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When the 20th century dawned, it was not at all clear that America would become the world's industrial powerhouse—or that, in the waning years of the century, it would redefine what both "industry" and "power" mean.  Americans have traveled an amazing distance in 100 years—from rural to urban and suburban life, from education for the elite to education for the masses, from farm to factory to knowledge work. The assembly line that Henry Ford introduced spread throughout industry and
still prevails in its highly automated form. The perpetual flow of parts and materials typical of the assembly line became characteristic of how industry and the economy at large operated: Instead of drugs and chemicals being made in batches, they were continuously processed. Instead of lone inventors tinkering with new devices in scattershot fashion, teams of researchers at industrial labs focused on improving their companies' technologies. Instead of working 9 to 5, people worked in shifts. Now, America buzzes, online and off, 24 hours a day. Americans have seen a revolution in what they produce and how they produce: from cars and plastics and alloys to transistors and microchips and computers. Power resides in a tiny chip and in the ether of the Internet. We feel it in everything we do.
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