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The Dawn of Innovation: The First American Industrial Revolution Hardcover – October 23, 2012

by Charles R. Morris (Author)
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 88 ratings
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In the thirty years after the Civil War, the United States blew by Great Britain to become the greatest economic power in world history. That is a well-known period in history, when titans like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and J.P. Morgan walked the earth.

But as Charles R. Morris shows us, the platform for that spectacular growth spurt was built in the first half of the century. By the 1820s, America was already the world’s most productive manufacturer, and the most intensely commercialized society in history. The War of 1812 jumpstarted the great New England cotton mills, the iron centers in Connecticut and Pennsylvania, and the forges around the Great Lakes. In the decade after the War, the Midwest was opened by entrepreneurs. In this beautifully illustrated book, Morris paints a vivid panorama of a new nation buzzing with the work of creation. He also points out the parallels and differences in the nineteenth century American/British standoff and that between China and America today.

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Previous page
  1. Print length
    384 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    PublicAffairs
  4. Publication date
    October 23, 2012
  5. Dimensions
    8.25 x 1.25 x 5.75 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    9781586488284
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1586488284
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

An unprecedented 3.9 percent average annual rate of economic growth—sustained for more than a century—propelled the U.S. to global economic leadership. Morris chronicles the remarkable story behind the remarkable number. To begin with, it is a story of American shipwrights frenetically attempting to match Great Britain in building warships during the War of 1812. Peace meant that American industrialists turned to making shoes, stoves, steam engines, and locomotives, yet they still strove to wrest world economic leadership from Britain. Readers soon realize that American capitalists who surmounted daunting technical challenges (through homegrown Yankee ingenuity and through industrial espionage) also solved a formidable social problem. Instead of building British-style Coketowns that enriched a few while immiserating the masses in the factories, America’s economic pioneers spread the benefits of modern productivity throughout a mass-consumption society. Morris concludes with a provocative comparison of the nineteenth-century duel pitting the U.S. against Great Britain and today’s rivalry between China and the U.S. Economic history freighted with social and political relevance. --Bryce Christensen

Review

“An unprecedented 3.9 percent average annual rate of economic growth—sustained for more than a century—propelled the U.S. to global economic leadership. Morris chronicles the remarkable story behind the remarkable number… Morris concludes with a provocative comparison of the nineteenth-century duel pitting the U.S. against Great Britain and today's rivalry between China and the U.S. Economic history freighted with social and political relevance.”

USA Today“Morris obviously possesses an inquiring mind…. [He] explicates … developments skillfully.”

PublishersWeekly.com“Morris's analysis shines brightest in the final chapter as he compares the United States' past economic growth with the current hyper-expansion of China. Only then, by examining the hurdles China faces in its ascendance to economic superpower, does Morris show how truly innovative the transformation of America was and why it will be impossible to repeat in the future.”

Tyler Cowen, New York Times Magazine, One-Page Magazine“The early 19th century as a pep talk for today.”

John Steele Gordon, Wall Street Journal

A Daily Beast Favorite Book of the Year

A Wall Street Journal Best Business Book of the Year

Kirkus
“The author is at his best when he focuses on the people behind the technology…. Morris' research is thorough…. Ambitious.”

Paul Steiger, editor-in-chief of ProPublica and former managing editor of the Wall Street Journal
“Charles Morris, fast becoming our leading narrative historian of economic success and scandals, tells how nineteenth-century America outproduced, outmarketed,  outdistributed––and stole technology from––the former No. 1 power, Great Britain, to displace it on the world stage. The fascinating tale also holds crucial lessons for Americans as China races to unseat the U.S. as the world leader.”

Charles H. Ferguson, director of Inside Job and author of Predator Nation                         
“A fascinating book that pulls together the strands of American development into a sweeping and vivid account of the nation's rise to economic preeminence. Charles Morris has a special gift for making complicated subjects accessible and even entertaining.”

