U.S. Economic history

The Economic History of the United States is the story of continuous growth from the 17th century settlements to the 21st century information age.

Agricultural age, 1776-1860

Textiles in New England

The United States followed the British lead in building a cotton and woolen textile industry. The first factories were built using stolen blueprints and illegally immigrating engineers. Samuel Slater (1768-1835) of Rhode Island pulled American cotton-spinning technology by constructing carding, drawing, and roving machinery, and by determining the operating and gearing ratios necessary to use water power. By 1850 the American had built their own industrial revolutions around textiles, and use of abundant water power in New England.

Bibliography

• Atack, Jeremy and Peter Passell. A New Economic View of American History: From Colonial Times to 1940 (1994) online, 1st edition was Lee, Susan Previant, and Peter Passell. A New Economic View of American History (1979)
• Chandler, Alfred D. and James W. Cortada. A Nation Transformed by Information: How Information Has Shaped the United States from Colonial Times to the Present (2000) online
• Cochran; Thomas C. 200 Years of American Business. (1977) online
• Cochrane, Willard W. The Development of American Agriculture: A Historical Analysis (1993)
• Engerman, Stanley L. and Robert E. Gallman, eds. The Cambridge Economic History of the United States (2000), covers 1790-1914; heavily quantitative
• Gordon, John Steele An Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power (2004), popular history
• Gordon, Robert. "U.S. Economic Growth since 1870: One Big Wave," American Economic Review 89:2 (May 1999), 123-28; in JSTOR
• Hurt, R. Douglas. American Agriculture: A Brief History (2002)
• Hughes, Jonathan and Louis P. Cain. American Economic History (6th Edition) (2002), textbook
• Kirkland; Edward C. A History of American Economic Life (1951), textbook online
• Schlebecker John T. Whereby we thrive: A history of American farming, 1607-1972 (1972)
• Studenski, Paul, and Herman Krooss. A Financial History of the United States (1952)
• Walton, Gary M. and Hugh Rockoff. History of the American Economy with Economic Applications (2004), textbook
• Whaples, Robert and Dianne C. Betts, eds. Historical Perspectives on the American Economy: Selected Readings (1995) articles

Colonial

• Bidwell, Percy and Falconer, John I. History of Agriculture in the Northern United States 1620-1860 (1941)
• McCusker, John J. ed. Economy of British America, 1607-1789 (1991), 540pp
• McGaw Judith A. (ed.) Early American Technology: Making and Doing Things From the Colonial Era to 1850 (1994)
• Weeden, William Babcock. Economic and Social History of New England, 1620-1789 (1891) 964 pages; online edition

1775-1860

• Batchelder, Samuel. Introduction and Early Progress of the Cotton Manufacture in the United States (1863) online edition
• Bidwell, Percy and Falconer, John I. History of Agriculture in the Northern United States 1620-1860 (1941)
• Chandler, Alfred. "Anthracite Coal and the Beginnings of the ‘Industrial Revolution' in the United States," Business History Review 46 (1972): 141-181.
• Clark, Victor S. History of Manufactures in the United States: 1607-1860 (1916) online at books.google.com
• Cohen, Isaac. American Management and British Labor: A Comparative Study of the Cotton Spinning Industry (1990) online edition
• Cole, Arthur Harrison. The American Wool Manufacture 1926
• Copeland, Melvin Thomas. The Cotton Manufacturing Industry of the United States (1912) online edition
• Genovese, Eugene. Roll, Jordan Roll (1967), highly influential history of plantation slavery
• Gray, Lewis Cecil. History of Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1860. 2 vol (1933), classic in-depth history online edition
• Licht, Walter. Industrializing America: The Nineteenth Century (1995) survey
• Mathias, Peter, and M. M. Postan, eds. The Cambridge Economic History of Europe from the Decline of the Roman Empire, Vol. 7, Pt. 2 The Industrial Economies: Capital, Labour and Enterprise, The United States, Japan and Russia, (1978)
• Meyer, David R. The Roots of American Industrialization (2002)
• Nettels, Curtis P. The Emergence of a National Economy, 1775-1815 (1962) broad economic history of the era
• Olson, James S. Encyclopedia of the Industrial Revolution in America (2001)
• Phillips, Ulrich B. "The Decadence of the Plantation System." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 35 (January, 1910): 37-41. in JSTOR
• Ransom, Roger. Conflict and Compromise: The Political Economy of Slavery, Emancipation and the American Civil War (1989)
• Sellers, Charles, The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815-1846 (1994) online
• Taylor, George Rogers. The Transportation Revolution, 1815-1860 (1951)
• Temin, Peter. Iron and Steel in Nineteenth-Century America, An Economic Inquiry (1964)
• Temin, Peter. The Jacksonian Economy (1969) online
• Wright, Gavin. Old South, New South: Revolutions in the Southern Economy since the Civil War (1986)
• Wright, Gavin. The Political Economy of the Cotton South: Households, Markets, and Wealth in the Nineteenth Century (1978) online
• Wright, Robert E. and David J. Cowen. Financial Founding Fathers: The Men Who Made America Rich, University of Chicago Press, 2006. ISBN 0-226-91068-7.

