White Collar And Blue Collar Essay

The North’s economy was based on textiles, shipping, and skilled trades. Their climate was not suited for the same type of agricultural products that the South produced like cotton, sugar, rice and tobacco. Northern states like New England manufactured and shipped goods like guns, clocks, plows and axes (page 399). One reason for the South’s dependence on slavery is because their economy relied on the existence of slave labor. For example, the cultivation of cotton depended largely on slave labor, with 75% of the crop grown on plantations,

The Southern States depended on slave labor to thrive. In 1804, the American Convention of Abolition Societies reported that North Carolina considered “the preservation of their lives, and all they hold dear on earth, as depending on the continuance of slavery…” (Levine, 1992) In the first month of the Civil War, Confederate President Jefferson Davis reminded his congress that the Southern states had flourished up to the point based and dependent upon the Negro slave labor. He added proudly, “The labor of African slaves was and is indispensable…” The economic success of the whole of the United States owed over three quarters of its exports to this labor, and “was absolutely necessary

The Antebellum period or pre-war period of America was the beginnings of American advancement. During the Antebellum period, many changes occurred throughout the United States of America. One such change was the advent of slaves for plantation work, along with other forms of domestic forms of labor. Slavery as a form of labor was what caused south to become the world's main producer of cotton, and as a primary source of cotton, the south would also have a monopoly on cotton. This monopoly on cotton is what allowed the development of the southern economy to continue, making the southern economy so strong, and large. The southern economy, however, was not the only economy affected by labor. The wage workers of the north greatly assisted in the betterment of the north in general but assisted more so in the economical sense. This boost in the economy was greatly caused by the utilization of machines in factories, along with the ability for the north to accept immigrants to do more trivial and labor-intensive tasks. The ability for the north to efficiently process raw materials and ship out, as well as sell that refined good is precisely what strengthened and improved their economy. American improvement took many forms in during the Antebellum period, and many of these views of improvement opposed each other, such as the improvement of the north due to wage workers as well as the improvement of the southern economy due to slavery.

One key difference between the North and South was the North’s abundance of cheap labor. Between 1845 and 1855 around 3 million people immigrated to the US (304). This new influx of people brought large quantities of low waged factory, mine and construction workers to the Northern states just in time to aid in the industrial revolution. Contrary to the North, southern states still relied heavily on slave labor as their economy was dependent on cash crops. Furthermore, slavery was not only an economic institution but now a way of life for Southerners. Therefore, slavery was more widely accepted and condoned as it was both a way of life and an economic institution. However, Northerners did not experience this way of life or rely on slave labor. Due to this, Northerners we more eager to expel slavery. Northerners’ discontentment with slavery created negative responses to the Compromise of 1850 as opposed to the Southerners. One of the five federal laws in the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act, disabled Northerners’ to remain impartial to the slavery conflict (315). The Compromise strengthened the Fugitive Slave Act, forcing Northerners to return

One of these economic differences was how goods were produced. While both the North and South were successful in the production of goods, the North was much more efficient. This was because they used manufacturing industries instead of farms, which were used by the South more. The North depended on the South for farming and the South depended on the North for machinery. For example, in Document 2, Virginian Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Adams from Massachusetts, a letter stating, “For finer things, we shall depend on your northern manufacturers. Of these companies we have none. We use little machinery.” To clarify, the South had very little machines and companies, therefore, they depended greatly on the North who were very advanced in this technology. Nevertheless, the North also depended greatly on the South, who were almost entirely run on agriculture. The South’s agricultural items were sent to the North to be manufactured. For instance, the South harvested cotton, which was then sent over to the North to be made into textiles. As conflict arose between the North and South, the economy would suffer as they relied so heavily on each other. Likewise, the North and South had different forms of labor. As aforementioned, the North’s economy included a great deal of manufacturing, while the South did not. In the North, for the most part, slavery was abolished. The North relied on free labor, which was the ideology that one could work for payment and that one had the opportunity to raise this wage through hard work. In the South, however, slavery was a key to the economy. At first, the southern slaves had to separate the seeds from cotton fibers by hand, but with Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin, cotton could be separated by the machine. The cotton gin revolutionized the production of cotton by greatly speeding up the process. Now, slaves could process more cotton. However, with more

