The United States witnessed substantial growth in manufacturing and urban populations during the last half of the nineteenth century. To date, no convincing evidence has been presented to explain the shift in population to urban areas. We find evidence that capital intensity, particularly new...

There exists general agreement that the steam engine’s rise in importance occurred at the same time as large increases in firm size and growing urbanization, but no consensus concerning the degree to which the steam engine served as an exogenous force fueling urban growth. We reexamine the...