Honors U.S. History 18-19 - Home



U4 #9 Ed Portal: South v. North Name: __________________________

|In the Antebellum Era, the Northern part of the United States was revolutionized by a series of | |

|innovations, triggering a shift from an agricultural to a commercial economy. These economic | |

|changes sharpened the differences between North and South. | |

|Diverging Regions | |

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|The Industrial Revolution in America was a century-long process that moved the production of | |

|goods from skilled artisans in home business to machines in factories. When Samuel Slater built | |

|America's first textile factory in Rhode Island in 1790, he steered New England on a clear | |

|economic path. Then Eli Whitney demonstrated interchangeable parts in 1801, setting off half a |The “Industrial Revolution” was when there was a major |

|century of innovations and inventions in American business and manufacturing. By 1850, the value |change in how manufactured goods were produced. During this|

|of industrial output surpassed the value of agriculture, signaling a secondary commercial |time period, an increasing number of products were: |

|revolution - and almost all of it was in the North. |Hand-made |

|Although the society and economies of North and South had been different since the earliest |Factory made |

|colonial days, these differences became more clearly defined in the Antebellum Era (or the years | |

|before the Civil War). The colonial economies had evolved differently thanks in no small part to | |

|geography; the climate of the South was conducive to cash crops, while the fast-moving rivers of | |

|the North powered machinery. But even while coal started replacing water as an industrial power | |

|source and agricultural inventions transformed Western farms, the South seemed to be regressing |How did geographic differences between the north and south |

|in terms of technology. Since the invention of Eli Whitney's cotton gin, the Southern states had |affect their economies? |

|become increasingly more dependent on slave labor. And though there was industry in the South, it|North: |

|formed a relatively small percentage of their economic output. | |

|By contrast, with the transfer of large-scale farming to the West, the North came to depend on a | |

|commercial economy for their livelihood. The output of goods and services in America increased |South: |

|twelvefold between the turn of the century and the start of the Civil War; two-thirds of these | |

|goods and 70% of the workers who made them hailed from factories in the Northeast. Growing | |

|transportation networks created a web across the Northeastern and Middle states and connected the| |

|North to the West beginning with the Erie Canal and, by mid-century, by railroad tracks. These | |

|improvements encouraged even more commerce and population growth, leaving the South increasingly | |

|more isolated from the rest of the nation. | |

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|19Th-Century Inventors And Inventions | |

|The power-driven machinery of New England textile factories spread to many other industries, |What were the effects of improved transportation in the |

|creating a surge in American inventions and innovations. In the two decades between 1830 and |north and west? |

|1850, the number of successful patent applications nearly doubled. The invention of the sewing | |

|machine midcentury meant all that fabric produced in Northern factories could now be sewn into | |

|clothing in Northern factories. Steam engines were adapted for all kinds of machinery, including | |

|ships and mills and printing presses. Skilled blacksmiths and small forges gave way to the | |

|massive furnaces and rolling mills of Pennsylvania. Even farmers benefitted from machinery such | |

|as Cyrus McCormick's mechanical reaper and John Deere's steel plow. | |

|One of the most important patents of the mid-19th century was the process for vulcanizing rubber.| |

|This keeps it strong even when heated, and Charles Goodyear's rubber was eventually applied in |List a few major inventions from the 19th c. |

|more than 500 different uses and allowed for the development of the automobile industry. | |

|Unfortunately for Goodyear, he was a man ahead of his time. He died a poor man before his | |

|inventions became widely used. | |

|Another inventor did see the fruits of his labor during his lifetime. An artist named Samuel | |

|Morse needed a supplemental income, and after failing to reach his dying wife's bedside due to a | |

|lack of efficient communication, he invented the electric telegraph and Morse code in 1844. His | |

|little side job revolutionized communication, allowing for messages to be passed almost instantly| |

|over long distances. Within 16 years, telegraph wires crisscrossed the East Coast and reached as | |

|far west as the Mississippi River. | |

|Effects And Consequences Of Northern Commerce | |

|Factories and industrialization led to more than just economic differences among the regions; | |

