TFP

This article isn’t shockingly perceptive or anything but it is always worth noting when people compare the current era with the Great Depression. It also suggests that we are in a period of technological advancement much like the 1930s - at least as described,  in The Great Leap Forward, wherein an increase in Total Factor Productivity (== technological advancement) set up later successes in World War II and the post-war period. Not saying that’s true, the difference in what was available before the war and after the war has always seemed like a quantum leap. 

The obvious followup is: Were there similar technological innovations happening in the 1840s, ahead of the American Civil War? To which the answer appears to be: Maybe? Googling 1840s TFP increases gets a number of results that mostly are trying to show to what extent transportation was the source. It appears that it does happen, though, indicating that: TFP increases from later Third to early (at least) Fourth Turnings. Probably worth checking in on at some point.