FROM INVENTION TO INDUSTRIAL GROWTH: THE ORIGINS OF U.S. INDUSTRIAL POWER(LATE 18TH – LAST THIRD OF THE 19TH CENTURY)

DOI 10.17721/2521-1706.2025.20.1

Svitlana Boyeva,

Ph. D. (History), Associate Professor, NTUU Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, Kyiv, Ukraine

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5354-8112

Abstract. At the turn of the two millennia, the United States emerged as a leading global economic power. The study of the origins and dynamics of U.S. industrial development in the late 18th–19th centuries enhances understanding of modern economic systems and serves as an important basis for effective national economic restructuring and post-war reconstruction after the Russian full-scale invasion launched on February 24, 2022.

The purpose of the article is to examine the origins and key factors behind the formation and growth of U.S. economic power from the late 18th to the 19th centuries within the context of global economic development and industrialization, drawing on a critical analysis of recent American primary and secondary sources. The study addresses the prerequisites, stages, and consequences of the Industrial Revolution, explores structural economic transformations and the development of American scientific and engineering thought, and generalizes the historical experience of market economy formation using the United States as a case study.

The methodology of the research is based on the critical analysis of the resent American historical sources and scientific literature, as well as on the application of civilizational, problem-chronological, systemic, regional, interdisciplinary approaches to the study of the evolution of economic history. The fundamental principles of the article include historicism, objectivity, scientificity, and the unity of positive and normative aspects of science. For the analytical examination of the problem, comparative, systemic-synergistic, historical-genetic, and comparative-statistical methods are used, along with methods of periodization and the approach of social positivism, understood as the consideration of socio-economic phenomena amenable to reform and improvement.

The novelty of the study lies in a comprehensive reinterpretation of the formation and development of U.S. economic power within the broader context of the global civilizational process. The article analyzes qualitative changes brought about by industrialization as a key factor in the emergence of a developed domestic market and assesses the role of American scientific and engineering thought and technological innovation in economic growth, based on a wide range of American primary and secondary sources.

The article concludes that the accelerated economic development following the Civil War (1861–1865) transformed the United States into a powerful industrial-agrarian country by the end of the 19th century. This transformation resulted from a combination of factors, including the radical character of the Civil War, favorable natural and geographical conditions, active technological adoption, mass immigration, extensive settlement of the Wild West, rapid infrastructure development that ensured domestic market integration, and a successful foreign economic policy.

Key words: abolitionism, protectionism, free-trade, Homestead Act, market economy, Monroe Doctrine, doctrine of «open doors and equal opportunities».

Submitted: 18.09.2025

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