ABSTRACT
A thriving industry existed for almost a century in the United Kingdom, and examples of both British coffin hardware and domestic hand-crafted hardware were present in the American northeast as early as the late eighteenth century. A domestic general-hardware industry had been established in America by 1810, indicating that the technology necessary for manufacturing coffin hardware was present in the United States by that time. The telegraph system allowed quick communication for ordering from catalogs, as well as communications allowing an integration of financial markets and banks that allowed a cross-country credit system to function. The construction of canals and railway systems in the early and mid-nineteenth century meant that coal could be transported economically in large quantities to fuel industrial steam plants and local industrial opportunities shifted to urban areas. In addition to urbanization, the American Industrial Revolution also resulted in the development of a middle class.