|they had profound social, political and demographic effects on the young nation. The government | |

|stepped in to protect fledgling American industries by passing a series of protective tariffs | |

|throughout the first half of the century. These taxes raised the cost of imported goods, making | |

|domestic goods more competitive. Praised by industrial regions of the nation, tariffs were a | |

|disaster for Southern cotton-growers since the tariffs not only raised prices, they also lowered | |

|Britain's ability to buy American cotton. The economic controversy was a more important political| |

|issue than slavery at the time, nearly causing a civil war in the 1830s when South Carolina | |

|threatened to secede over the so-called 'Tariff of Abominations.' | |

|Industrialization also changed business practices for both owners and workers. All this new | |

|technology was very expensive. Initially, factories were often paid for through business | |

|partnerships, but in the Antebellum Era, corporations became more common. After being chartered | |

|by a state, a corporation raises capital from many different investors. Each of them earns a | |

|share of the profits while only risking the amount of their original investment. | |

|In 1821, Francis Lowell opened a textile factory in Massachusetts and transformed the workforce |Define tariff: |

|by hiring females. Lowell's factory girls were predominantly young, single girls from nearby |A tax on foreign goods to encourage trade within the country|

|farms who were supervised by strict matrons and housed in chaperoned dormitories. It was boring |A tax on all goods to discourage spending |

|work - nearly 70 hours per week - but factory girls earned three times the money they could make | |

|as a maid or a cook. As a result, thousands of young women earned their own living and gained a |What effect did protective tariffs have on the North vs. the|

|sense of independence not yet common in America. By midcentury, however, a majority of factory |South? |

|girls were lower-paid immigrants. |North |

|Perhaps the most dramatic and lasting effect of this commercial revolution was in demographics. | |

|While the nation's total population grew by about a third, the population of towns and cities of | |

|8,000 or more increased by 90%. By 1860, about one in seven Americans lived in a city. Such rapid| |

|urbanization caused its own set of problems that you can learn about in another lesson. Even |South |

|though there were even more dramatic changes to come in the years after the Civil War, the | |

|economic and technological changes that took place in the antebellum years set the stage for | |

|America to become an urban nation and the world's leading industrial producer. | |

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| |How was the population in the north changing in the 1800’s? |

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|While the North was urbanizing and industrializing, the South became more committed to its rural,| |

|leisurely lifestyle and its agricultural economy built on slave labor. Limited industry did | |

|exist, but cotton was king! | |

|Southern Economy | |

|Although the society and economies of North and South had been different since the earliest | |

|colonial days, these differences became more clearly defined in the antebellum years (roughly the| |

|period between the War of 1812 and the Civil War). The colonial economies had evolved | |

|differently, thanks in no small part to geography; the climate of the South was conducive to cash| |

|crops, while fast-moving rivers of the North powered machinery. But while even Western | |

|agriculture was transformed by new inventions, the South seemed to become increasingly more | |

|dependent on slave labor since the invention of the cotton gin. There was some industry in the | |

|South, but it formed a relatively small percentage of their economic output compared to king | |

|cotton. | |

|The cotton gin and fertile new land available along the Gulf Coast helped the South transition | |

|from tobacco to cotton as the main cash crop and shifted the productivity and population from | |

|Virginia and the Carolinas down to Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Tobacco was still grown in| |

|lower quantities, along with rice, sugar and grains, but cotton was king. With a booming textile | |

|industry, both in the North and across the Atlantic, demand and prices for cotton soared. In the | |

|mid-19th century, more than three million bales of cotton were produced annually, accounting for | |

|2/3 of all U.S. exports by 1860. Though the practice of importing new slaves had been abolished |Infer: Why didn’t the South bother to expand their economy |

|in 1808, the demand for labor was met both with natural increase and when planters in the upper |beyond cash crops like cotton? |

|South sold their slaves to the lower South, sometimes called the 'Old Southwest'. | |

|Southern attitudes towards slavery were also changing with the economic reality. While many of | |

|the founding fathers had considered slavery a 'necessary evil,' Southern statesman John C. | |

