Hawaii’s incorporation into the United States meant that businesses on the mainland could rely on a steady supply of low-cost sugar and profit from an expanded free-trade zone for investment and trade.
The most pervasive and sustained event ever to affect American business, the Great Depression brought about the end of the laissezfaire approach that had characterized the American business world from the nineteenth century through the 1920’s and paved the way for government intervention in business and finance.
The Granger movement worked to improve economic conditions for farmers, lobbying for the creation of railroad and warehouse commissions in several midwestern states.
Taking its name from an 1874 novel by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, the Gilded Age was a period of rapid economic growth accompanied by a host of serious social problems and chronic economic dislocation.
The acquisition of this territory was essential for the construction of a southern transcontinental railroad, eventually built by the Southern Pacific during the early 1880’s. It is also a land rich in copper and valuable for agriculture and grazing.
The British victory in the French and Indian War led to greater economic opportunities for Great Britain’s North American colonies, but it ironically also helped the nation’s thirteen American colonies eventually to become independent.
Although the population of the United States grew dramatically during the late nineteenth century, the vast expansion of land being farmed and the beginnings of mechanized agriculture soon led to overproduction and falling prices.
The collapse of Enron, an energy conglomerate with reported revenues of $100 billion, is one of the largest bankruptcy and accounting fraud cases in U.S. history.
The sharp rise in prices after the Iranian Revolution, combined with the Iran-Iraq War and U.S. government actions that exacerbated the problem, produced gas lines, shortages, and dramatically higher energy prices for U.S. businesses and consumers.
The Dust Bowl caused hundreds of thousands of Americans to become homeless and resulted in millions of inhabitants leaving the Great Plains in search of better living conditions elsewhere.
During the 1990’s, Internet-related businesses were viewed as a way for investors to make quick profits, and millions of dollars were pumped into nascent businesses.
The depression of 1808-1809, brought on by an embargo that cut off international markets for U.S. business, led to the development of a number of domestic industries.
The Depression of 1784 helped convince the nation that the central government created by the Articles of Confederation was too weak and that a new, stronger federal government with the power to issue currency, create tariffs, and regulate commerce was essential to national prosperity.
Attacking the gold monetary standard in favor of bimetallism, Bryan defended Western farmers and the “common man” against banks and the wealth of the Eastern United States.
The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal entered the annals of American business as an example of corruption typical in post-Civil War commerce, especially in railroad construction.
Coxey’s Army advocated the thenradical notion that the federal government should take direct responsibility for aiding in economic recovery by creating programs for the unemployed.
During the U.S. Civil War, the Union government demonstrated its capacity to raise large sums of money, and it established a national currency, a national banking system, and the nation’s first income tax.
Long after the U.S. Civil War, many African Americans were still working in lowpaying jobs that required few skills and had no opportunities for advancement.