Although today, nails are plentiful and inexpensive, for hundreds of years prior to the late 18th century, nails were rare and costly due to the highly skilled and time-consuming process it took to make each individual nail. The labor-intensive process contributed to the scarcity of nails and that scarcity translated into a high cost. Americans, therefore, used fewer nails in the construction of their homes, and the styles of homes were limited to log cabins, stone and brick, and post-and-beam constructions. Log-cabin construction avoided the use of expensive handmade nails by using notched tree trunks which could be harvested at the construction site and required no great skill. Stone and brick and post-and-beam homes both required great skill, resulting in significantly higher costs. Both were also time-consuming to build which was a major drawback as the nation was rapidly growing in size and population. As the nation expanded westward, the time-consuming and costly nature of the latter two types of homes limited the speed with which this expansion could take place. As a result, log cabins became the icon of the new frontier. Towards the end of the 17th century, new, mass-produced “cut nails” began, making nails more plentiful and inexpensive. Home construction then shifted toward sturdier balloon-frame houses. As pre-cut boards, fabricated doors and windows, and mass-produced nails became widely available, manual laborers could assemble framed homes quickly, often by mail order kit houses that were being sold in catalogs such as Sears & Roebuck.

With the construction of the railroad and the gold rush rapidly drawing droves of people westward, those settling the frontier needed a quick and affordable means of constructing a home. The log cabin, requiring significantly fewer nails and utilizing logs, mud, grasses, moss, and any other improvised materials at the construction site became the most common form of construction for settlers.

In the 1950s and 1960s, most middle-class American kitchens included a dishwasher. Time-saving conveniences such as these resulted from the quick transformation of the American economy following the war. Factories shifted their focus from the production of B-17 bombers, Sherman tanks, and other military equipment back to consumer goods.

The halted demand for military goods left a tremendous amount of slack in the American industrial economy, threatening to throw hundreds of thousands of workers out of their jobs. Following the success experienced between 1942 and 1945 when retooling American industries to produce goods needed in the war effort, American businesses once again shifted focus and retooled factories to now manufacture consumer goods like cars, refrigerators, televisions, and dishwashers.

The fact that so many of Europe’s factories, rail lines, and cities lay in ruins created an opportunity for American businesses. They had a virtual monopoly on production, given that so few European goods were available to offer competition. The post-World War II world was divided between western capitalism and Soviet communism. Economic production became one way in which superiority was demonstrated by the opposing sides during the Cold War, thusly named as no direct shots were exchanged between the opposing forces. Instead, both sides were committed to demonstrating the superiority of their economic and political systems. The production of consumer goods, such as affordable dishwashers, became a way for America to demonstrate capitalism’s ability to dramatically increase the average citizen’s standard of living. The dishwasher served as part of the backdrop in what became known as the “kitchen debate” in 1959 as Vice President Richard Nixon faced Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in Moscow. As they each attempted to highlight the benefits of their own national system, Nixon pointed to the high standard of living and material prosperity available to the average American in the postwar United States. Khrushchev countered that this American obsession with gadgetry pointed to materialism substituting real values and questioned the necessity of labor-saving devices.

I previously understood that the Cold War encompassed the economic and social competition between western capitalism and Soviet communism; however, I never knew or imagined how far this competition stretched. It was interesting to read and learn of the direct correlation between the post-war shift in manufacturing and production of consumer goods, including modern conveniences such as the dishwasher, and how those were actually were considered part of the Cold War’s effort to demonstrate western superiority.

The Civil War soldier’s boot, though modest and not particularly well-made, symbolized many of the most critical changes that the Civil War triggered in the federal government. When the war initially broke out in the spring of 1861, the North and South both were under the impression that the opposing side would quickly tire of the war, particularly after the first big battle occurred. The 90-day enlistment papers signed by soldiers who went off to war in the early months were evidence of the belief that the battle would be short-lived. The government faced the difficult challenge of outfitting a sizeable army including the necessary shoes, clothing, a musket, ammunition, cartridge box, and pack. Furnishing these goods was a daunting task and often the supplies were lacking in quality. Production of these goods occurred in small shops and no single manufacturer could handle a large order; therefore, the demands of the war helped spur new developments in production techniques. By the end of the war, the production of shoes had become much faster and increasingly mechanized.
The federal government became the single largest purchaser of a variety of goods, including shoes, blankets, tents, and draft animals. These orders were often filled piecemeal across several small shops. Parceling out demanded new kinds of governmental oversight which meant the federal government would have more contact and play a greater role in the average American’s life. The federal government required a larger government workforce to oversee production and government purchasing agents had to inspect the goods to ensure that their quality was adequate for troops in the field. The huge number of federal contracts and the enormous amounts of federal money tied up in these orders created a temptation for graft and corruption on the parts of many producers. The army’s ceaseless demand for supplies put government purchasers in the position of buying up goods without examining their quality closely.
Prior to the Civil War, the chief source of revenue for the federal government was the tariff; however, the necessity of raising money to fight the war led the government to expand its revenue sources to include bonds, and for the first time, income taxes, as the federal government again extended itself into the lives of American citizens. Another dramatic expansion of federal authority as a result of the war was embodied in the soldiers themselves. While initially, the enthusiasm over the war brought forth a surplus of men volunteering for battle, by the midpoint of the war the supply of volunteers was no longer adequate to fill the ranks. For the first time, the U.S. government turned to conscription. In response, riots broke out over the draft, killing more than a hundred people over four days.

Prior to the war, there was a federal government and a bureaucracy; however, following the war, the nation’s social base shifted toward federal power which overrode states’ rights. There were 5,837 federal employees in 1861, excluding the 30,000 postal workers who represented the largest arm of government. By 1871, based on data from the first census after the war, that number had grown to 15,344.
As a result of the war, Congress approved the first national banking system. Women were introduced to the workforce to ease the labor shortage created by the war. Women went to work for the treasury cutting sheets of money and counting currency. The Agriculture Department was established to help America’s farmers. A national cemetery system was created to bury the Union dead. Telegraph lines were erected all the way to the West coast, broadening communication across the nation. The Transcontinental Railroad was constructed, aiding the movement of goods and people. Three amendments were added to the Constitution shortly after the war — the 13th, 14th, and 15th, respectively abolishing slavery, guaranteeing equal protection, and giving African Americans the right to vote — and further cemented federal power. Several initiatives instituted by the federal government led to greater advancements and conveniences; however, each brought the federal government’s power further and further into the lives of all Americans and shadowing the power of state governments.