Industrialization and militarization were anathema to many of the nation’s first policymakers, but by the middle of the nineteenth century, both were inextricably bound up with manifest destiny as key components of American civilization. This paper uses War Department papers and manufacturers’ records to explore how one of the main tenets of nineteenth-century American civilization – manifest destiny – transformed industrialization from a questionable economic activity to a key aspect of American society. Indeed, the “destiny” of American civilization depended on manufacturers who could produce weapons and clothing. Before railroads connected continental territory and became some of the nation’s first big businesses, the American arms and textile industries clothed and armed soldiers and settlers, receiving international recognition in the process. As the United States expanded and consolidated its land claims throughout the 1840s, warfare along its southern and western borders generated business opportunities for manufacturers in the East, who in turn made possible the competition that gave rise to the dominant civilization on the North American continent.
[1] Gouveneur Kemble, September 10, 1840, Folder 7, Box 15, Joel Roberts Poinsett Papers (0512), The Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
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