A Quantitative Approach to the Study of Railroads in American Economic Growth: A Report of Some Preliminary Findings

Abstract

Leland Jenks's article describing the pervasive impact of the railroad on the American economy first as an idea, then as a construction enterprise, and finally as a purveyor of cheap transportation, has become a classic of economic history. The particular contribution of the Jenks article was not the novelty of its viewpoint, but the neat way in which it summarized the conclusions both of those who lived during the “railroad revolution” and those who later analyzed it through the lens of elapsed time. Out of this summary the railroad emerges as the most important innovation of the last two thirds of the nineteenth century. It appears as the sine qua non of American economic growth, the prime force behind the westward movement of agriculture, the rise of the corporation, the rapid growth of modern manufacturing industry, the regional location of industry, the pattern of urbanization, and die structure of interregional trade.