The unrelenting industrialization of America in the 19th century brought undreamed-of wealth and abundance to the nation as it emerged as a major world power after the trauma of a bloody civil war; however, the wealth was unevenly distributed, and industrialization inevitably produced the undesirable side effects of overcrowded tenement life, pollution, and the general degradation of the environment. This, in turn, set some of the nation's great thinkers...