|Calhoun defended slavery as a 'positive good' to the U.S. Senate in 1837. He later summarized the| |

|speech, saying, 'Many in the South once believed that slavery was a moral and political evil; | |

|that folly and delusion are gone; we see it now in its true light, and regard it as the most safe| |

|and stable basis for free institutions in the world.' Additionally, many Southerners felt that | |

|their own paternalistic attitude towards slaves was more humane than the 'wage slavery' of | |

|industrial economies. |How had Southern attitudes about slavery changed over time? |

|Southern Industry |Explain in detail. |

|Though the South was truly a cotton kingdom, there was some industry and development throughout | |

|the region. But they had only 19% of the nation's factories, and most of the goods that were | |

|manufactured in the South stayed in the South for consumption. For example, there were several | |

|textile and flour mills, as well as forges in Tennessee, but they made things that were used by | |

|Southern plantations and homes. So, they barely register as exports in terms of value to the | |

|economy. What's more, Southern banks were often required by their state charters to engage in | |

|other business pursuits, such as operating hotels or digging canals. Therefore, the network of | |

|agriculture, industry, banking, commerce and services in the South was economically intertwined. | |

|While some Southerners did advocate for economic diversity and commercial development, the | |

|plantation system was so profitable, and so much of their capital was tied up in land and slaves | |

|that little cash was available for investing. What's more, the society of the South was committed| |

|to romantic ideals of chivalry and a leisurely rural lifestyle. Southerners prided themselves on | |

|maintaining an ordered society and believed that everyone thrived when that structure was stable.| |

|Rather than wishing to see the system abolished, poor whites aspired to the lifestyle of the | |

|planter class. | |

|Southern Society | |

|A proper gentleman esteemed honor above all else, defending his family name, white women and his | |

|children. Public disrespect towards any of these necessitated a duel. He should be physically | |

|strong, since a gentleman saw himself as a defender of the weak and defenseless. For all these | |

|reasons, a man who wasn't a planter might become a politician, a lawyer or a soldier. A lady's | |

|place was at home, supervising household staff, entertaining guests and speaking out in anger | |

|only to defend her children and husband. Although only a tiny fraction of the population owned | |

|large plantations with many slaves, these planters ruled politics and society for everyone - not | |

|unlike the old nobility of Europe. |Why didn’t the South invest in industry? |

|In fact, very few people lived that way in the South; 3/4 of all Southern whites didn't even own | |

|a single slave, and of those slave holders, a majority owned fewer than six people. Most white | |

|Southerners were yeoman farmers, growing food for themselves and their animals, with just a | |

|little extra to sell. They might own a slave or two and as likely as not, worked alongside them | |

|in the fields every day. A lower class of whites lived on unproductive land in horrid poverty | |

|equal to that of slaves (although they were free). Referred to disparagingly as clay-eaters and | |

|other unkind pejoratives, such as 'crackers,' some historians attribute this slur to the fact | |

|that most slave drivers - who 'cracked the whip' - came from this underclass of whites. | |

|At the bottom of society, were, of course, the slaves. American students today often have a | |

|mental image of slave life that represents just one type of worker: the cotton field hand. Slaves| |

|on cotton, tobacco and sugar plantations typically worked in gangs from sunup to sundown, driven | |

|by a white overseer. However, slaves in the rice fields and on smaller farms generally worked | |

|within the task system; each person had a specific job to do, and when it was finished, he was on|Who ruled southern society? |

|his own time. There were also house servants and urban slaves who worked in skilled trades. One | |

|notable example was Philip Reid, the slave responsible for casting the bronze Statue of Freedom | |

|that sits on top of the U.S. Capitol building today. In fact, slaves worked side-by-side with | |

|hired laborers on many government buildings in the 1800s. This practice of teaching slaves a | |

|trade, however, declined throughout the century. |Did most Southern whites own slaves? |

|Summary: What major differences and/or conflicts were emerging between the northern economic system and the southern economic system in the 1800’s? (5-7 |

|sentences with evidence from the reading) |

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