mountains, and perform numerous domestic services, were running
their useless courses to the sea.

Industrial America is a product of the decades succeeding the
Civil War; yet even in 1865 we were a large manufacturing nation.
The leading characteristic of our industries, as compared with
present conditions, was that they were individualized. Nearly all
had outgrown the household stage, the factory system had gained a
foothold in nearly every line, even the corporation had made its
appearance, yet small-scale production prevailed in practically
every field. In the decade preceding the War, vans were still
making regular trips through New England and the Middle States,
leaving at farmhouses bundles of straw plait, which the members
of the household fashioned into hats. The farmers' wives and
daughters still supplemented the family income by working on
goods for city dealers in ready-made clothing. We can still see
in Massachusetts rural towns the little shoe shops in which the
predecessors of the existing factory workers soled and heeled the
shoes which shod our armies in the early days of the Civil War.
Every city and town had its own slaughter house; New York had
more than two hundred; what is now Fifth Avenue was frequently
encumbered by large droves of cattle, and great stockyards
occupied territory which is now used for beautiful clubs,
railroad stations, hotels, and the highest class of retail
establishments.

In this period before the Civil War comparatively small single
owners, or frequently copartnerships, controlled practically
every industrial field. Individual proprietors, not uncommonly
powerful families which were almost feudal in character, owned