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A 1980 census revealed that the nation’s center of population had at last moved west of the Mississippi River. By mid-century the population was still doubling approximately every twenty-five years. Urban growth also increased significantly.

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There were many owners who grew plump, and working people often "wasted away" at their workbenches. The hours were long, along with their wages, and meals were "skimpy and hastily gulped." Most workers were forced to work in very unsanitary buildings that were poorly ventilated, lighted, and heated. Also, they were forbidden by law to form labor unions to raise wages, because if they were to do that it was regarded as a criminal conspiracy. Also, a big portion of the nation’s industrial toilers were children less than 10 years old. These children were "mentally blighted, emotionally starved, physically stunted, and even brutally whipped in special “whipping rooms.”"

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The changes in commerce and communication came in the three decades before the Civil War, when canals and railroad tracks emerged from the East. It was also created because people in the east wanted to move west. The Mississippi was increasingly robbed of its traffic, as goods moved eastward. The South raised cotton for export to New England and Britain; the West grew grain and livestock to feed factory workers in the East and in Europe; the East made machines and textiles for the South and the West.

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The market revolution transformed the American economy from one in which people subsisted on things they either grew or created, to one in which people purchased goods that were produced all over the country. An advantage to this is that it increased prosperity in Americans, but it also widened the gap between rich and poor. Women now linked their economic fate to the "burgeoning market economy". The home became their refuge from the world of work.

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Fur trapping was a very large industry in the Rocky Mountain area, and each summer, fur trappers would meet with traders from the East to exchange beaver pelts for manufactured goods. This was called the "rendezvous" system. This thrived the economy for a long time.

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Local and federal governments helping to build internal improvements like canals and roads was crucial to the pioneers' survival. These canals and railroads allowed goods to be brought from one part of the country to the next, and this could help to stimulate the economy.

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The frontier was portrayed as amazing muscular men who were "carving civilization" out of the western woods, but the reality was not so bright.  Life was very grim, and the pioneers were poor and stricken with disease and loneliness.