technologies being found everywhere, the merchant classes attempted to mold an entirely new, productive economic system-albeit good or bad-which The United States still rests upon today. Without these technological innovations, the country could never have developed in the way that it did-provided that other countries did not develop these technologies first, but in which case The United States would not have retained the influential power that it holds today.
             The task of redefining economics would prove to be an extremely difficult one-sometimes requiring technologies or tactics that had yet to be discovered. The year 1815 marked the highpoint of merchant-capitalism and signified the start of a period where large-scale communication and transportation innovations first made their appearance (Taylor, 6). During this time the United States' economy was primarily agricultural and, because of the tack of transportation, the Atlantic coast merchants directed virtually all of U.S. commerce, composing nearly 85% of the population and therefore creating a merchant-capitalist economy (Taylor, 6). With such extreme division of manufacturing, as related to geographic location, only a revolutionary development in both transportation and communication would make any form of industrial expansion feasible. The United States had many more reasons for its need of advanced transportation methods, however. Population was increasing at a tremendous rate as people were immigrating into the United States, creating a need for both geographic and industrial/agrarian expansions. Alongside the population increase was the huge amount of untapped resources that America had in it; coal and gold were among the many financial opportunities that were held back by the inefficiency of transportation (Bolino, 30). Not to say that the United States was in economic trouble, as the Atlantic coast merchants were engaged on their own account in the coastwise...