Factories could now be built away from rivers. Goods were now transported by steamboat and railway systems nationwide.
Railroads
Early trains moved only 20 m.p.h. but were three times as fast as carriages.
As trains increased in speed, traveler's lost touch with the landscapes sounds, smells, and textures.
Parallel process in the market place: as goods were shipped nationally, they ceased having specific identities because buyers no longer knew which artisans had made them.
Marx:
argued that as products were shipped further away, they became detached from their making and were changed into commodities.
1840: 3328 miles of track.
1860: 30,000 miles of track.
A Search For Inexpensive Fuel
If steam power were to become a major factor in urban production, cheap fuel was needed.
Coal was originally shipped from England via ship. Supplies were irregular and sour relations led the search for alternative fuel supplies.
Pennsylvania anthracite: abundant and burned with a shorter flame.
Led to the formations of coal factories: Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company.
Monopolies formed.
New Jersey became rapidly industrialized.
Competition soon drove prices down.
Cheap fuel underlay the developing national market.
Results of Steam Usage
Pre-industrial conception of accidents: coincidences, acts of God (i.e. tornadoes, floods)
Industrialization: creation of explosive dangers
Boilers were often flawed. Operated often times above the recommended maximum. Machinery in factories operated by children.
Between 1825 and 1848: 220 explosions, 1770 killed.
Beginning of government regulation and the federal inspection system.
Social Costs of Steam Power
Boiler explosions and coal mine disasters were frequent. However, these things were accepted by the status quo.
Why? Because of the rapid development of the economy, improvements in transportation, and the proliferation of consumer goods. (Parallels with the social and environmental costs of the automobile).
Steam Engine not seen as an isolated object but as the center of a new social order with unlimited potential.
A New Language Is Developed
Energy: originally called "force".
Humans were understood to be animal-like, gaining their power from eating. Man not compared to a machine but to a bull, or an ox. "Saddled" with responsibility, or to "hold your horses" when becoming impatient.
As the steam engine gained notoriety, a new vocabulary emerged.
"High-pressure salesman." "Blow a gasket." "Let off a little steam."
Or pushing a bill through Congress quickly became known as "railroading."
A Nation Becomes Smaller
The U.S. became more corporate and more urban in the mid19th Century.
Society no longer had any illusions that an autonomous household existed.
Introduction of gas for lighting and cooking.
Population increased in health status and cities attracted new citizens.
Telegraph and the telephone sped the flow of information.
A networked house emerged.
Problems existed: gas line explosions, sewer clogs were common.
Viewing Life Differently
People did not correlate heating and lighting with hard physical work (i.e. with retrieving wood, water, etc.).
Heat and water now available with the flick of a switch.
Energy not available to everyone. It became a matter of social class.
Hierarchy of energy use with different ethnic groups: Anglo-Saxons, Germans, African-Americans.
Building codes and health regulations mandated conversion of all urban housing.
Often times, people could not afford this conversion but were ultimately forced to.