U.S. Economic history

The Economic History of the United States is the story of continuous growth from the 17th century settlements to the 21st century information age.

Agricultural age, 1776-1860

Textiles in New England

The United States followed the British lead in building a cotton and woolen textile industry. The first factories were built using stolen blueprints and illegally immigrating engineers. Samuel Slater (1768-1835) of Rhode Island pulled American cotton-spinning technology by constructing carding, drawing, and roving machinery, and by determining the operating and gearing ratios necessary to use water power. By 1850 the American had built their own industrial revolutions around textiles, and use of abundant water power in New England.

Bibliography

• Atack, Jeremy and Peter Passell. A New Economic View of American History: From Colonial Times to 1940 (1994) online, 1st edition was Lee, Susan Previant, and Peter Passell. A New Economic View of American History (1979)
• Carter, Susan B., Scott Sigmund Gartner, Michael R. Haines, and Alan L. Olmstead, eds. The Historical Statistics of the United States (Cambridge University Press: 6 vol 2006); online (in Excel format) at some universities. 37,000 data sets make it the standard data source for all topics
• Chandler, Alfred D. and James W. Cortada. A Nation Transformed by Information: How Information Has Shaped the United States from Colonial Times to the Present (2000) online
• Cochran; Thomas C. 200 Years of American Business. (1977) online
• Engerman, Stanley L. and Robert E. Gallman, eds. The Cambridge Economic History of the United States (2000), cover 1790-1914; heavily quantitative
• Gordon, John Steele An Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power (2004), popular history
• Gordon, Robert. "U.S. Economic Growth since 1870: One Big Wave," American Economic Review 89:2 (May 1999), 123-28; in JSTOR
• Hughes, Jonathan and Louis P. Cain. American Economic History (6th Edition) (2002), textbook
• Kirkland; Edward C. A History of American Economic Life (1951), textbook online
• Schmidt, Louis Bernard, and Earle Dudley Ross. Readings in the Economic History of American Agriculture (1925), primary sources; online
• Studenski, Paul, and Herman Krooss. A Financial History of the United States (1952)
• Walton, Gary M. and Hugh Rockoff. History of the American Economy with Economic Applications (2004), textbook
• Whaples, Robert and Dianne C. Betts, eds. Historical Perspectives on the American Economy: Selected Readings (1995) articles

1775-1860

• Batchelder, Samuel. Introduction and Early Progress of the Cotton Manufacture in the United States (1863) online edition
• Clark, Victor S. History of Manufactures in the United States: 1607-1860 (1916) online at books.google.com
• Cohen, Isaac. American Management and British Labor: A Comparative Study of the Cotton Spinning Industry (1990) online edition
• Cole, Arthur Harrison. The American Wool Manufacture 1926
• Copeland, Melvin Thomas. The Cotton Manufacturing Industry of the United States (1912) online edition
• Mathias, Peter, and M. M. Postan, eds. The Cambridge Economic History of Europe from the Decline of the Roman Empire, Vol. 7, Pt. 2 The Industrial Economies: Capital, Labour and Enterprise, The United States, Japan and Russia, (1978)
• Nettels, Curtis P. The Emergence of a National Economy, 1775-1815 (1962) broad economic history of the era
• Olson, James S. Encyclopedia of the Industrial Revolution in America (2001)
• Ransom, Roger. Conflict and Compromise: The Political Economy of Slavery, Emancipation and the American Civil War (1989)
• Sellers, Charles, The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815-1846 (1994) online
• Taylor, George Rogers. The Transportation Revolution, 1815-1860 (1951)
• Temin, Peter. The Jacksonian Economy (1969) online
• Wright, Gavin. Old South, New South: Revolutions in the Southern Economy since the Civil War (1986)
• Wright, Gavin. The Political Economy of the Cotton South: Households, Markets, and Wealth in the Nineteenth Century (1978) online
• Wright, Robert E. and David J. Cowen. Financial Founding Fathers: The Men Who Made America Rich, University of Chicago Press, 2006. ISBN 0-226-91068-7.

1860-1914

• Andreano, Ralph, ed. The Economic Impact of the Civil War (1962), articles
• Chandler, Alfred D. The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (1977), business history
• Chandler, Alfred D.; Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the Industrial Enterprise (1969) online

1914-1970

• Devine, Warren D. Jr. "From Shafts to Wire: Historical Perspective on Electrification". Journal of Economic History, Vol 43, No. 2 (June 1983) pp. 347-372.
• Mitchell, Broadus. The Depression Decade: From New Era through New Deal, 1929-1941 (1947) broad economic history of the era; online
• Soule, George. The Prosperity Decade: From War to Depression, 1917-1929 (1947) broad economic history of decade

1970- Present

• French, Michael. US Economic History since 1945 (1997)
• Goldin, Claudia Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women (1990), quantitative

Data

• Bureau of Economic Analysis: Official United States GDP data
• US GDP 1790 to 2005, include GDP, Real GDP, population, GDP per capita, and Real GDP per capita