New South Industrialization

Cotton was still a major industry in the South after the Civil War, but iron and tobacco became strong competitors. There was an increase in Southern cotton mills. In 1800, there were one hundred and sixty mills; in 1900, there were over four hundred mills. There were, however, racist hiring practices. Very few blacks acquired jobs. This was justified by mill owners because whites suffered in competition with blacks for agricultural jobs. The counterargument may be that they were not jobs, because the blacks were slaves and not paid. Southerners found large coal and iron ore reserves, and thereby had a tremendous growth in iron and steel mills. Eventually though, these mills became controlled by foreign investors and Northerners around 1900. Tobacco was traditionally grown in the South, but factories for processing were not developed until post Civil War in 1900. Outside capitalists also controlled these industries. The Northerners reconstructed the Southern economy—one that they controlled—but did not change much in the South itself, which still had multiple racial and social issues.

Mass production was a major technological achievement all over the world especially in newly developing areas. Factory jobs were becoming wildly available and the demand for the materials used in these factories increased exponentially.” The southern states were more focused on gaining profit through agriculture, however the tobacco economy in these states was beginning to fail. With the rise of the textile industry, these same states

For the most part many historians tend to throw the idea of Southern manufacturing in the backseat since the North had a firm grasp on textile factories. The reason for this view is that many historians appeal to the idea of a Southern economy based on cotton and agriculture. However, this is not the case and many historians have failed to see this critical power move by Southern entrepreneurs. In many instances, business owners from the South would invest in internal improvements of textile mills.

After the civil war, especially during the late 1800s, the US industrial economy has been thriving and booming which reflected on the numerous improvements that occurred in transportation through new railroad, in new markets for new invented goods and in the increased farm yield. However, most of this wealth has been captured by the capitalists, they looked down on the working poor class and expected them to submit to them. Also, they had control over the government seeking to maintain a system of monopoly to allow them to grow richer from others. Thus, they were controlling both political and economic conditions of the country.

For example, farming was the main source of income for the Confederate states. The main southern chief crop which came to be known as King Cotton, accounted for 57% of all U.S. exports (“Civil War”). However, in order to produce these large amounts of cotton, the southern Confederate states depended heavily on slave labor. Since cotton production began to dominate and fuel the southern economy, the South felt that they did not need to industrialize like their northern neighbors did. This caused the South to manufacture very little goods and caused them to purchase manufactured goods from the industrialized North or to purchase imported goods from overseas.

The antebellum era (also referred to as the plantation era) between 1800’s to 1860 was a period of slave driven farming, marking the economic growth of the south. During this period in 1815, cotton was the most valuable traded produce in the United States and by 1840, it was more valuable compared to all other imported and exported goods combined. In 1860, one year before the Civil War, the South was predominantly reliant on the sale of agricultural products, such as tobacco, rice, sugar, and cotton estimated at 5,344,000 bales, to a worldwide market. while the southern states generated two-thirds of the world's cotton supply, the South had little industrial capability (manufactured good estimated to the value of$156,000,000), consisting of an estimated 29 percent of the railroad tracks or 14484.1km, and only 13 percent of the nation's banks. The South attempted slave labour in manufacturing, but were mainly content with their agricultural economy. Their delay in industrial expansion was not the result of any integral economic disadvantages, there was a vast amount of wealth in the South, but it was mainly bound to slave labour. In 1860, the financial value of slaves in the United States surpassed the participated value of all of the land's railroads, factories, and banks combined. the day before the Civil War, the value of cotton was at its peak, the Confederate aristocrats were confident that the significance of cotton on the world market, especially in England and France,

3. Agriculture, “economic lifeblood of the South” was crippled a. Cotton no longer grown b. slave-labor system = collapsed c. seed scarce; livestock driven off by Unionists i. Only until 1870 did new Southern land produce cotton at the level of 1860 4. Planter aristocrats were in poverty, faced burnt mansions, lost investments and worthless land a. $2 billion

Although the South produced the huge amounts of cotton needed, and exported it as a primary product to the rest of the world, it did not lead the way in industrialisation-this was dominated by the Northeast. What America lacked was manufacturing efficiency and as the Historian J.G.Rayback explains the war made 'Americans profoundly aware of other areas besides their own; in the post-Revolutionary period they made a vigorous effort to increase their knowledge of the entire nation and to take advantage of its limitless opportunities.'

The period between the end of the war of 1812 and 1860 was a time of great change and reform in America. However, these changes differed greatly in the North and South and would ultimately lead to the Civil war. The North saw many people become prosperous due to industrialization. The new technological advances that began in the late 18th century enabled the wealthy elite increase their power and influence by building factories and hiring workers to work raw materials into goods. In the south, however, slave culture and its expansion was the only way the wealthy plantation owners could remain powerful. There also began to develop a regional identity in both the North and South due to the people's differing stance on slavery. Although not every

An ongoing sense of sectionalism between the growing North and traditional South was created due to the drastically different economies. At this time, the North became a manufacturing and commercializing empire due to it’s technological advancements and abundance of resources. After the creation of the cotton gin, an increase in manual labor was needed in order to further carry out the South's agricultural driven

By 1791, the U.S. was the largest producer of raw material in the world. In the South, cotton was the main exported crop, which of course led to an increasing demand for both slaves and land. But because of this,

Before the Civil War began, the United States had two distinct economies. Although farming was a staple throughout the United States, from an economic standpoint the Northern and Southern farmers were fundamentally diverse from each other. Unfree labor and staple crops were an essential part of Southern life. While their counterparts to the North comprised of an economy that contained finance, a wide range of industries, and commerce; wage earners and small business owners. The Civil War drastically changed this way of life for both the North and South. The South after the war was left in decimated, while the Northern economy boomed. Southern farmers between 1859-1860 were harvesting a record number of cotton crops. Cotton was America’s most

In 1877 the south was far behind the north, to spite having more railroads. The south did not have electricity, Public school’s public health services or even telephones. From 1880 to the 1900’s the south started building railroads and from 1880 to 1890 they doubled their tracks. They also began producing iron and steel, while also starting their own set of goods like timber mills, tobacco and textile mills. In the South a weak agricultural economy, and a high rural birthrate decreased wages severely. low wages undermined the southern economy in multiple ways. The poorly paid workers did not buy much or provide tax revenue limiting funding for education. Low wages also kept educated immigrants out of the areas, because without jobs that paid well enough they could not afford the

The United States had a huge agricultural and industrial boom after the Civil war. A large reason for this was that from 1865 to the 1900’s the total population of the United States more than doubled. This large increase in the population meant that there were more people to aid in agriculture or to join the industry. A large portion of economic growth was concentrated in the Northeast, Midwest, and plains states, and many of them became urban areas full of technological advances. The South remained mostly agricultural like they had been before the civil war. Some states became technological leaders and New York State had nearly twice the industry in total. While the Northwest industrial system accounted for about 85% of the nation's manufacturing.

Cotton provided an economic foundation for the Southern economy before the Civil War. This economic growth demanded a harsh and tragic human price through slavery” (Beamish). The cotton boom benefits the new nation however, it also had a hurtful side; “subjugation of millions of human beings to bring about all of the advantages of the product for the United States” (Phalen,