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THE SECTIONS GO THEIR WAYS

THE SECTIONS GO THEIR WAYS. Chapter 13. The American Nation , 12e Mark. C. Carnes and John A. Garraty. THE SOUTH. South less affected by urbanization, European immigration, transportation revolution, and industrialization Region was predominantly agricultural and cotton was king

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THE SECTIONS GO THEIR WAYS

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  1. THE SECTIONS GO THEIR WAYS Chapter 13 The American Nation, 12e Mark. C. Carnes and John A. Garraty

  2. THE SOUTH • South less affected by urbanization, European immigration, transportation revolution, and industrialization • Region was predominantly agricultural and cotton was king • By 1859 1.3 million out of 4.3 million bales were grown beyond the Mississippi • Upper south Virginia was leading tobacco producer but states beyond the Appalachians were raising more than half then crop, encouraged by introduction of Bright Yellow • Older sections of Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina shifted to the type of diversified farming associated with Northeast

  3. THE ECONOMICS OF SLAVERY • Increased importance of cotton strengthened the hold of slavery on the region • Price of slaves rose • 1850’s prime field hand was worth as much as $1,800 • 3x as much as cost in 1820 • Crop value per slave jumped from less than $15 early in century to more than $125 in 1859 • Slaves in Deep South brought several hundred dollars more per head than in the older regimes • Mississippi took in 10,000 slaves a year • By 1830 black population exceeded white • Transfer of more than a million slaves from seaboard states to west

  4. THE ECONOMICS OF SLAVERY • Slave trading became big business • 1850s there were about 50 dealers in Charleston and 200 in New Orleans • Impact on slaves was disastrous • Husbands and wives, parent and children were separated • One study suggests one-third of all first “slave” marriages in upper south were broken by forced separation • Nearly half of all children were separated from at least one parent • As slaves became more expensive, ownership of slaves became more concentrated • In 1860 only about 46,000 of 8 million white residents of slave states had as many as 20 slaves

  5. THE ECONOMICS OF SLAVERY • Most efficient size of plantation worked by gangs of slaves was 1,000 to 2,000 acres • Majority of farmers in south cultivated no more than 200 acres • Many cultivated fewer than 100 acres • On eve of Civil War only one family in four owned any slaves at all • Yeoman farmers: grew staple crops, owned a few slaves, worked besides them in the fields, hardworking, self-reliant, and moderately prosperous • “Poor white trash” of pine barrens and remote valleys of Appalachians scratched a meager subsistence from substandard soils and lived in ignorance and squalor

  6. THE ECONOMICS OF SLAVERY • Well managed plantations yielded annual profits of 10% or more • Money invested in southern agriculture earned at least moderate return • After allowing for the cost of land and capital, average plantation slave “earned” cotton worth $78.78 in 1859 • $32 a year to feed, clothe and house a slave • 60% of product of slave labor was expropriated by the masters

  7. THE ECONOMICS OF SLAVERY • South failed to develop locally owned marketing and transportation facilities • 1840 cost $2.85 to move a bale of cotton from the farm to a seaport • Additional charges for storage, insurance, port fees, and freight to a European port exceeded $15 • Most of this money earned by middlemen outside of south • Middlemen also supplied most of foreign goods purchased by planters • Nearly everyone in New England could read and write while over 20% of white Southerners could not

  8. ANTEBELLUM PLANTATION LIFE • Medium to large operation employing 20 or more slaves • Master’s house with complement of barns and stables • Kitchen • Smokehouse • Washhouse • Home for the overseer • Perhaps a schoolhouse • A grist mill • A forge • Slave quarters • Husbands and wives did not function in separate spheres though functions were different and gender related

  9. ANTEBELLUM PLANTATION LIFE • Planters purchased fine clothes, furniture and china, as well as other manufactured goods • Plantations were also busy centers of household manufacture • Clothes for slaves (except shoes) • Everyday clothing of their own children • Bedding and other textiles • Spinning, weaving, and sewing were women’s work • Food was raised on the plantation except for coffee, tea, and a few other food items

