American History Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 6

American History - Essay Example The harnessing of similarly skilled and unskilled populations into a cooperative entity to create products for marketing under a single roof was the most primitive form of a factory. Modern factories are highly sophisticated and expertly managed conglomerates which utilize the raw material and human resources in an energy efficient manner backed by highly sophisticated means of creating demand, transportation and marketing. The industrial revolution in the last few decades of the twentieth century has dictated much of the economic prosperity in the world and has become a natural part of our life. Our interpretation of historical industrialization is therefore much easier to envisage than what it could have been from a person living in the 18th or the 19th century. America was basically envisaged by its builders as a country whose backbone was intended to be agrarian rather than what actually happened during the course of history (McKinney, 2008). Thomas Jefferson initially promoted a n agrarian and subsistence farming based model for America which, to his dismay, gradually transformed into an industrial revolution based on innovation and enterprise, driven by profit which led to the emergence of market capitalism (McKinney, 2008). Historically, the period between the revolution and the civil war has been the most influential era which marked the emergence of factories, especially in the northern zone of the American republic in New England and Middle Atlantic states (Prude, 1997). This era saw the emergence of textile factories where mass production of the entity was undertaken under a single roof with the aid of innovative machinery which included powering by water mills. Factories were interpreted in those times as merely manufacturing units with some form of mechanization and use of mass labor (Prude J). In fact, in that era, any non-agriculture work situation was referred to as a factory before it acquired the modern