In the decades following the Civil War, the United States emerged as an industrial giant. Old industries expanded and many new ones, including petroleum refining, steel manufacturing, and electrical power, emerged. Railroads expanded significantly, bringing even remote parts of the country into a national market economy.
Industrial growth transformed American society. It produced a new class of wealthy industrialists and a prosperous middle class. It also produced a vastly expanded blue collar working class. The labor force that made industrialization possible was made up of millions of newly arrived immigrants and even larger numbers of migrants from rural areas.
American society became more diverse than ever before.
These amazing pics from Thiophene_Guy documented everyday life of the United States from between the 1850s and 1890s.
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| Broadway on a rainy day, NY, 1859 |
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| The Rag Rorums celebration at St Johnsbury, Vermont, 1959 |
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| Market Day, Hanover Street entrance, Carlisle, PA, 1860 |
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| The railroad station at Lewistown, PA, circa 1860s |
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| Civil War era Independence Day picnic, PA, 1862 |
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| Soldiers on Broadway (New York City), men in trees and crowds lining the street during Abraham Lincoln's funeral procession, 1865 |
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| Pawnee Indian camp, 1866 |
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| Christmas in Orford, NH, 1868 |
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| A family prayer meeting, perhaps in the vicinity of Newport, Rhode Island, circa 1869 |
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| Group of young lady Sunday school teachers, Ottawa, Illinois, circa 1870s |
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| Minnehaha falls in winter, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1870 |
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| New Orleans Principal steamboat landing, from Gravier street, looking down the levee, circa 1870 |
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| The shop was located at showroom at 346 and 348 Broadway, New York, circa 1870s |
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| Chicago river after the Great Fire, 1871 |
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| Minnehaha falls and bridge, circa 1871 |
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| An artist sketching ancient ruins, Cañon de Chelle, N.M, circa 1873 |
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| Whirligig in Shützen Park, Philadelphia, PA, 1873 |
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| The Club Girls of Friend's School, Providence, Rhode Island, 1874 |
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| Family in front of a sod house, Kansas, circa 1875 |
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| A lady and her horse in Putnam, NH, circa 1880s |
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| American Fork Canyon, Wasatch Range, Utah, circa 1880s |
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| Buildings in Atchison, Kansas, circa 1880s |
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| A busy street in Bismarck, Dakota Territory (now North Dakota), 1883 |
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| A group on Flag Staff Ledge in Mauch Chunk, PA, circa 1885 |
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| A spelling match in Augusta, Georgia, circa 1885 |
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| Croquet in Augusta, Georgia, circa 1885 |
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| Lightwood merchants in Augusta, Georgia, 1885 |
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| Bathers in the surf at Manhattan beach, Brooklyn, New York, 1889 |
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| The first ferris wheel, Chicago, 1893 |
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| Circus parade, Washington, D.C., 1894 |
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| Broad Street, Philadelphia, circa 1895 |
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| Independence Day festivities in Marengo, Illinois, 1896 |
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| Wrong end up, Atlantic City, NJ, 1896 |
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| A pioneer and his family in Oregon, circa 1890s |
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| Coney Island bathers, NY, 1899 |
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| Decorated San Francisco, circa 1890s |
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| Horse drawn trolley traffic on Washington Street, Boston, MA, circa 1890s |
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| On the beach at Coney Island, NY, 1899 |