Title: 1800-1860: Business and the Economy: Overview | Encyclopedia.com
Headings: 1800-1860: Business and the Economy: Overview
1800-1860: Business and the Economy: Overview
1800-1860: Business and the Economy: Overview

Content: Individuals such as John Jacob Astor were able to make a fortune from the fur trade, and other merchants grew rich from selling different commodities in the West. Nevertheless, the soil remained fundamental. The Market Revolution. Despite the continued dominance of agriculture, far-reaching changes made the United States of 1860 different from the nation of 1800. Some historians have described the development of long-distance domestic trade as a market revolution, in which thousands of Americans participated in the rapidly expanding cash economy. Growing crops or producing goods for the market became increasingly common. Although colonists before the Revolution sold commodities to merchants in exchange for cash or goods, the early nineteenth century had fewer self-sufficient farmers. Tools fashioned by the local blacksmith and hand-spun clothing increasingly gave way to factory-made farm equipment and cloth. Americans reoriented their businesses and farms in order to acquire manufactured goods of all kinds. Transportation Revolution.