The completion in the Gilded Age of a national transportation network—virtually all of it RAILROADS—created a national market for manufacturers and traders to distribute their products. At the same time, the income of Americans was on the rise and ordinary people, farmers and workers, were acquiring more than the bare necessities of life. Consumerism was on the rise, creating mass markets in the United States. The rise of DEPARTMENT STORES, MAILORDER HOUSES, CHAIN STORES, and the growth of advertising in the late 19th century all led to the increased flow of goods throughout the nation.
With the explosion of economic activity in the Gilded Age, internal trade in the United States multiplied in volume. Railroad freight roughly tripled from 1870 to 1900, when it totaled 141.6 billion ton-miles (a ton-mile is one ton moved one mile). While the MERCHANT MARINE on the whole languished, the tonnage of vessels engaged in coastwise and internal trade jumped from 2,638,000 in 1870 to 4,287,000 in 1900.
Although during the Gilded Age domestic markets absorbed most of the raw materials and finished products Americans produced, foreign trade also increased. In 1870 American exports were valued at $451 million and imports at $462 million, but by 1900 exports were at $1.5 billion and imports at $930 million. The excess of exports over imports throughout most of the Gilded Age was made up—since there has to be an equilibrium in foreign trade—by payments to foreign shipowners and operators, interest paid on European investments in the United States, and a steady inflow of gold that facilitated the resumption of specie payments in 1879 and generally lowered interest rates for Americans.
Most of American foreign commerce was with Europe, much of it with Great Britain. In 1870, 81 percent of American exports were bound for Europe, and Britain received more than half (53 percent) of all exports. In that same year 55 percent of all American imports came from Europe and more than a third (35 percent) originated in Britain. Thirty years later in 1900, American exports to Europe fell slightly to 75 percent (Britain dropped from 53 to 38 percent), while imports from Europe also fell slightly to 52 percent (with Britain falling from 35 to 19 percent). Among the trading partners of the United States in 1900, Germany was second (considerably behind Britain), receiving 13 percent of exports (only a third of what Britain imported from the United States), but as the source of 11 percent of all American imports, it was gaining on Britain.
The principal American export in the late 19th century was baled cotton. In 1870 it was worth $227 million (more than half the value of all exports) and in 1900 $242 million (less than one-fifth of all exports). Increasing exports of wheat and meat from the agricultural sector and of petroleum and machinery from the industrial sector of the economy account for the relative decline of cotton, although it remained the top export. Sugar was the top import in the Gilded Age, with $57 million worth imported in 1870 and $100 million in 1900. The second most important import in 1870 was iron and steel manufactures at $40 million, but by 1900 the development of the American steel industry reduced those imports to relative insignificance. After sugar, the most important imports in 1900 were hides and skins, coffee, and then raw silk. The shifts in exports and imports reflects the enormous agricultural and industrial expansion of the United States.
Further reading: Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States (Washington, D. C.: U. S. Bureau of the Census, 1975).
World History
