The boom of mining iron ore, coal, and limestone and producing iron in north Alabama during the 1800s had a tremendous impact on Alabama’s economy of the time. It provided opportunity for the expansion of the railroad and work. Cities were born around this industrial boom. All of these things encouraged economic growth in Alabama during this time.
Alabama: A Documentary History to 1900 states “it is a truism that the Civil War altered the economic life of the south” (Griffith, Alabama: A Documentary History to 1900). Before the Civil War Alabama’s economy many depended on agriculture and a work force of slaves. A new south had been created that brought “free labor and greater diversification” (Griffith, Alabama: A Documentary History to 1900).
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This push of industry in Birmingham extended out into the surrounding areas which caused the appearance and growth of more towns like Bessemer, Gadsden, and Florence (Bergstresser). Duncan said “other industrial towns were born in the northern counties. The mining of coal increased over one thousand percent during this boom of industrial communities labeling it the “Iron Decade” …show more content…
"Iron and Steel Production in Birmingham." http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1638. 2008.
Brown, Helen Morgan Akens and Virginia Pounds. Alabama Mounds to Missiles. Huntsville, Al: The Strode Publishers, 1962.
Duncan, Julie Coley. Alabama. Portland, OR: Graphic Arts Center Publishing Company, 1983.
Fundaburk, Ema Lila. Parade of Alabama. Montgomery, AL: Paragon Press, 1959.
Griffith, Lucille. Alabama: A Documentary History to 1900. Tuscaloosa, Al: The University of Alabama Press, 1968.
—. History of Alabama 1540-1900. Northport, AL: Colonial Press, 1962.
Haagen, Victoria B. Alabama: Portrait of a State. Huntsville, Al: The Press of Birmingham Publishing Company, 1968.
Lee, J. Lawrence. "Alabama Railroads." http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-2390. 2009.
Lewis, W. David. "Birmingham Iron and Steel Companies." http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1111 . 2008.
White, Langdon. "The Iron and Steel Industry of the Birmingham, Alabama, District." Economic Geography (Vol. 4, No. 4 (Oct., 1928)): pp.
...f towns and cities that still exist today. In addition, the opening of mines created jobs which had a positive impact on the economy while the decline of mines led to a sharp decrease in population due to the lack of job opportunities. The era of copper mining also shows the powerful alliance that had formed between Michigan and Boston. Both Michigan mine operators and Boston investors had different kinds of resources that the other lacked. It can be seen that Michigan would not be the way it is today without outside influence from investors and interested prospectors.
...Stuart." The Journal of Southern History 69, no. 1 (2003): 188-189. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30039884 (accessed November 14, 2013).
Corporations growing was beneficial to the economy, mainly because of the costs of different things. Indexed prices between 1870-1899 are shown in Document A. The document shows the food prices and fuel and lighting prices declined a lot. It also shows how the cost of living declined only a little not as much as the food, fuel and lighting prices. Different mining and lighting technologies led to fuel and lighting prices being reduced. Mass production in general led to cost of living prices being reduced. There was improved agricultural technology which led to food prices being reduced (as shown in Document A). The prices falling for local agricultural products worried local farmers as there wouldn’t be profit for them while there’s mass production and technology advancements. Post-civil war america was controlled by big corporations of people like Rockefeller and Carnegie. Some of these people, tried to use the changes in america to benefit the poor. Document E talks about how wealthy men should be trustees for the poor (to benefit the economy), how they should make trust funds for the “most beneficial results for the community”. in docum...
It is true that the Civil war saw the beginning of a decline of individual economic opportunity. During an era known as "The Gilded Age" lasting from the end of the war until 1900, large corporations dominated the U. S. economy. The population went from being composed of predominantly farmers and small business owners to large business owners and shareholders. Technology began to revolutionize corporations, such as the construction of national railroads. Big business also led to monopolies, where one company would have full control over a specific area leaving others struggling. To resist big business labor unions, such as the American Federation of Labor, formed although they were usually no competition for big corporations. Between the end of the Civil war and 1900 manufacturing increased by four times leaving many farmers and small business owners moving to the city. After the stock market crash of 1929 everyone seemed to suffer an economic decline and it was no longer limi...