1860-1914

• Adams, Sean Patrick. "The US Coal Industry in the Nineteenth Century."] EH.Net Encyclopedia, August 15 2001 scholarly overview online edition
• Andreano, Ralph, ed. The Economic Impact of the Civil War (1962), articles
• Cyclopedia of American agriculture; a popular survey of agricultural conditions, ed by L. H. Bailey, 4 vol 1907-1909. online edition highly useful compendium
• Cannadine, David. Mellon: An American Life (2006)
• Chandler, Alfred, ed. The Railroads: The Nation's First Big Business - Sources and Readings. (1965)
• Chandler, Alfred D. The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (1977), highly influential interpretation of history of big business
• Chandler, Alfred D.; Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the Industrial Enterprise (1969) online
• Fite, Gilbert C. The Farmers' Frontier: 1865-1900 (1966), the west
• Hogan, William T. Economic History of the Iron and Steel Industry in the United States. (1971) 5 vol.
• Krass, Peter. Carnegie (2002). ISBN 0-471-38630-8.
• Jenks, Leland H. "Railroads as an Economic Force in American Development," The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 4, No. 1 (May, 1944), 1-20. in JSTOR
• Kirkland, Edward Chase. Men, Cities and Transportation, A Study of New England History 1820-1900 2 vol (1948)
• Klein, Maury. The Life & Legend of E. H. Harriman (2000) online edition
• Licht, Walter. Industrializing America: The Nineteenth Century (1995) survey* Misa, Thomas J. A Nation of Steel: The Making of Modern America, 1865-1925 (1998)
• Nasaw, David. Andrew Carnegie (2006), the standard biography * Netschert, Bruce C. and Sam H. Schurr, Energy in the American Economy, 1850-1975: An Economic Study of Its History and Prospects. (1960) online
• Martin, Albro. Railroads Triumphant: The Growth, Rejection, and Rebirth of a Vital American Force (1992)
• Middleton, William D. ed. Encyclopedia of North American Railroads (2007) Indiana U. Press: 1200 pp; the most valuable reference book; 500+ entries by experts, with bibliographies
• Moody, John. The Railroad Builders: A Chronicle of the Welding of the States 1919 online at Project Gutenberg
• Raper, Charles Lee. and Arthur Twining Hadley. Railway Transportation: A History of Its Economics and of Its Relation to the State, (1912) 331 pages; online at Google
• Riegel, Robert Edgar. The Story of the Western Railroads 1926 onine edition
• Stover, John. American Railways (2nd ed 1997) good, brief overview; excerpt online at Amazon.com
• Warren, Kenneth. Triumphant Capitalism: Henry Clay Frick and the Industrial Transformation of America. U. of Pittsburgh Press, 1996.
• Warren, Kenneth. Big Steel: The First Century of the United States Steel Corporation, 1901-2001. (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001) online review
• Whaples, Robert. "Andrew Carnegie", EH.Net Encyclopedia of Economic and Business History.

1914-1970

• Devine, Warren D. Jr. "From Shafts to Wire: Historical Perspective on Electrification". Journal of Economic History, Vol 43, No. 2 (June 1983) pp. 347-372.
• Hogan, William T. Economic History of the Iron and Steel Industry in the United States. (1971) 5 vol.
• Mitchell, Broadus. The Depression Decade: From New Era through New Deal, 1929-1941 (1947) broad economic history of the era; online
• Netschert, Bruce C. and Sam H. Schurr, Energy in the American Economy, 1850-1975: An Economic Study of Its History and Prospects. (1960) online
• Soule, George. The Prosperity Decade: From War to Depression, 1917-1929 (1947) broad economic history of decade
• Warren, Kenneth. Big Steel: The First Century of the United States Steel Corporation, 1901-2001. (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001) online review

1970- Present

• French, Michael. US Economic History since 1945 (1997)
• Goldin, Claudia Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women (1990), quantitative

Data and primary sources

• Carter, Susan B., Scott Sigmund Gartner, Michael R. Haines, and Alan L. Olmstead, eds. The Historical Statistics of the United States (Cambridge University Press: 6 vol 2006); online (in Excel format) at some universities. 37,000 data sets make it the standard data source for all topics
• Phillips, Ulrich B. ed. Plantation and Frontier Documents, 1649-1863; Illustrative of Industrial History in the Colonial and Antebellum South: Collected from MSS. and Other Rare Sources. 2 Volumes. (1909). online vol 1 and online vol 2
• Schmidt, Louis Bernard. ed. Readings in the economic history of American agriculture (1925) online edition

• Bureau of Economic Analysis: Official United States GDP data
• US GDP 1790 to 2005, include GDP, Real GDP, population, GDP per capita, and Real GDP per capita

See also

• Agriculture, history, U.S.
• Coal Mining: History
• Industrial Revolution
• Railway History
• Steel industry, history
• Textile industry, history