838 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE should know that some of the essays are in French. But Fox’s work is well written and rewarding, and these essays deserved to be col lected in this convenient form. Ken Alder Dr. Alder is assistant professor of history' at Northwestern University and the author of Engineering the Revolution: Arms and Enlightenment in France, 1763-1815 (forthcoming). Industrializing America: The Nineteenth Century. By Walter Licht. Balti more: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995. Pp. xviii+219; bibli ography, index. $38.95 (hardcover) $13.95 (paper). This modest book has big ambitions. In just under two hundred pages, Walter Licht provides a sweeping overview of the causes and course ofAmerican industrialization over the 19th century. The emi nently readable narrative is geared to undergraduate teaching. It introduces many of the key historiographic debates in industrial his toriography and touches on most of the relevant specialized studies from business, economic, labor, legal, social, women’s, and techno logical history. Behind this narrative and synthesis, the book ad vances a strong analytical theme on the evolving character of the American political economy. In combination, Licht has accom plished a difficult task, synthesizing a huge literature with style and authority. Industrializing America should prove an essential compo nent of American history survey classes for years to come. This is the first synthesis of industrial history to span the 19th century—probably because the task of inclusion has seemed so daunting. Yet Licht manages to touch on almost all the key issues of relevance. He accomplishes this through some highly original ap proaches and by deftly melding elements normally considered sepa rately. Chapter 1, “Context,” combines a portrait of regional diversity in the American economy circa 1800 with a description of contrasting contemporary ideals for the developing American political econ omy—Jeffersonian agrarians’ debate with Tench Coxe and other ad vocates of a market-based manufacturing future for America. Chap ter 2, “Paths,” underscores the varied character of antebellum industrial development by discussing mill villages (Pawtucket, Rock dale), single-industry cities (Lowell and Lynn), diversified urban centers such as Philadelphia, and industrial slavery in the South. In chapter 3, “Reactions,” Licht blends the literature on artisanal pro tests against the risingJacksonian market economy (viz., Eric Foner, Bruce Laurie, and Sean Wilentz) with that on other responses to industrialization, such as workers’ high geographic mobility, revival ism in the Second Great Awakening, and middle-class women’s lead TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 839 ership of social reform causes. Chapter 4, on the Civil War’s role in industrialization, also summarizes the general history ofgovernment intervention in the economywhile outlining the transportation revo lution. Chapter 5, “An Industrial Heartland” combines a narrative tour of the nation’s leading industrial regions in the Gilded Age with an analysis of the differing interpretations that historians have offered about the causes of industrial expansion. In chapter 6, “The Rise of Big Business,” the careers of Carnegie and Rockefeller pro vide an accessible avenue to Chandler’s views on the rise of big busi ness—further leavened with Lamoreaux’s treatment of the 1893 depression and Hovencamp’s on antimonopoly politics. Finally, chapter 7, “Explosions,” surveys the major Gilded Age labor dis putes; then it explores the trade unionist, Populist, and utopian cri tiques of the emergent industrial order of the late 19th century. Licht is a gifted writer who carries the reader smoothly across the real chasms that divide the historical scholarship on industrializa tion. Some topics are omitted; for example, studies by Patricia Coo per and others on semiskilled work and gendered divisions of labor in the Gilded Age go unnoted. On balance, however, Licht has au thored a masterful and inclusive synthesis. Technological history plays a supporting role in this account. Thus Licht notes antebellum workers’ approval of technological innovations, even as their coun terparts in the late Gilded Age rallied in opposition to the demands of mechanized production. The book also offers a directed analytical theme on the evolving character ofAmerica’s political economy. Although noting that mer cantilism had died with the American Revolution, Licht argues that the political economy of 1800 was comparatively ordered, albeit mostly market-based...
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Oct 1, 2000
Veronica Hanke 
Open Access