ECONOMIC REASONS FOR REGIONAL DIFFERENCES

1. H/O ECONOMIC REASONS FOR REGIONAL DIFFERENCES Old South

2. North, South, and West developed in very different directions -- did not see eye to eye on many issues

3. The North was becoming industrialized Advances in communications, transportation, industry, and banking were helping it become the nation's commercial center

4. Slavery had been outlawed in many states (immigrants and unskilled labor)

5. The South, meanwhile, remained almost entirely agrarian

6. Tobacco and cotton, required vast acreage Southerners were constantly looking west for more land

7. They also looked for new slave territories to include in the Union in order to strengthen their position in Congress

8. Western economic interests were largely rooted in commercial farming, fur trapping, and real estate speculation

9. Distrusted the North, which they regarded as the home of powerful banks that could take their land

10. They had little more use for the South, whose rigidly hierarchical society was at odds with the egalitarianism

11. Westerners wanted to avoid involvement in the slavery issue-regarded as irrelevant

12. H/O SOCIAL HISTORY, 1800-1860 Southern Hierarchy

13. Cotton gin altered Southern agriculture – needed more slaves … Commerce led to a larger middle class (esp. North) and industrialization resulted in bigger cities (and large groups of “impoverished” immigrants) … Westward migration created a new frontier culture …

14. Each of these sets of circumstances influenced people's attitudes and ambitions

15. Remember these generalizations about the different regions of the U.S., because by using them and some common sense, you can often answer specific AP questions

16. If a question asks about support for a particular tariff, which area would almost certainly support and which oppose? It wouldn’t matter what tariff is asked about – the North would support it while the South opposed it!

17. THE NORTH AND AMERICAN CITIES nation's industrial and commercial center

18. Modern waste disposal, plumbing, sewers, and incineration were still a long way off … unhealthy environments

19. Epidemics not only likely but inevitable, but cities meant jobs

20. Northern farmers, unable to compete with cheaper produce carted in from the West and South (by steamship and rail), moved to cities to work in the new factories

21. Cities offered more opportunities for social advancement Provided important services

22. Labor unions began to form Americans in cities formed clubs and associations through which they could exert more influence on government

23. wide variety of leisure-time options A very few (the aristocracy) controlledmost of the personal wealth

24. Middle class made up of tradesmen, brokers, and other professionals Women in their families could devote themselves to homemaking

25. This was known as the Cult of domesticity

26. Since labor was usually performed away from the home … the notion developed that men should work while women kept house and raised children

27. Middle classesconstituted much of the market for luxury goods such as housewares and fine furniture

28. In working-class families, men often worked in factories or at low-paying crafts; women often worked at home Families lived just above the poverty level

29. Were most often recent immigrants 1840s and 1850s: when the great immigration waves from Ireland and then Germany arrived

30. Met with hostility, especially from the working classes, who feared competition for low-paying jobs The Irish, in particular, were subject to wide­spread bias, directed in part at their Catholicism.

31. 1830s and 1840s, religious, ethnic, and/or class strife could escalate to violence

32. THE SOUTH AND RURAL LIFE

33. Few major urban centers in the South (agricultural economy)

34. 1860 the population density of Georgia was 18 people per square mile … (Massachusetts, the most populous state, had 153 people per square mile)

35. Not enough people around to support organized cultural and leisure events

36. While the North developed canals, railroads, and highways, the South did not … financing such

37. South did not develop a strong market economy Wealthiest Southern citizens consisted mainly of plantation owners

38. More than three-quarters of white Southerners owned no slaves. Of the rest, half owned five or fewer slaves

39. Southern Paternalism relied on the perception of blacks as childlike and unable to take care of themselves

40. Slave owners almost always converted their slaves to Christianity, again convinced that they were serving the slaves' best interests. The Africans, in turn, adapted Christianity to their cultures and incorporated their own religions and traditions into their new faith

41. most worked extremely long hours at difficult and tedious labor

42. But remember …. Slaves were an investment (importing African slaves was banned in 1808, making it essential to keep one's slaves alive and reproducing)

43. Majority of Southern planters farmed smaller tracts of land Yeomen owned no slaves and worked their small tracts of land with only their families. Most were of Scottish and Irish descent and farmed in the hills, which were unsuitable for plantation farming

44. South was also home to more than 250,000 free blacks Black codes, prevented them from owning guns, drinking liquor, and assembling in groups of more than three

45. Prejudice was a constant fact of life Some were mulattos, (mostly descendants of wealthy whites) and led lives of relative luxury and refinement in the Deep South, particularly in and around New Orleans

46. THE WEST AND FRONTIER LIVING

47. In 1800 the frontier lay east of the Mississippi River By 1820 nearly all of this eastern territory had attained statehood

48. Now the frontier region consisted of much of the Louisiana Purchase By the early 1840s, the frontier had expanded to include the Pacific Northwest

49. In 1848 the Gold Rush drew numerous settlers to California Ohio Valley and points west were hospitable to grain production and dairy farming

50. Midwest came to be known as "the nation's breadbasket." Fur traders were often the first pioneers in a region… constantly moved west