The American Nation A History of the United States, Combined Volume (14th Edition)

production methods. American clocks, pistols, rifles,
and locks were outstanding.
The American exhibits at the London Crystal
Palace Exhibition of 1851 so impressed the British
that they sent two special commissions to the
United States to study manufacturing practices.
After visiting the Springfield Arsenal, where a
worker took apart ten muskets, each made in a dif-
ferent year, mixed up the parts, and then reassem-
bled the guns, each in perfect working order, the
British investigators placed a large order for gun-
making machinery. They also hired a number of
American technicians to help organize what became
the Enfield rifle factory. They were amazed by the
lock and clock factories of New England and by the
plants where screws, files, and similar metal objects
were turned out in volume by automatic machinery.
Instead of resisting new laborsaving machines, the
investigators noted, “the workingmen hail with sat-
isfaction all mechanical improvements.”
Industrial growth led to a great increase in the
demand for labor. The effects, however, were mixed.
Skilled artisans, technicians, and toolmakers earned
good wages and found it relatively easy to set them-
selves up first as independent craftsmen, later as
small manufacturers. The expanding frontier drained
off much agricultural labor that might otherwise
have been attracted to industry, and the thriving
new towns of the West absorbed large numbers of
eastern artisans of every kind. At the same time, the
pay of an unskilled worker was never enough to sup-
port a family decently, and the new machines weak-
ened the bargaining power of artisans by making
skill less important.

Many other forces acted to stimulate the

growth of manufacturing. Immigration increased

rapidly in the 1830s and 1840s. By 1860 Irish

immigrants alone made up more than 50 percent

of the labor force of the New England mills. An

avalanche of strong backs, willing hands, and

keen minds descended on the country from

Europe. European investors poured large sums

into the booming American economy, and the

savings of millions of Americans and the great

hoard of new California gold added to the supply

of capital. Improvements in transportation, pop-

ulation growth, the absence of internal tariff bar-

riers, and the relatively high per capita wealth all

meant an ever expanding market for manufac-

tured goods.

Foreign Immigrationat

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A Nation of Immigrants

Rapid industrialization influenced American life in

countless ways, none more significant than its effect on

the character of the workforce and consequently on the

structure of society. The jobs created by industrial

expansion attracted European immigrants by the tens

of thousands. It is a truism that America is a nation of

immigrants—recall that even the ancestors of the

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A Nation of Immigrants 331

The American Waltham Watch factory, completed in 1851, manufactured
interchangeable parts that could be assembled by factory workers. Previously,
most watches were hand-tooled by watchmakers.

This fisherwoman from Kerry, one of the poorest counties in Ireland,

may have been one of the many too poor to pay for passage to the

United States. Tens of thousands starved.