Booklist

“[A]n illuminating narrative that shows, among much else, what happened when Yankee ingenuity met the Industrial Revolution…. Post-Civil War industrialization had an important and largely overlooked predecessor in the first decades of the 19th century. It is a story well worth telling, and Mr. Morris tells it well…. The author's in-text illustrations and diagrams are very helpful in showing the cleverness and ingenuity of mechanisms designed by such forgotten giants as the clockmaker Eli Terry, the gun maker Thomas Blanchard and the steam-engine designer George H. Corliss. Mr. Morris's deft character sketches bring them to life as well. The steam engine powered the steamboat and the railroad, which knitted the country together into one huge common market, allowing industrial economies of scale that would, in the later 19th century, astonish the world….”

Civil Engineering“In an elegantly written assessment of how the current situation is like—and unlike—its 19th-century analogue, Morris flashes the knowledge and insight that landed him on the Council on Foreign Relations and crafts an effective coda for his paean to American innovation.”

Michael Lind,­ New York Times Book Review

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1586488287
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ PublicAffairs; First Edition (October 23, 2012)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781586488284
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1586488284
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.32 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.25 x 1.25 x 5.75 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 88 ratings

About the author

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Charles R. Morris

Charles R. Morris

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Charles R. Morris is a lawyer and former banker. He has written fourteen books, and is a regular contributor to Politico, Newsweek, Reuters, and many other publications.

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
88 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Nicholas Montgomery
5.0 out of 5 stars I didn't know that, did you?
Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2013
Verified Purchase
The Dawn of Innovation is a comprehensive and detailed view of the American industrial revolution, how it developed and how it influenced modern culture in America. General histories may quote industrial and agricultural production statistics but never explain exactly how or why they grew so quickly in the US. And, rarely do those texts connect so clearly the links between industrialization and other cultural forces such as universal education. The Dawn of Innovation delineates those influences and projects them into the world of the twenty-first century.

American development may have been similar in essence to the earlier British revolution, that is, it transformed individual hand crafts into organized, machine-driven, large scale production. However, as The Dawn of Innovation illustrates, America’s mass manufacture differed from Britain’s in the breadth of its development, in its scale, and most importantly, in its organization. These differences resulted in extraordinary production, of course, but they also transformed US society itself.

Take pork production...please. The Dawn of Innovation , tells the familiar story of Eli Whitney and his “mass” production of muskets, debunking some of its myths. But, new to most history buffs, and perhaps a better example of how the industrial revolution transformed American society, is the story of the industrialization of pork and its derivatives. Around Cincinnati in the middle of the nineteenth century, pork production was rationalized on a scale as profound as textiles in New England. Millions of animals were processed into food, of course, but also soap, candles, waxes, lubricating oils, shortening, and lighting fuels. One derivative alone, glycerine, had applications from tanning leather to pharmaceuticals. America’s first chemical industry came from the processing of pigs…not to mention one of its first mass-marketers, Procter and Gamble. All this happened by the 1850s. I didn’t know that, did you?

Pork production is only one of many not-often-told-but-edifying tales in the The Dawn of Innovation. Others abound such as the arms race that developed on the Great Lakes in the War of 1812. Even naval historians will be surprised that a first-rate sailing warship, the St. Lawrence, larger than Nelson’s HMS Victory, was launched on Lake Ontario in 1814, the last word in an argument that no one cared about before it could even go into battle.

Charles Morris wrote The Dawn of Innovation. It fills what I now consider gaps or even voids of other histories and commentaries about America’s coming of age. His writing is engaging, delightful, and informative. It is one of those books that you feel like you should thank the author for writing. Mr. Morris, thank you.
4 people found this helpful
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David Kopec
4.0 out of 5 stars History, Economics, Invention Manual, Confused?
Reviewed in the United States on May 29, 2013
Verified Purchase
Do books need to fit into neat little categories for a store's shelf? Morris doesn't think so. This genre defying volume is filled to the brink with the innovations of 19th century America. Is the focus of the book explaining the innovations themselves, their impact on society, how they came about, or the men behind them? It's not really clear, since Morris goes into detail about all three. In some cases, excruciating detail.

