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How Did The Industrial Revolution Affect The Economy Of Latin America

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In the late 18th and most of the 19th century, the Western world experienced a boom in industrial technology. Commonly known as the Industrial Revolution, this time period saw a shift from working by hand to working with machinery to produce goods. Steam and water power developed immensely as well as other machines to produce exports. During this time there was a rise of factories for manufactured products, most commonly textiles. The Industrial Revolution sparked a need for raw materials to produce these goods and to build machinery. Thus, the Industrial Revolution sparked major economic developments in Latin America, and led to the its ethnic composition being changed. Latin America at this time had very little manufactured exports, mainly electing to important finished goods from the United States or Europe. Their most popular exports were coffee and bananas. They did, however, have an ever-growing amount of exports in the form of raw materials. These materials included cotton, copper, guano, and petroleum. Each Latin American …show more content…

Mainly created and operated by American businessmen, the railroads of Latin America provided quick and easy means to move and deliver exports. Most prominently, railroads being built led to a huge increase in banana exports in the Caribbean. American entrepreneur Minor Keith was sent to create miles of railroad in Costa Rica. The construction was dangerous and expensive, and by the end of it all Keith was losing money because there was no real use for the railroads being built (Passos). To give the railroad companies something to haul, Keith planted bananas and sold them alongside vanilla and rubber. American stores exploded with the bananas, that even today are a household staple in the United States (Passos). Not only did Keith save the railroad business in Latin America, he created an entirely new economy for fruits in the

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