The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896 (Oxford History of the United States)

by Richard White

The American economy during the first Grant administration did two things extremely well. American farmers flooded Europe with wheat and eventually cotton while producing large amounts of corn, pork, and beef for domestic consumers. This productivity depended on a second success. Americans invested heavily in farms, infrastructure, and capital goods. They built the railroads required to haul crops, and they produced the iron, timber, and machinery required for the railroads and farms. This represented a political and spatial achievement as well as economic. Unlike Europe, the United States erased internal boundaries that impeded the passage of resources and commodities even as it erected external boundaries to protect American production.