English Commissioner to the New York Exhibition Quotes

We can go into no mechanic shop, into no manufactory of any description, upon no farm or plantation, or travel a mile on our railroads or in our steamboats, without seeing evidence of our originality and witnessing the fruits of our ingenuity and enterprise.

It is impossible for any power to become eminent in commerce, without excelling in manufactures and navigation. America is capable of supporting and increasing both …

If England became a world power, it was because of the industrial revolution.

Nearly every country in the world is now becoming industrialized as rapidly as it can.

Industrial forces set in motion by steam and electricity have materially changed the structure of our civilization.

A completely industrialized society is of no consequence to me.

In our State the locomotive has waked up the sleeping energies of a great people, and is transforming wasted fields into blooming gardens, and arousing men and women from the dull and heavy sleep that dwells with satisfaction upon the past, into the bright intelligence that looks to a glorious future ….

Industrial Revolution

Every new mine, furnace, and factory is an extension of the productive capacity of the State more real and valuable than added territory.

Thus in the Old World also the production of wealth must be increased, but this enterprise is far more difficult in Europe than in America. The population of Europe is much more dense than in the New World: a portion of its lands is exhausted: the great number of political subdivisions, and the multiplicity of tongues, increase enormously the difficulties in the way of business on a great scale. Traditions handed down from the time when men toiled to produce slowly and in small quantities things shaped toward a far distant ideal of perfection are still strong among its people.

There is, in my judgment, a great future before American manufacturing, commerce and trade, which will absorb millions of additional workers. When these workers are employed at good wages, as at present, they will buy farm products in a liberal way. The proportion of the American people engaged in industrial life doubtless will continue to increase, just as it has been doing.

The town I came from really had one industry, and that was furniture.

As well might it be said that, because we are ignorant of the laws by which metals are produced and trees developed, we cannot know anything of the origin of steamships and railways.

I think it's doing very well. I'm pleased to see the concentration on semiconductors. I think this will help.

Once we started to urbanize, we put ourselves on this treadmill. We traded away stability for growth. And growth requires change.

... a better government: more complete security of property; moderate taxes; a more permanent ... tenure of land ... the introduction of foreign arts ... and the introduction of foreign capital, which renders the increase of production no longer exclusively on the thrift or providence of the inhabitants themselves.

Steam and the telegraph and other machinery have required capital greater than any individual can furnish.

There are three thing which make a nation great and prosperous: a fertile soil, busy workshops, easy conveyance for men and goods from place to place.

Civilization and profits go hand in hand.

The introduction of so powerful an agent as steam will make a great change in the situation of man.

While we have land to labor, let us never wish to see our citizens occupied at a workbench or twirling a distaff. Carpenters, masons, smiths, are wanting in husbandry; but for the general operations of manufacture, let our workshops remain in Europe.

Soon you’ll be whirled along by steam in a country now only inhabited by wild beasts and Indians

The War of 1812 has given new direction to wealth and industry in the United States, and manufacturers grew up as if by magic.

The industrial revolution turned time into a commodity.

...industrialisation took centuries, rather than decades