The end of the Civil War meant a new start for the country.  American energy was divided between three main concerns, including: Reconstruction of the political, social, economic system in the South, development of the amazing industrial capacity of the land, and the conquest and taming of the western frontier.

     During this time, the U.S. became a world economic giant, urbanized, and saw an explosion of immigration from Europeans and Asians in search of opportunity in the now not so "New World."

     There were certainly growing pains that went along with the period of industrialization however.  The nation was forced to adjust to change and challenges socially, economically, ecologically, and politically as the turn of the 20th Century neared.