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First Along the River

First Along the River. 4.The Late 1880s: Building an Industrial Nation . By: Clarissa Camarillo. Population Growth and Consumerism . The United States population expanded from about 36 million in 1860 to almost 76 million in 1900.

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First Along the River

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  1. First Along the River 4.The Late 1880s: Building an Industrial Nation By: Clarissa Camarillo

  2. Population Growth and Consumerism • The United States population expanded from about 36 million in 1860 to almost 76 million in 1900. • The nation’s wealth increased as well producing goods valued at $2 billion at the end of the Civil War to $13 billion 35 years later. • Before the Civil War , the US was an agrarian nation, with barely 1 million employed by industry. • However, settlers began moving west and new markets opened. So, by 1860 the US was the world’s 4th largest industrial nation. • As populations increased so did the urgency for food, products, and land development. Resulting in industries exploding in number, output, variety, and new uses for natural resources.

  3. Devastating the Land • In Florida, which began draining water from the Everglades in 1883, 90% of the 2.5 million wading birds found there were lost by the mid 20th century. • The wetlands of America, once thought to be useless by farmers and urban developers, were quickly being drained by engineers with improved pumping devices. • Changing water tables • Killed wildlife through oxygen loss • Land levels dropped • Nature had become a commodity whose was measured by the end: a dresser more beautiful and useful than a tree. • Trees, minerals, wildlife, and other natural resources were sold and processed by emerging industries.

  4. Overconsumption of Natural Resources • Minerals, precious metals, and inorganic materials of all different kinds were important for industrial growth. • Mining quickly appeared in newly established settlements throughout the nation to fill the huge great demand for natural resources. • In the 1880s miners used steam shovels in the Pennsylvania coal mines and to get iron ore form Minnesota’s Mesabi Range. • Such tools made extracting minerals easier, but left deep permanent scars on earths land. • Resource consumption increased quickly during the industrial age: energy requirements rose from 8 million horsepower in 1850 to 64 million in 1900. • Early industrialization depended on wood and water for power. • In 1870, 12.8 million board feet of lumber was taken from the forests: by 1900, the about had risen to about 36 million. • Many machines relied on wood as their energy source until the 1880s, when the amount of accessible wood sources was severely depleted. • In the last quarter of the century, coal replaced wood as the major source of fuel in the US. • Coal consumption supplied 3 quarters of the nation’s energy by 1910. • The resulting damage was air that was darkened and fouled by the soot and waste of burning coal in urban areas. • Crude oil was another replacement for wood.

  5. Voices of Nature • Those who spoke for nature were beginning to be heard and, while their audience may have been prone to sentimentality, their influence was growing. • The reality of environmental decay was becoming obvious to many Americans, and so were the warning voices of naturalists. • Henry David Thoreau • Drew attention to urbanization and the movement of people off land and into the dark, sprawling, and dehumanizing cities. • George Perkins Marsh • Was one of the 1st Americans to understand the condition of the land as much of a product of humanity as of nature. • Carl Schurz • Began lobbying for the preservation of federally owned forests. • The most famous of the late 19th century conservationists and preservationists was John Muir. • After falling in love with the redwood in California in 1869, he spent the next 40 years tramping the mountains of the West and campaigned for their preservation. • He also became the 19th centuries most articulate publicist for the wilderness protection.

  6. Conclusion • In the 2nd half of the 19th century , a pattern had become clear: as the population moved westward and methods of travel and communication improved, communities grew and began spending their products to the rich markets of the East. • The accomplishments of these nation builders were amazing. However, the resulting damage to the environment was gigantic. • Whole species were decimated and the land was misused as economic expediency and necessity ruled the day. • A slower pace may have made the environmental changes undetectable until it was too late, but the rapidity of industrial growth and ecological damage began to shock many observers.

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