  10. ANTEBELLUM PLANTATION LIFE • Master was in charge—system paternalistic • Wife had immense responsibilities • Supervising servants • Nursing the sick • Taking care of vegetable and flower gardens • Planning meals • Seeing to the education of her own children and training of young slaves • Generally married in their teens so had to learn by doing

  11. ANTEBELLUM PLANTATION LIFE • Majority of slaves of both sexes were field hands who labored on the land from dawn to dusk • Household servants and artisans, any slave but old and infirm, might be called on for such labor when needed • Slave women were expected to cook for their own families and do other chores working after working in fields

  12. ANTEBELLUM PLANTATION LIFE • Children, free and slave, were cared for by household servants • Infants were brought to their mothers in the fields for nursing several times a day • Slave children were not put to work until they were 6 or 7 years old and until 10 they were only given small tasks • Slave cabins were simple and crude: single dark room with a fireplace

  13. THE SOCIOLOGY OF SLAVERY • Whipping • 20 lashes for ordinary offenses: shirking work or stealing • 39 for more serious offenses: running away • Sometimes slaves were whipped to death, though by 1821 master could be charged with murder if caused slave death through excessive punishment (conviction resulted in relatively minimal fine) • Most owners provided adequate housing, clothing, and food • Infant mortality among slaves was twice that of whites • Life expectancy was five years less

  14. THE SOCIOLOGY OF SLAVERY • U.S. only country in western hemisphere where slave population grew by national increase • After ending of slave trade in 1808, black population grew at nearly same rate as white • From founding of Jamestown to Civil War, only slightly more than 500,000 slaves were imported (5% of slaves carried to New World) yet in 1860 there were 4 million blacks in U.S. • Slaves had no rights • Marriages had no legal status

  15. THE SOCIOLOGY OF SLAVERY • Slave religion mixture of African and Christianity • Religious meetings provided slaves with the opportunity to organize • Sustained sense of own worth • As price of slaves rose and northern opposition grew, slave system hardened • 1822 after conspiracy of Denmark Vesey was exposed, 37 slaves executed and 30 deported though no overt act had occurred • Louisiana 16 slaves were decapitated after an uprising • Nat Turner uprising in Virginia in 1831 cost 57 whites their lives • White southerners treated runaways almost as brutally as rebels

  16. THE SOCIOLOGY OF SLAVERY • After Nat Turner revolt interest in abolishing slavery vanished in white south • Southern states made it increasingly difficult for masters to free slaves • During 1859 only about 3,000 were given their freedom (.00075%) • Slavery did not flourish in urban settings and cities did not flourish where slavery was important • Southern cities were small • Slave labor minor since harder to control in urban setting

  17. THE SOCIOLOGY OF SLAVERY • Southern whites considered existence of free blacks undesirable • Undercut notion that blacks helpless on their own • Set bad example for slaves • Set limits on them but, in the end, needed their labor • 54,000 slaves were brought to U.S. illegally after end of slave trade • U.S. Navy seized more than 50 suspected slavers 1840-1860

  18. PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF SLAVERY • Slavery had a corrosive effect on the personalities of southerners, black and white • Bore heavily on all slaves’ sense of self worth • Most slaves appeared resigned to their fate • Slaves had strong family and group attachments and a complex culture of their own • By a mixture of subterfuge, accommodation, and passive resistance, slaves erected defenses against exploitation, achieving a sense of community that helped sustain the psychic integrity of the individuals • Slavery discouraged, if not extinguished, independent judgment and self-reliance

  19. PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF SLAVERY • Whites were also harmed by slavery • Associating working for others with servility discouraged many poor white Southerners from hiring out to make a stake • Slavery provided the weak, shiftless, and unsuccessful with a scapegoat that made their own situation easier to bear but harder to escape • Patriarchal nature of slave system reinforced tendency toward male dominance over wives and children • Power of ownership could be brutalizing • Slavery caused basically decent people to commit countless petty cruelties

  20. MANUFACTURING IN THE SOUTH • Small flour and lumber mills flourished • Rope making plants in Kentucky • Commercial cotton presses existed in a number of southern cities • Iron and coal were mined in Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee • 1850s Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond did an annual business of about $1 million

