselves with what was leftover.” Again, steam was used to help alleviate this problem. The steamboat made travelling up river a lot easier. Trade became quicker between inland areas and coastal areas. The goods could be brought to the urban areas where there were more people who were not