This is the first of a three-part series on the history of U.S. infrastructure. The goal of this paper is to provide an overview of the history of infrastructure development and investment since Reconstruction (1865–1877).

Infrastructure in the United States has gone through 11 phases: (1) Post–Civil War Reconstruction, (2) Gilded Age, (3) Pre/Post–World War I, (4) Post–Depression Era New Deal Programs, (5) World War II Militarization and Industrialization, (6) Post–World War II, (7) Civil Rights/War on Poverty/Cold War Era, (8) Reagan Era, (9) Telecommunications/Internet Era, (10) The Modern Era, and (11) Post-Modern Era.

Over the past 140 years, the United States has gone through these 11 phases of infrastructure development, and at each one of these phases there has been a different mix of financing strategies from full government participation, financing and administration; to public-private sector partnerships, participation, financing and administration