  21. MANUFACTURING IN THE SOUTH • Availability of raw materials and abundance of waterpower on Appalachian slopes made it possible to manufacture textiles profitably • 1825 thriving factory in Fayetteville, North Carolina • William Gregg’s factory at Graniteville, South Carolina, established 1846, was employing 300 people by 1850 • Yet in 1850 all of South Carolina employed fewer than 900 in textile manufacturing • The town of Lowell, Massachusetts, had more spindles in 1860 than the entire South • Less than 15% of all goods manufactured in United States came from the South

  22. THE NORTHERN INDUSTRIAL JUGGERNAUT • Immediately after War of 1812 the United States was manufacturing less than $200 million worth of goods annually • In 1859 northeastern states alone produced $1.27 billion of national total of almost $2 billion • Factory system made great strides • Development of anthracite coal mines fields in Pennsylvania • Great receptivity to technological change

  23. THE NORTHERN INDUSTRIAL JUGGERNAUT • With skilled labor in short supply, pressure to replace labor with machines was great • By 1850, the U.S. led the world in the manufacture of goods that required the use of precision instruments • Clocks, pistols, rifles, and locks were outstanding • Every year new natural resources were discovered and made available • Expansion of agriculture produced an ever larger supply of raw materials for mills and factories

  24. THE NORTHERN INDUSTRIAL JUGGERNAUT • Eight of the ten leading industries relied on farm products • Flour milling • Cotton textiles • Lumber • Men’s shoes • Men’s clothing • Leather • Woolen goods • Liquor

  25. THE NORTHERN INDUSTRIAL JUGGERNAUT • By 1850s prejudice against corporation had broken down • By end of decade northern and northwestern states had all passed incorporation laws • Corporations made possible the larger accumulation of capital • Illustrating shift: National Academy of Science refused federal charter in 1840 but easily granted one in 1863

  26. THE NORTHERN INDUSTRIAL JUGGERNAUT • Industrial growth led to increase in demand for labor • Skilled artisans, technicians, and toolmakers earned good wages and found it relatively easy to become independent craftsmen or small manufacturers • Expanding frontier drained off much agricultural labor that might have gone into industry • New towns of west absorbed eastern artisans • Pay of unskilled worker was never enough to support a family decently • New machines weakened the bargaining power of artisans by making skill less important • Immigration increased rapidly in the 1830s and 1840s

  27. THE NORTHERN INDUSTRIAL JUGGERNAUT • Growth of capital • European investors poured large sums of money into booming American industry • American savings • Gold from gold rush • Other important factors • Improvements in transportation • Population growth • Absence of internal tariff barriers • Relatively high per capita wealth

  28. A NATION OF IMMIGRANTS • “Immigrant” only developed as a term after the creation of the United States and nationalism associated with it • “Native” population disliked immigrants • Immigrants developed their own prejudices • Irish disliked blacks—often competed for same jobs • Most immigrants adopted views of local majority • Unskilled immigrants caused serious disruptions of economic patterns wherever they appeared • By 1860 Irish immigrants made up more than 50% of the labor force in New England textile mills

  29. HOW WAGE EARNERS LIVED • Many wage earners lived in urban slums with extremely crowded conditions • City streets were littered with trash • Recreational facilities were almost non-existent • Police and fire protection were inadequate • Early factory towns families had supplemented incomes with gardens but not a choice in industrial slums • Horace Greeley figured minimum weekly support for a family of 5 in 1851 was $10.57 while a factory hand rarely made $5 • Wife and children therefore also had to work

  30. HOW WAGE EARNERS LIVED • Unions • Relatively few workers belonged • Most unions were craft unions • Was a National Trades Union prior to Panic of 1837 • Skilled workers improved lot in 1840s & 1850s • Working day declined from 12 and one half hours to 10 to 11 hours • Many states passed 10 hour laws and laws regulating child labor (poorly enforced) • Effective mechanic’s lien laws • Commonwealth v. Hunt (1842, Massachusetts) established legality of labor unions

  31. HOW WAGE EARNERS LIVED • Flush times of 1850s revived labor unions • Strikes and national organizations • Panic of 1857 ended most of this • Why Unions not very successful • Craftsmen took little interest in unskilled workers • Few common laborers considered themselves part of a permanent working class • Wage labor seemed un-American, a violation of republican values of freedom and independence

