美国工业化。

American Industrialization

1.The process of American industrialization

The census in 1890 for the first time showed that the output of American factories exceeded that of American farms. Thereafter industry in the United States grew by leaps and bounds. By 1913, more that one third of the world’s industrial production came from American. When the Second World War ended in 1945, the United States had the greatest productive capacity in the world and became the world’s leading industrial and manufacturing country. The following factors contributed to the rapid industrial growth in the United States:

(1)Abundant natural resources

(2)Large labor supply brought about by waves of immigration

(3)American system of mass production—the assembly line

(4)Development of transportation

(5)Sufficient capital

(6)Social and political climate in favor of economic development (Fan, 2006: 180)

America’s rise as an industrial giant in the late nineteenth century is a fact of towering visibility. American industry flourished for many reasons. (Dai, 2010) One of the essential reasons is geographical condition. America is located in the south of North America and faces the Atlantic to the east and the Pacific to the west. The United States has a territory of 9,372,610 square kilometers and is the world’s fourth largest country in area. America has many environmental advantages, such as good climate, favorable geography and a long coastline, which is favourable for development of the American Industrial Revolution. (Zhang, 1981) The availability of natural resources has been an important factor in America’s growth. The nation is blessed with large supplies of natural resources except in the desert regions of West. The early development of a prosperous agricultural system and the later development of an industrial base were made possible largely by vast natural resources. (Fan, 2006, p.180) For many directly affected by the American Civil War, American economy was growing so rapidly. A truly national system of markets began to grow following the War of 1812, when the United States entered a period of unprecedented economic expansion.( Davidson＆Lytle＆Heyrman＆Gienapp＆Stoff,,1997: 308) In 1930s and 1940s, the agricultural country transformed into an industrial country. In 1894, American industrial production topped the world. By the 1920s, American accomplished industrialization. (He, 2001)

It was a period of rapid advance in basic science, and technicians created a bountiful harvest of new machines, processes, and power sources that increased productivity and created new industries. In agriculture there were better harvesters, binding machines. Two important new industries were the telephone and electric light business. When Western Union realized the importance of the telephone, it tried for a time to compete with Bell by developing a machine of its own. The man it commissioned to devise the machine was Thomas A. Edison. One of his achievements was a multiplex telegraph capable of sending four messages over a single wire at the same time. Edison’s most significant achievement was unquestionably his perfection of the