The North and the South

1. The North and the South A Comparison

2. Economy of South • Economy based on agriculture • Most white southerners worked on small farms, but a few owned plantations and used slaves to grow crops like tobacco and rice • Use of slaves decreased in 1790s because Europeans weren’t willing to pay for these crops • Owners started selling slaves and even letting them go free

3. Eli Whitney • Growers thought cotton could make money, but it was too hard to separate the seeds from the fiber • 1793: Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin that separated cotton fiber from its seeds • By early 1800s, cotton was the South’s most important crop • By 1860, cotton exports made more money than all other US exports combined • Slavery grew as a result of the cotton gin—rising from 500,000 (1790) to > 3 million (1850) • White southerners didn’t have any interest building factories

9. Economy of the North • During the colonial era, Americans made everything by hand • Beginning in the late 1700s, inventors started developing machines to make products more quickly and cheaply • Shift from manufacturing by hand to manufacturing by machines is called the Industrial Revolution • 1815—Francis Lowell builds first US textile factory—hires young farmwomen (“Lowell Girls”) • More mills are built near rivers

10. Economy of the North • By 1830s, steam engines are developed • Factories don’t need to be built near rivers • Eli Whitney introduces interchangeable parts, making manufacturing even cheaper • Work is shifting from skilled craftspeople to less skilled laborers • Not as many skills needed to operate a sewing machine • Factory owners wanted a strong nat’l gov’t that could promote improvements in manufacturing, trade, and transportation • 1831—reaper is invented, and allows for wheat to be harvested in much larger quantities • 1860—Northern manufacturing 10x more valuable than Southern manufacturing

11. Cotton Gin

12. Child worker

14. Interchangeable Parts

15. Reaper

16. Sewing Machine

17. Transportation in the North • National (Cumberland) Road, built in 1811, was the first major road built by the gov’t • 1816—Pres. Monroe vetoed a bill that would have given states money to build more roads, saying it was unconstitutional • Cheaper way to travel was through rivers • Steam engines solved the problem of going upstream • Erie Canal was the first link between farms on the Central Plains and East Coast cities • Clipper ships cut ocean travel time in half • Steam-powered locomotives traveled faster than steamboats and could travel anywhere • By 1860, more than 20,000 miles of rail linked northern factories

18. Clipper Ship

19. Transportation in the South • Rivers were used more commonly in the South • Cotton was the most important product shipped by water • Most cotton was shipped down the Mississippi, through N.O. to England or the North • Most southern towns/cities sprang up along waterways because river travel was the main form of transportation • Southerners opposed bills that would use federal funds to build internal improvements, because roads would probably be built in the North • Some railroads in the South, but just 10,000 miles, compared to 20,000 in the North