America declared its independence in 1776, of which, at the time of that declaration, the wealth of the nation, was primarily in the ownership of land, because America, itself, made its money from the development of agricultural products, and its ownership of livestock, of which the percentage of those that were highly educated was relatively small, and essentially limited to clergy, lawyers, and doctors.
As the industrial revolution came into play and built upon itself, America began to more and more to effectively utilize tools and devices that allowed first Americans to get more from the soil that they owned, and later to build machines in the infrastructures purposely constructed to manufacture such, so as to not only to utilize these instruments within those communities but also to sell and produce such to help in the development of emerging cities around America, leading to railroads being created in order to more easily transport materials over land, and by doing so, effectively shortening the distance between one industrial center to the next, of the trading of goods and raw materials from one center to another, and thereby creating the rise of the middle class, as those that became expert and useful in the usage, management, and maintenance of machines, the sales of goods, and the trading of such, were compensated for the importance of their contribution.
The jobs created from this industrial revolution, necessitated training, specialization, and skill, of which the more that these skills and machines worked efficiently together, the more productivity was created, and therefore the more goods that could be created at shorter build times, of less cost, and of far more goods than had previously been created by hand labor, so that the material assets of countries increased markedly by the usage, strength, and skill of those working with machines, creating a new wealth of nations.
So too, improvements to these tools were done continuously, in which each new improvement, increased the productivity of the machines to the point that over time, the contribution from mankind became less of true brawn in order to control the machines, but instead the utilization of the mind, in order to envision what else and how much more that could be done to make the manufacture of goods even more efficient and cost effective, for those manufacturers that were the most competent, increased their market share and often their profits, which were then re-invested into the facility to do even more.
All of this effectively over a relatively short period of time, changed what use to be an agrarian society, the norm of the time, into a far more sophisticated society, that needed its people to be literate, as well as to live in communities and cities of close proximity to one another in order to more efficiently take advantage of the benefits of industrial revolution, and from this, the creation of all kinds of jobs, that didn't exist, when one's life was built around working in and about agrarian fields.
So too life inexorably changed for most people, from lives previously lived in a manner in which each day was pretty much the same day, of which, the goal of those days were simply finding enough to eat, having clean water, and shelter to sleep, akin to lives barely living above the status of a beast; to today's world, in which, all the accouterments that so many take for granted, such as indoor plumbing, electricity, ready access to food and clean water, and the ability to easily travel from one place to another is commonplace.
All this is to the credit of mankind, which has mastered its environment, built upon ideas previously created, and diligently advanced civilization, not primarily by utilizing sweat labor from human hands, nor by utilizing beasts of burden, but instead by focusing man's mind so as to invent and create machines, that under man's guidance can seemingly do it all. Yet, mankind must remember that these same machines are here to serve mankind, and never should it be, that mankind must serve those machines, for if that does indeed happen, for some or for all, the descent of mankind will begin and to its utter destruction will be its tale.