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1. Machinery sales began to increase dramatically in the early-to-mid 1800s. Who purchased a majority of these finished products? 2. How did westward expansion impact mechanical and agricultural innovation? 3. How did McCormick help the North, and Whitney help the South?
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1. Machinery sales began to increase dramatically in the early-to-mid 1800s. Who purchased a majority of these finished products? • 2. How did westward expansion impact mechanical and agricultural innovation? • 3. How did McCormick help the North, and Whitney help the South? • 4. Concerning industrial progress, what was the American System? • 5. What contributed to rising prosperity during the early-to-mid 1800s?
6. What more than anything contributed to the increased sales of newspapers in the early 1800s? • 7. Who enjoyed the Minstrel shows the most?! • 8. What did PT Barnum contribute to America? • 9. Why did fiction take off as a literary genre during this time period? • 10.Define Transcendentalism.
Nate Turner’s Rebellion • Forced the South to rethink slavery • Many in Virginia began to wonder if gradual emancipation would be a wise choice • Others begin to double down on the structural control of the institution
King Cotton • How did this happen? • The South gradually expanded south and west • Indian removal made this expansion easier • British textile industry was a boom
The Lure of Cotton • Lower South was suited to the cultivation of cotton • Wet springs and summers, dry autumns • Cotton requires neither expensive irrigation canals nor costly machinery • Did not even require an abundance of slaves • In 1860 between 35-50% of cotton farmers did not own slaves
However, southern slave population nearly doubled in the early 1800s, and cotton employed ¾ of all southern slaves • The numbers of growth grew together • Cotton was also compatible with the growing of corn (planted and harvested before or after) • Acreage of corn in the South exceeded cotton • This did allow the South to be somewhat self sufficient (money did not drain out of the region)
Ties between the Lower and Upper South • 1. residents in the Lower had come from the Upper • 2. all white southerners benefited from the 3/5 compromise • 3. abolitionists clumped all southerner together • 4. profitability of cotton and sugar increased the price of all slaves throughout the region
The North and South Diverge • North continued to urbanize; the South continued to remain rural • South’s urban was ½ that of New England and the mid-Atlantic states • Why? • Lack of industries (only 10% of U.S. manufacturing) • Industrial output was less than New Hampshire’s
Why? • Southern factories were small and produced for local markets • Examples: grain to flour; corn to meal; logs to lumber • Industrial slavery scared Southerners • Too much independence • Problem of money, not labor • Give up slaves (status); cash crops were a “sure thing”
South also has an “education deficiency” • Reluctance to tax property • Rejection of compulsory nature • Unconvinced of the need • Little dependency on the written word • Few complex economic transactions • Planters did not care for an educated poor white workforce
Social Groups of the South • The Planters • The Small Slaveholders • The Yeomen • The People of the Pine Barrens
The Planters • Twenty+ slaves • Plantations with a high level of division of labor • Domestic staff, pasture staff, outdoor artisans, indoor artisans, and field hands • Planters vie with one another for stately mansions • However the wealth is in the slaves ($1700 per slave) • If one sells a slave, he gives up his prestigious status
Plantations were expensive with high fixed costs • Large plantation owners were often indebted to agents • Planters often moved and it disrupted their social connections • They coped by sometimes leaving the plantations to overseers
Plantation mistresses had many responsibilities • Had to deal with the abundance of mulatto children
The Small Slaveholders • 88% of all slaveholders owned fewer than 20 slaves; most fewer than 10 • 1 of every 5 slaves employed outside of agriculture • These slave holders were younger
The Yeomen • Nonslaveholding family farmers – largest single group of southern whites • Most were landowners (50-200 acres) and did hire slaves at harvest time; most of their acreage was subsistence crops • Tended to settle in the upland regions (Piedmont, hill country) • Leading characteristic was self-sufficiency, with modest profit; most transactions took place within the community
The People of the Pine Barrens • 10% of southern whites • Lived where they did by choice • They were the evidence by northerners that slavery degraded poor whites • However, they could feed themselves where the urban poor could not
The Americans of the South are brave, comparatively ignorant, hospitable, generous, easy to irritate, violent in their resentment, without industry or the spirit of enterprise. • Alexis de Tocqueville
Conflict and Consensus in the White South • Planters and urban commercial were Whig • Yeomen tended to be Democrats • The four social groups tended to settle in different regions • More mingling in the Upper South than the Lower • Whites did not work for whites, so there was a certain amount of independence
Conflict over Slavery • Between 1830-60 slaveholders gained an increasing proportion of the South’s wealth • The size of this class shrank to 25% from 36% during that same time • Some southerners began supporting reopening the slave trade to cash in on status • Others took to Hinton Helper’s The Impending Crisis of the South • Called on nonslaveholding class to end slavery for their own self interest
Why not attack the institution? • Hope to become a slaveholder • Acceptance of racial assumptions • Emancipation meant a race war
The Proslavery Argument • Positive good instead of a necessary evil • Ancient civilizations had it • Better than “wage slavery” of the North • Religious argument began • St. Paul’s words • Abolitionists were trying to destroy the family • Churches split into southern wings • They provide the opportunity for Christian responsibility
Violence of the Old South • Murder rate was 10X higher • Slavery helped create the violent white south • Honor and a sensitivity to ones reputation • Dueling was a refined alternative to random violence of the lower classes • Recourse through the law struck many as cowardly • Gentlemen could recognize gentlemen
The Maturing of the Plantation System • 1700s and 1800s was different • 1700s- young, diverse regional origin, mostly men • Slave trade ended in 1808 • After that, male/female balance created a native-born slave population
Work and Discipline of Plantation Slaves • Northern factory workers did not have drivers • White overseers and black drivers • Advancement within slavery was the goal for many • House slave often had disdain for the field hands and poor whites
The Slave Family • Law provided neither recognition nor protection of the slave family • A slave could witness the sale of 11 family members • Marriage? Until death or distance do you part • Slaves created their own family morality • Fictive kin
The Longevity, Diet, and Health of Slaves • North America is #1 • 1. gender equalized more rapidly • 2. other crops, etc.
Slaves off Plantations • Perennial shortage of white labor • Slave or free, nonagricultural labor was easier to find in the South • No immigrants • Lure of cotton farming to poor whites