Importance of Economic Forces in the Study of 

 American History. 



The application of the scientific method of the 

 study of American history has brought out more 

 clearly the significance of the economic forces under- 

 lying our national development. It has been only a 

 few years since the histories of the United States 

 treated merely the political, military, and religious 

 phases of American life, while the economic and social 

 were neglected, if not altogether ignored; and this in 

 spite of the fact that the latter have been constantly 

 gaining in importance with our material progress and 

 have formed, further, the real essence of our most 

 crucial political questions. We need only refer to the 

 slavery question with its many complications, or con- 

 sider the debates on the public lands, internal im- 

 provements, the United States bank, the tariff, the 

 currency, immigration, the organization of labor, and 

 the regulation of corporations, to show what an im- 

 portant part economic questions have played in 

 American politics. 



The Need for the Study of American Economic 

 History. 



To-day, economic and social problems are pressing 

 for solution ; and questions of government are becom- 

 ing, to an ever-increasing extent, economic rather than 

 political. The scientific spirit is making new demands 

 upon the past. It wants to know a thousand things 

 concerning which analysts in former times were not 

 curious. \Vhereas historians have hitherto interro- 

 gated the past concerning the doings of generals, 

 politicians, and churchmen, they are now coming to 

 search for information concerning such matters as the 

 tenure of public and private land, the migrations of 

 settlers and of crop areas, the rise of trades unions 

 and farmers' organizations, the growth of corpora- 

 tions, the status of the negro, and the advance of edu- 

 cation. The rising school of economic historians is 



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