Notes

The Nation Industrializes
Samuel Clemens spent much of his life on the Mississippi River. As a river pilot, he watched the U.S. transform from a sleepy nation of small towns to a nation filled with busy industrial cities. You might be familiar with Samuel Clemens as an author. When he wrote, he used the name Mark Twain. He spoke about the changing nation in some of his work, including Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. In another novel, Life on the Mississippi, he wrote about his home town, Natchez:

“Natchez, like her near and far river neighbors, has railways now and is adding to them. . . . The changes in the Mississippi River are great and strange, yet were to be expected; but I was not expecting to see Natchez and these other river towns become manufacturing strongholds and railway centers.”
Many Americans were overwhelmed by U.S. technological changes after the Civil War. But it was an exciting time. America was blessed with resources. Possibilities seemed unlimited. The Rise of Steel
The railroad industry greatly helped the steel industry expand. Iron rails were first used for railroads. But iron rails broke, and wore out quickly. Rails made of steel were much stronger and lasted a long time. However, during the early 1800s, producing steel was very difficult and expensive.

In the 1850s, inventors tried to find cheap methods to produce steel. A British scientist, Henry Bessemer, developed a process to make steel using something called a “converter.” The Bessemer process became one of the most important inventions of its time. This process made it possible to produce strong steel cheaply. As companies began using his method to produce steel, railroads began to buy steel rails to replace old iron rails. Steel became the primary building material for railroads and for other industries. The Bessemer process created a revolution in construction, manufacturing, and transportation. Henry Bessemer
The Bessemer process has been described like this: “The huge machines made a tremendous noise. Amid the heat, flying parts, and hissing steam, workers melted the iron in a blast furnace and then poured it into a huge, pear-shaped converter. When they shot air into the converter, the iron became steel. The workers then poured this new liquid steel into molds.” Read more about Henry Bessemer’s invention at the Time Works Web site. “Steel City”
As new steel mills sprang up in U.S. midwestern cities, people found even more uses for steel. It was used to build bridges, skyscrapers, ships, and goods like stoves and nails.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, became the first steelmaking capital of the nation. Why do cities come to be in a certain location? Pittsburgh is a good example of a place where geography played an important role in regional growth. Geography helped Pittsburgh in three ways:

• Pittsburgh is located where three large rivers come together, the Allegheny, Monongahela, and the Ohio.
• The area surrounding Pittsburgh contains mountains full of limestone and coal, two products needed for the Bessemer steelmaking process.
• Pittsburgh is close to the Great Lakes, which made it easy to bring iron ore from sites near the lakes.