"The Dawn of Innovation" is at its best when it fits the pieces of industry, economy, history, culture, and government together to form a cohesive picture of the transformative power of the industrial revolution. It is at its worst when it gets caught up in the details of how a gun barrel is made. It does not add to the larger narrative and it takes away (at least in my instance) the most important asset for an author - the reader's interest. Changes in tone and voice from chapter to chapter add to the muddle.

However, the many stories of industrial triumph and personal vignettes are interesting. The larger picture is definitely well explained. The book is clearly informative for anyone interested by the subject matter. Some chapters are quite comprehensive to the point where it could almost be considered a reference work. It is clear a great deal of thought and work went into creating every page.

This is a well researched, well written, interesting book. It's just a little bit confused about its identity.
4 people found this helpful
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Dale Perry
3.0 out of 5 stars For Budding Engineers
Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2014
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When I purchased this book, I was learning about the history of the steel and railway industry in America that created this self-titled 'superpower' in today's modern society. Often overlooked is the processes of manufacturing in other industries that provided the greater stability for the economy to support the steel and railway. This book delves into the manufacturing industries in all shapes and forms, including brief yet detailed explanations of many machines that we take for granted in the modern day. If you are a 'machine geek', this book is for you.
4 people found this helpful
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Steve Paul
5.0 out of 5 stars Filled with Anecdotes Explaining US Explosive Growth (3.9% per year) for 135 Years
Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2014
Verified Purchase
I loved reading Morris’ The Dawn of Innovation: The First American Industrial Revolution. It's filled with interesting anecdotes to explain the explosive and sustained growth of the United States for 135 years, from 1778 to the eve of the First World War.

I wish our present leaders would read this book to better understand present-day US competitiveness.

Here are some representative quotes from the book that explain the US role during the first Industrial Revolution:

* “The United States never disguised its avarice for British textile technology. It refused to recognize British patents, and American entrepreneurs openly advertised for British power-spinning experts, who were forbidden by law from emigrating.”

“American system of manufacturing.” -- meant manufacturing to an idealized model to such a level of precision that parts could be freely interchanged between weapons without loss of performance.”

* "British shipbuilding factories were the most advanced in the world, employing massive, very precise machines that mid-century Americans could not replicate. What was missing, perhaps, was the American instinct to push for scale, the conviction that the first objective of business should be to grow larger."

* “Over time, the act helped settle some 10 percent of the entire land mass of the United States. Senator Justin Morrill's (R-VT) 1862 land-grant college act awarded each state a bequest of public lands that it could sell to finance state colleges for the agricultural and industrial arts. No other country had conceived the notion of educating farmers and mechanics, and the Morrill Act schools are still the foundation of the state university system.”

You'll recognize many parallels with China's growth today.
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Top reviews from other countries

Canadian Reviewer
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Book For An Entreprenour To Read
Reviewed in Canada on January 19, 2016
Verified Purchase
LOVED THE Book!
His technical descriptions are very weak (I am an nerdy engineer)
but his descriptions of the business side and the general issues are fantastic.
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Mr. Ross Maynard
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting and readable if a little random
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 6, 2020
Verified Purchase
Charles Morris writes well and his book on industrial innovation and development in the nineteenth century US is a good read, but I find its content a little "random".

The book starts with a long chapter about an arms race between Great Britain and the US on Lake Ontario during the War of 1812. It is overlong in my view and seems to bear no relation to the rest of the book about industrial development. This topic gets much more space than Carnegie or Rockefeller for example.

Other choices seem a bit random too. There's good and interesting coverage about the development of the US arms industry but nothing about the electric telegraph or telephone (both surely key to industrial expansion). Thomas Edison gets one line and powered fllight nothing (although I can accept that the industrail impact of flight comes later than the scope of this book). Coverage of railroad (railway) developments and engine building is interesting but feels incomplete, and there is no discussion about the development and spread of electric power.

It is an enjoyable book and a good read. I am just not sure it is a thorough history of the industrial revolution in the United States.
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