agriculture. The industrial revolution in the North, during the first few decades of the 19th century, brought about a machine age economy that relied on wage laborers, not slaves. In addition, At the same time the warmer Southern states continued to rely on slaves for their farming economy and cotton production. Southerners made huge profits from cotton and slaves and fought a war to maintain them. Northerners did not need slaves for their economy and fought a war to free them. For instance, James Henry Hammond announces that the slaves hired in the South are hired for life and compensated while in the North their manual laborers are not cared about and are essentially “slaves”. (Doc L.) Essentially, Hammond felt that people are better off in the South because they are treated much better and they have a prime purpose unlike the North who call the hired “manual laborers” but are just slaves, who are one day working then suddenly ‘beggars “on the street. Another example of the Industry vs. Agriculture being a cause of the Civil War was South Carolina Threatening Secession, with all its pecuniary bounties to the Northern states, and its pecuniary burdens upon the Southern states, would be utterly “overthrown and demolished”. (Doc A.) This would develop in the ruin of thousands and hundreds of thousands in the manufacturing

industry depended on slaves and secondly, the South saw slavery as an industry on its

In the mid 19th century, the United States of America was experiencing an era of growth. The only problem was the North and South had an economical difference. The North established manufacturing and industry. While the South’s economy was based on large-scaled farming, which relied on the labor of African American slaves to grow and harvest certain crops. Tobacco and cotton were the main crops that was grown. After the abolishment of the slaves in the North, the South felt like they were going to have to remove the slaves also. They feared this because the people of the South knew that the economy was going to fall tremendously. The abolishment of the slaves had spread westward and this is when the South became concerned even more.

Prevalence of a less diversified southern economic approach was a condition that negatively impacted the economic progress. With cheap labor from slaves, the South prevalently practiced agriculture at the expense of market economies. While significant in farming, slave labor made farmers more complacent in agricultural production. The situation inevitably led to reluctance in establishing sustainable trade networks with other States in the North. As Wright (2006)

The existence of slavery provided a flexible system of forced labor. It permitted operations on a scale impossible for the family labor system of the North. Finally, the cotton economy benefitted from the South’s natural transportation system. This made shipping very easy and

In the Wages of Whiteness (an edition revision) by David Roediger, an American labor historian, he examines the growth and social construction of race during the 1800s and its relations to white workers. Roediger states by labeling race based on its skin color and social status, white folks were“...seen as ‘naturally’ white, and Black workers become ‘intruders’ who are strongly suspected of being ‘loafers’ as well” (Roediger 19). The production of race formed once white workers accepted their class positions by accepting their identities as ‘not slaves’ and as ‘not Blacks’. In this case, there was a necessity for white workers to have its own sense of class and gender identity to determine who has power and who does not.

Analysis 1: While southern Democrats did not believe in paying labor for blacks, there were people out there besides the black citizens fighting for the black’s rights and trying to make a change. They took time to explain and put into place labor systems that rewarded the African Americans with the pay they deserved and that made a change in the South. f. Evidence 2: Even when they have the exact same job as a white citizen, African-Americans most always got paid significantly less than the white citizens working beside him/her. (Doc. E) g. Analysis 2: This was not the amount African-Americans deserved for the duties they provided, but because of discrimination this was the norm in the South. White bosses of black citizens paid them entirely on what color their skin was, instead of how well they worked.

In the early 1800’s the Industrial revolution changed the economy and lifestyles of the North and South immensely and created the first of the many differences to come between the North and South. During the time period of the Industrial Revolution, the North took its shape of the way we know it to be today, with factories and laborers working long hard days. In these factories, the workers were not slaves they were laborers and immigrants. Likewise, in the South, the industrial revolution changed its economy, however in a much more subtle way than in the North. The South was introduced to the cotton gin, mechanical reaper, and many more

Due to warm weather and long summers, in the region, climate in the South was ideal for growing crops. Cotton became major source of trade but it's great wealth relied on slaves for cheap labor. In the irony, the southerners struggle to have successful trade relationship with foreign companies which did not end there. While the North outshines as a free society, free education, better quality of

Just as Bill Mollison had said “Though the problems of the world are increasingly complex, the solutions remain embarrassingly simple.” The unfairness towards foreign people such as blacks, mexicans, irish, welsh, and many more. Though most of it was pointed to blacks and they were hit by the poverty the hardest. Then there’s poverty, people were split into two kinds of status, you’re either rich or poor. If you’re rich you have a greater chance to survive and prosper after it. If you were poor, you had to salvage as much as you can to survive. Unemployment sky rockets as workers were fired, just so company owners don’t go out of business. Many blacks had been fired before all other races. Many poverty victims had fallen into a pit of no escape,