“Between 1850 and 1900 every measure of wealth, productivity, and well-being skyrocketed in America. The country’s population in the period tripled, but its wealth increased by a factor of thirteen. Steel production went from 13,000 tons a year to 11.3 million. Exports of metal products of all kinds—guns, rails, pipes, boilers, machinery of every description—went from $6 million to $120 million. The number of millionaires, fewer than twenty in 1850, rose to forty thousand by century’s end. Bryson, Bill. At Home (p. 313). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. Bryson, Bill. At Home (p. 313). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. ”
