The end of the Civil War until the beginning of the Twentieth Century was a time of rapid, all encompassing change for the United States. New methods of industry changed the nation into one that first resembled the modern United States. Big business and commerce became the primary influences for a newer, larger style of government that regulated trade and acted as an arbitrator between industry and the new working class. Cities grew ever larger as the factories required large amounts of labor to be nearby, and people in the cities and the countryside organized themselves to protect their interest. "Economy of scale" became the national bywords, and the yeoman farmer and artisan largely disappeared from the culture.
             The growth of industry was the dominant factor of change during the period. The Civil War had spurred industrial development in the North to a degree unimaginable in the rest of the world. While the North was well on its way to becoming an industrial powerhouse before the war, fielding and supplying the armies accelerated the process. Facing superior generalship in the Southern Army, the North relied on a war of attrition. The North was much better suited to this type of warfare as their industrial base was ten times as large as the South's. Likewise the North's modern infrastructure allowed them to move troops and supplies much more efficiently than the Confederate states. The effort required to mobilize and train the enormous Northern Army produced a large pool of men skilled in organization on a large level, and these men would prove instrumental in the later growth of industrial America.
             The North enforced a naval blockade around the south for the duration of the war. While it was not entirely effective at first, in time it closed off all foreign trade with the secessionist states. In response to the blockade southern industry developed faster than it had during the pre-war period, but even so...