North v South economy

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North v South - economy
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North

• People began thinking of North and South as
  distinct regions in the early 1800s
• North made up of two parts
• New England states, New York, New Jersey,
  Pennsylvania
• Old Northwest Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
  Wisconsin, Michigan

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Farming in Old Northwest

• Very fertile land
• Deere - invents a steel plow in 1830s
• McCormick invents mechanical reaper in 1830s
• Both inventions revolutionize agriculture
• Canals, roads and rails helped get ag products
  out and to ports in the east
• Eastern merchants then made money on trading
  these goods

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Industries in Northeast

• Urban areas start to grow on eastern seaboard
  (coast)
• Industrialization also spreads
• Manufacturing plants in New England
• Eli Whitney/guns for example
• Steam engines, ships, iron, glass become big
  industries in Pennsylvania
• Textile mills in Massachusetts

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Growth of cities

• 1810 6 of the population lived in cities
• 1840 12 lived in cities
• New York City (just Manhattan at the time)
• 1790 had 33,000
• By 1850 it had 516,000
• Education, medical care usually provided by
  families at home in early years of US
• Urbanization changed this
• Public hospitals and public schools started
  getting built

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Urban poor

• Tenements crowded apartments filled with
  immigrants
• Poor sanitation, little safety and no comfort
• No fresh water, lots of disease
• 1832-1833, major outbreak of cholera kills
  thousands in New York
• Despite these conditions, cities still grow

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Labor issues

• Factory owners made lots of money, paid workers
  very little
• Workers become resentful and begin to strike for
  better wages and conditions
• Strike a work stoppage
• First labor union 1834 (National Trades Union)
  300,000 join it in 1830s
• Courts outlawed unions, all were shut down for
  years

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South

• South made up of several parts
• Original six southern states Delaware, Maryland,
  Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia
• Also new states south of the Ohio River
  Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama,
  Louisiana
• Arkansas and Texas become states in 1850
• Missouri also considered southern

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South

• How to describe the economy in one word?
• Cotton
• 1820 South produced 160 million pounds of
  cotton
• 1850 South produced 1 billion pounds
• 1860 Cotton was 67 of total US exports

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South

• Ideal crop land very fertile, frost-free up to
  300 days of the year
• Depended on northern banks for loans and northern
  mills to process cotton
• Little other industry
• Plantations drove the economy
• By 1850, 15000 families owned plantations and
  owned large numbers of slaves
• Hundreds of thousands of whites owned just 2 or 3
  slaves per family

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South

• Cotton replaces tobacco in most southern states
  (except Virginia)
• Raising of horses becomes big business in
  Kentucky (today as well)
• Not very urban
• New Orleans, Charleston (SC) and Richmond (VA)
  the only big cities
• In 1850, 3.7 million African-Americans in the US
• Only 12 were free, mainly (but not all) in the
  North

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Slavery system

• 1804 all northern states have banned slavery
• 1808 no more slaves can be imported into the US
  at all
• Slave population grew just from families having
  children
• Children of slaves were automatically slaves
• African-American population
• Majority in South Carolina and Mississippi
• Almost half in Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama

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Slavery system

• Combination of big plantations and small farms
• 1850 60 of all slaves worked in cotton fields
• Small farms had better conditions relationships
  between slaves and owners less harsh
• Plantations were unusually cruel
• Women especially had hard lives
• Raise children as well as work in fields
• Subjected to physical and sexual abuse

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Slaves as property

• Q What is a commodity?
• A good or service that is in demand and can have
  a price determined by the market
• Slaves were commodities
• 1832 a prime slave could cost 500
• 1837 price had jumped to 1300
• Too expensive to replace, so it became in the
  owners best interest to take better care of them

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Slave revolts and rebellions

• Denmark Vesey bought his own freedom with he
  won in a lottery
• Educated himself, became outspoken advocate
  against slavery
• Plotted to take over Charleston SC
• Kill all the whites
• Burn the city
• Plot was discovered, Vesey was hanged with 35
  other African-Americans and 4 whites who had
  helped them

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Rebellion

• Turners rebellion 1831
• Nat Turner, preacher, led 70 slaves on raids in
  Virginia, killing 50 whites
• Caught and hung with 20 other slaves
• Whites rampage killing 100 African-Americans who
  were not involved
• Southern states pass even more restrictive laws
  about educating slaves, and restrictions on freed
  slaves