"In the decades following the War of 1812, the simple market gardener, the local blacksmith, and the housewife at her spinning wheel were rapidly being replaced. In their stead, we see the rise of the manufacturing corporation, which gathers hundreds of operatives under one roof to perform specialized, repetitive labor. No longer does a family produce its own clothing and consume its own crops in isolation; the steam engine, the canal, and the railroad have bound the planter of the South, the farmer of the West, and the manufacturer of the North into a single, interlocking web of national exchange."
—An observer of American economic development, c. 1845
Which of the following historical developments in the period from 1800 to 1848 best supports the description of the economic changes in the passage?
- The growth of canal and railroad networks that facilitated regional specialization and integrated Western farming with Northeastern manufacturing.Answer
- BThe retreat of Western and Southern communities into localized economic self-sufficiency to avoid dependency on Northeastern credit.
- CThe rapid industrialization of the Southern economy, which replaced plantation agriculture with textile manufacturing.
- DThe complete elimination of household manufacturing in rural areas as federal tariffs made domestic goods illegal.