  32. PROGRESS AND POVERTY • Prior to Civil War, United States was a land of opportunity; a democratic society with a prosperous, expanding economy and few class distinctions; people had a high standard of living compared to Europeans • Within this country existed a class of miserably underpaid and depressed unskilled workers who were worse off materially than almost any southern slave • In 1848 more than 56,000 New Yorkers (1/4 population) was receiving some form of public relief • Police drive in New York in 1860 brought in nearly 500 beggars • Economic opportunities were great and taxation was little so the rich got richer • While political opportunity for white men was equal, economic opportunity was increasingly skewed

  33. FOREIGN COMMERCE • Imports and Exports • Increased erratically in the 1820s and 1830s • Leapt forward in next 20 years • Remained primarily exporter of raw materials and importer of manufactured goods and mostly imported more than exported • Cotton still most valuable export • 1860 = $191 million out of total $333 million • Textiles number one import followed by iron products • Great Britain both best purchaser and best supplier • 52 packets operated between New York and Europe in 1845 • Accelerated tendency for trade to concentrate in New York and a few other port cities (Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans)

  34. FOREIGN COMMERCE • Whaling boomed between 1830 and 1860 • By mid 1850s sperm oil sold at more than $1.75/gallon • Country exported an average of $2.7 million worth of whale oil and whalebone • New Bedford boasted a whaling fleet of 300 vessels and population of 25,000 • Whalers routinely cleared 100% profit • By 1850s average vessel was three times size of those built 30 years earlier • Clipper ships with undreamed of speeds emerged—sailing around Cape Horn to San Francisco dropped from 5 to 6 months to three

  35. STEAM CONQUERS THE ATLANTIC • Early problems with steamships • Early models were unsafe in high seas • Had to carry tons of coal which reduced space for cargo • By late 1840s steamships were capturing most of the passenger traffic, mail contracts and first-class freight • Steamers were soon crossing Atlantic in 10 days • Average speed better than clipper ships

  36. STEAM CONQUERS THE ATLANTIC • Steamship, especially iron ship, which had greater cargo capacity and was stronger and less costly to maintain, took away advantages of American ship builders • American lumber cheap but British excelled at iron technology • Government efforts to aid shipbuilding were abandoned in 1858 • Shipping rates decreased due to competition,government subsidy, and technological advance • Mid 1820s to mid 1850s cost of moving a pound of cotton from New York to Liverpool fell from 1 cent to one-third cent • Transatlantic passengers could obtain best accommodations on the fastest ships for under $200 • Good accommodations on slower ships could be had for $75 • Ships went to Europe with bulky raw materials and returned with manufactured goods that failed to take up room—Filled rest with immigrants

  37. CANALS AND RAILROADS • Canals: in 1830 there were 1,277 miles of canal in U.S.; by 1840 there were 3,326 miles • 1845 Erie Canal was drawing 2/3 of east-west traffic from New York • 1847 more than half of traffic came from west of Buffalo • 1851 more than two-thirds did and volume of western commerce was 20x more than in 1836 • Value of western goods reaching New Orleans in same period increased only 2 and a half times

  38. CANALS AND RAILROADS Railroads: • 1830 Baltimore & Ohio, first American line, carried 80,000 passengers over 13 mile stretch of track • By 1833, Charleston, South Carolina, had a line reaching 136 miles • By 1840 the U.S. had 3,328 miles of track—equal to canal mileage and double the railroad mileage of Europe • Early railroad did not compete with canals because • Did not generally cross Appalachians • Were not organized into systems • Often used different track widths

  39. CANALS AND RAILROADS • Early problems with railroads • Engineering issues such as steep grades and sharp curves • Modifications in design of locomotives enabled trains to negotiate sharp curves • Sparks from wood burning locomotives caused fire • Engines that could burn hard coal eliminated due to danger of fires • Wooden rails topped with strap iron wore out quickly and broke loose under vibration • Iron T-rail and use of crossties set in loose gravel to reduce vibration increased track durability and enabled heavier equipment

