Early Industries and their Productions

The growth of manufactures and the mechanic arts in the United States is the work of less than a hundred years. Before the Revolution these were discouraged in the colonies, as we have seen, by the British government; and it was only when necessity compelled the people, during the war for independence, to carry on domestic manufactures, that such industries may be said to have existed here. It was almost simultaneous with the departure of the last British soldier from our shores, in 1783, that Oliver Evans introduced his grain-mill, and Fitch and Rumsey proved the possibility of navigation by steam. The first cotton-mill in the United States was set in motion at Beverly, Massachusetts, in 1787; and the only woolen mill in our country was in operation at Hartford, when Samuel Slater, in 1790, introduced Arkwright's spinning-machine, and so laid the foundation of the manufacture of textile fabrics here as a national industry. Already the manufacture of iron had been begun, and the inventive genius of the American people was aroused to action. The records of our Patent Office give indications of its ever-increasing activity. During the ten years ending with 1800, the number of patents issued in the United States was 306; during the ten years ending in 1870, the number was 79,612. From 1790 to 1870, the whole number issued was 120,028. Within that period, the steam-vessel, locomotive and railway, electro-magnetic telegraph and sewing-machine--all perfected inventions by Americans--appeared, with thousands of other mechanical contrivances which have made ours a leading manufacturing nation. Our iron is fashioned into everything of which it is capable, from the tiny watch-screw that requires 150,000 to weigh a pound, to the locomotive and railway bridge. In 1870, we manufactured cotton goods valued at $178,000,000, and woolen goods estimated at $155,000,000; and the same year we curried over 13,000,000 sides and skins of leather, which we manufactured into goods valued at almost $377,000,000. Even so late as 1840, ours was eminently an agricultural nation; but in 1870, the value of our manufactures, that year, was $4,133,000,000, or over $1,300,-000,000 more than the estimated value of our agricultural productions of every kind. There was an increase in the value of our manufactures from 1850 to 1870, a period of twenty years, of three hundred per cent. The assessed value of the real and personal property of the 4,000,000 inhabitants, in 1790, was $479,293,000; in 1870, it was $13,700,000,000, exclusive of the Government property.

The commerce of our country has had a wonderful growth within about a century. In colonial times, as we have observed, the restrictive policy of Great Britain kept it within very narrow bounds. The total value of the products of the colonies exported in 1770, was $14,262,000; in 1790, it was a little more than $20,000,000. From the adoption of the National Constitution in 1789, the expansion of our commerce has been wonderful. The total value of our exports of domestic and foreign productions, during the year ending with June, 1875, was over $600,000,000. We also export a large amount of the precious metals, in bullion. As in colonial times, so until a very recent period, the trade between Great Britain and our country constitutes a large proportion of our external commerce. Five-twelfths of our exports are to and imports from Great Britain; while one-sixth of the total of the exports and imports of that country, are to and from the United States. It has been estimated that the sea-going vessels that convey the world's commerce is nearly 63,000, of which number more than one-half belong to Great Britain and the United States; and that these two Anglo-Saxon nations carry sixty-six per cent. of the world's aggregate tonnage.

Our inland navigation and commerce are of vast dimensions. A hundred years ago the inland trade was carried on chiefly by means of pack-horses or mules, and clumsy wheeled-vehicles on land, and on the lakes and rivers by canoes, bateaux, and sloops. The steamboat and the railroad were then undreamed of, and the canal was only in embryo in the minds of a few men. The roads were wretched everywhere; and the incessant toil of muscle was the hard condition imposed upon our internal commerce. Our postal arrangements, which are essential helps in facilitating and simplifying the operations of commerce, were then very meagre. The entire length of post-routes in 1776 was 1,875 miles; now the entire length is 278,000 miles. Of this number, over 70,000 miles is by railroads, and nearly 16,000 miles by steamboats. The entire receipts of the General Post-Office in fifteen months, ending in November, 1776, were $27,900, and the expenditures were $32,142. In 1875, the annual receipts of the Post-Office Department were $26,672,000, and the expenditures were $33,613,000. Included in expenditures were about $6,000,000 granted by the National Treasury.