The Machine Summary and Analysis

As steam power continued to alter production and transportation in England, Americans continued to accept the belief that such power would never be a part of their own country. By the end of the eighteenth century, ninety per cent of Americans lived on farms, and the vast western portion of the continent remained largely unsettled. Geography itself, then, appeared to prevent industrialism. Machines, however, particularly those that could be used in milling, were welcomed, as were steamboats that could navigate rivers.

A little known figure in U.S. history, Tench Coxe, was a Philadelphia merchant who later became an assistant to Alexander Hamilton and whose speeches at the Society for Political Inquiries spoke of the value of industrialism in America. He foresaw manufacturing as an inevitable trend in America in another speech, this time to the Pennsylvania Society for...