  40. CANALS AND RAILROADS • Between 1848 and 1852 railroad mileage doubled and double again by 1855 • By 1860 U.S. had 30,636 miles of track • Four lines built tracks from eastern coast to interior valley • 1851 Erie Railroad, longest in the world with 537 miles, linked Hudson River with Lake Erie • 1852 Baltimore & Ohio reached Wheeling, Virginia • 1853 New York Central was formed from 8 shorter lines • 1858 Pennsylvania Railroad completed a line from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh

  41. FINANCING THE RAILROADS • Private investors supplied about three-fourths of money invested in railroads before 1860 (more than $800 million in 1850s alone) • Much of capital from local merchants and businessmen and from farmers along proposed rights-of-way • Funds easy to raise because did not have to pay full value of stock but merely respond to periodic “calls” for partial payment • If road made money, much of additional mileage could be paid for out of earnings from first sections built

  42. FINANCING THE RAILROADS • For less well placed railroads, public aid was necessary for part of costs • Towns, counties, and states lent money to railroads and invested in their stock • Granted special privileges, such as exemption from taxation and right to condemn property • Few cases, states built and operated railroads as public corporations • 1850 scheme for granting federal lands to states to build a line from Lake Michigan to the Gulf of Mexico drafted both houses • Success of initial grant led to further ones benefiting more than 40 railroads • Frequently capitalists more interested in making money from railroad construction than from operation

  43. RAILROADS AND THE ECONOMY • Railroads helped determine what land was used and how profitably it could be farmed • “Land Grant” railroads stimulated agricultural expansion by advertising their lands widely and selling farm sites at low rates on liberal terms • Access to world markets gave farmers of upper Mississippi incentive to increase output • Agricultural wages rose sharply due to scarcity

  44. RAILROADS AND THE ECONOMY • New tools and machines appeared to help ease labor shortage • Steel plowshare: John Deere, 1839 • Mechanical reaper: Cyrus Hall McCormick (two workers could cut 14 times as much as with scythes) • Railroad created transformations • Chicago: in 1850 no RR tracks but by 1855 it was the terminus of 2,200 miles • Real estate values and the buying and selling of land increased • Spurred regional concentration of industry and increase in size of business unit • Stimulated growth of investment banking • First to employ large numbers of salaried mangers and to developed internal structure with carefully defined lines of responsibility

  45. RAILROADS AND THE ECONOMY • Railroad consumed half the nation’s output of bar and sheet iron in 1860 • Proliferation of trunk lines and competition of canal system led to sharp decline in freight and passenger rates • Railroads engaged in “wars” to capture business • By Civil War cost less than 1 cent per ton per mile to ship via canal and only slightly more than 2 cents on the railroads • Cheap transportation had a revolutionary effect on western agriculture • Center of American wheat production shifted to Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana • Boomed especially when Crimean War (1853-1856) and European crop failures increased demand

  46. RAILROADS AND THE SECTIONAL CONFLICT • Increased production and cheap transportation boosted the western farmer’s income and standard of living • Problems • Became dependent on middlemen • Overproduction became a problem • Buying a farm required more capital • Proportion of farm laborers and tenants increased

  47. RAILROADS AND THE SECTIONAL CONFLICT • East-West linkage had fateful effects on politics • Stimulated nationalism and became a force for preservation of the Union • When the Mississippi ceased to be essential to them, citizens of the upper valley could afford to be more hostile to slavery and especially to its westward expansion • South failed to create railroad network of its own • Scattered population of South • Paucity of passenger traffic • Seasonal nature of much of freight business • Absence of large cities • Placed too much reliance on Mississippi River • Leaders not interested

  48. THE ECONOMY ON THE EVE OF THE CIVIL WAR • Between mid-1840s and mid-1850s the United States experienced one of the most remarkable periods of growth in the history of the world • 1857 serious collapse as grain prices fell in wake of Crimean war and return of Russian grain to the market • Checked agricultural expansion which hurt railroads and cut down on demand for manufactures • Unemployment increased • Run on banks which had to suspend specie payment • Downturn mainly effected upper Mississippi Valley while South and elsewhere minimally effected

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