The growth of the U.S. manufacturing belt (오대호 공업지대)

The American Manufacturing Belt in 1919 (after Conzen, 1981: 340, Figure 9.13)
Source: Based on Knox et al. (1988: 117, Figure 5.1)

출처 : The Geography of the World Economy by Paul Knox (6th) (2014) - 127page

The growth of the U.S. manufacturing belt

The acceleration of industrialization in the United States in the 1840s was in part the result of the diffusion of industrial technology
—particularly the wider industrial application of steam and the accompanying changes in the iron industry—
and methods of industrial and commercial organization from the hearth area of the Industrial Revolution in Europe.
In addition, the demand for foodstuffs and other agricultural staples in North America
and abroad stimulated the growth of industrial capitalism as farmers sought to increase
productivity through mechanization and the use of improved agricultural implements.

Increasing agricultural productivity, in turn, helped to sustain the growing numbers of
immigrants from Europe, thus allowing them to be channeled into industrial employment in
the mushrooming cities of the United States.

The development of the railway system played a central role in the evolution of this new
economic order. Initially, the railways were complementary to the waterways as competitive
long-haul carriers of general freight. By the end of the “iron horse” epoch, the railway
network had not only realigned the economic system but also extended it to a continental
scale. In 1869 the railway network reached the Pacific when, at Promontory, Utah,
the Union Pacific railway, building west from Omaha, met the Central Pacific railway,
building east from Sacramento. By 1875 intense competition between railroad companies
had begun to open up the western prairies as far as Minneapolis-St. Paul and Kansas City.
The significance of this transformation was profound:

Not only did this permit American enterprise to exploit fully the commercial advantages and

scale economies of large, diversified natural resources and of the revolutionary technologies
evolved in those decades, but it generated rapid, large-scale functional and spatial concentration
of finance and management unimpeded by world events, creating a transcontinental business
mentality. Wide spatial separation of major resources, cities and markets, and adjacency to the
easily penetrated Canadian economy all induced mental thresholds for thinking intercontinental
once imported resources and markets overseas became a necessary ingredient to sustain
business activity at home, especially during and after the Second World War.
(Hamilton, 1978: 26; emphasis added)

In short, the railways can be seen as the catalyst that allowed regional economies to develop
into a continental economy that stood poised to become the leading component of the
world economic system.

Meanwhile, the westward extension of the railways inevitably affected the fortunes of the
inland gateway cities. Buffalo and Louisville, for instance, experienced slowed rates of
growth and came increasingly to rely on more diversified regional functions. Further west,
St. Paul and Kansas City expanded rapidly to become major wholesaling depots. The
development of improved transportation networks also led to adjustments in spatial
organization within the northeast where fierce competition between the railways and
waterborne transport, coupled with equally fierce rivalry between neighboring cities,
led to a marked increase in intra-regional trade.

In essence, the consolidation of the Manufacturing Belt as the continental economic
heartland was the result of initial advantage. With its large markets, well-developed
transport networks, and access to nearby coal reserves, it was ideally placed to take
advantage of the general upsurge in demand for consumer goods, the increased
efficiency of the telegraph system and postal services, the advances in industrial technology,
and the increasing logic of economies of scale and external economies that characterized
the late nineteenth century. The overall effect was twofold:

1. Individual cities began to specialize as producers geared themselves toward national

rather than regional markets:

Between 1870 and 1890, advances in milling technology and concentration of ownership
supported the emergence of Minneapolis as a milling center. Furniture for the mass market
centralized in fewer, larger plants using wood-working machinery. . . . The rise of national
brewers between 1880 and 1910 is an example of national market firms encroaching on
local–regional firms. The brewers in Milwaukee and St. Louis achieved economies of scale in
manufacture, used production innovations such as mechanical refrigeration, and capitalized on
distribution innovations made possible by the refrigerated rail car and an integrated rail
network.

(Meyer, 1983: 160)