260 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



THE EISE OF A NEW PKOFESSION" 



Br Pkofessob EDWARD D. JONES 



UNIVERSITY OP MICHIGAN 



IE we consider the industrial history of the United States, for the 

 span of a long generation, dating backward from this year of grace 

 to about 1840, we can distinguish at least three great movements which 

 have occupied the minds of men in industry. 



The Age of the Pioneer 



The first period was still engaged, as previous decades had been, in 

 the process of settling the country, and of starting those simple basic 

 industries which are the foundation of civilized life. 



In 1840 Boston was not yet connected with Albany by rail, nor 

 Albany with Buffalo. The grain elevator had not yet been devised; 

 and no coke ovens yet existed near Connellsville. The first steamboat 

 liad just been seen at the Soo ; and in Iowa they were plowing a furrow 

 from the Mississippi river west 100 miles to guide settlers. A few 

 pioneers were beginning to pass over the Oregon trail; and Fremont 

 was just describing Utah in the papers. It was not until 1845 that 

 copper was produced in upper Michigan. It was only in 1852 that 

 Chicago was connected with the East by railway. The locomotive did 

 not reach the Missouri river until 1859, nor the Pacific coast until 

 ten years later. 



The mention of the pioneers calls for a word of tribute. Our 

 nation's first industrial task was the stupendous one of clearing the 

 farms, and of building the common roads, and of establishing villages 

 and cities, and opening outlets for the marketing of surplus products. 

 Perhaps the history of the pioneers was, indeed, but "The short and 

 simple annals of the poor." Carlyle dismissed America with the con- 

 temptuous summary, "Hitherto She but plows and hammers." The 

 work of opening the country was simply the first duty. But it was not 

 industry of the cramped mechanical sort which Carlyle knew in the 

 grimy manufacturing towns of Scotland. The pioneers partook some- 

 what of the nature of the explorers. Their advance westward had the 

 stirring quality of a military reconnaissance directed against the hostile 

 forces of nature which were entrenched in the wilderness. The victory 

 was not to mere economy and patience, and the weaker virtues, but to 

 industry animated with boldness, directed by invention, and ennobled 

 by sacrifice for the future. The pioneers were rugged, self-reliant men 