The North was known for being industrial due to the numerous big cities, perfect for factories. According to Benjamin T. Arrington and the National Park Service, “By 1860, 90 percent of the nation 's manufacturing output
The expansion of agriculture and railroads helped form Texas’s present economy. The invention of the steam engine not only allowed people to move across the country in 7 days, instead of 6 months, but it also allowed crops and livestock to be carried to markets and places where they would be sold anywhere in the country. They could be moved to another farm in Texas as well. Since it’s such a large state, railroads were a necessity for travel, and general transportation. The railroad-building boom lasted 40 years. The production of cotton in Texas introduced some of the first slave-based cotton farms, and was the dominant crop for a very long time. After this event, Texas’s economy was forever changed.
Hutchinson, Louise Daniel. Anna J. Cooper, A Voice From the South. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1981.
During the American Revolution and the civil war, the North and the South experienced development of different socio-political and cultural environmental conditions. The North became an industrial and manufacturing powerhouse as a result of rise of movements like abolitionism and women’s right while the South became a cotton kingdom whose labor was sourced from slavery (Spark notes, 2011).
Schesinger, Arthur M. The Mississippi Valley Historical Review. Vol. 9, No. 2. September 1922. P.167-170.
The North and South were forming completely different economies, and therefore completely different geographies, from one another during the period of the Industrial Revolution and right before the Civil War. The North’s economy was based mainly upon industrialization from the formation of the American System, which was producing large quantities of goods in factories. The North was becoming much more urbanized due to factories being located in cities, near the major railroad systems for transportation of the goods, along with the movement of large groups of factory workers to the cities to be closer to their jobs. With the North’s increased rate of job opportunities, many different people of different ethnic groups and classes ended up working together. This ignited the demise of the North’s social order. The South was not as rapidly urbanizing as the North, and therefore social order was still in existence; the South’s economy was based upon the production of cotton after Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin. Large cotton plantations’ production made up the bulk of America’s...
The thirty-year cycle of boom and bust in Georgia's antebellum textile industry proved that the success of southern textile mills was inversely related to long-term trends in the price of cotton. When agriculture suffered, mill building flourished. When agricultural profits rose, Georgia's textile industry floundered. Georgians rationally pursued profits in both agriculture and industry but were mindful of market forces and the history of risks in each area. Nonetheless, despite the setbacks of the late antebellum period, the industrial facilities and expertise developed by Georgians before the war contributed to the Confederacy's logistical ability to fight a truly modern war for four years against the industrial behemoth of the North.
Stanley, George E. "The Rise Of Manufacturing." The Era of Reconstruction and Expansion (1865-1900. N.p.: World Almanac Library, 2005. 20-21. Google Books. World Almanac Library. Web. 29 Sept. 2013.
With the economic system, the south had a very hard time producing their main source “cotton and tobacco”. “Cotton became commercially significant in the 1790’s after the invention of a new cotton gin by Eli Whitney. (PG 314)” Let alone, if they had a hard time producing goods, the gains would be extremely unprofitable. While in the North, “In 1837, John Deere patented a strong, smooth steel plow that sliced through prairie soil so cleanly that farmers called it the “singing plow.” (PG 281).” Deere’s company became the leading source to saving time and energy for farming as it breaks much more ground to plant more crops. As well as mechanical reapers, which then could harvest twelve acres a day can double the corn and wheat. The North was becoming more advanced by the second. Many moved in the cities where they would work in factories, which contributed to the nation’s economic growth because factory workers actually produced twice as much of labor as agricultural workers. Steam engines would be a source of energy and while coal was cutting prices in half actually created more factories, railroads for transportation, and ships which also gave a rise in agricultural productivity.
In the beginning of the 1800s, economic diversities between the two different regions had also grown. By the year 1860, cotton was the chief crop for the South; it also represented fifty-seven percent of all American exports. The prosperity of cotton fulfilled the South's reliance on the plantation system and its crucial elementslavery.
Agriculture has been practiced in what is now Alabama for centuries. Alabama agriculture has changed considerably since the mid-1860s, when cotton was king and Alabama was known as "The Cotton State." One hundred years ago almost four million acres were planted to cotton, and today only 1.3 million acres are devoted to all agricultural crops” (Mitchell, 2007). Agriculture in Alabama is mainly cotton and peanuts in the past they grew cattle corn and cotton. The Native Americans started Alabama off with slash-and-burn agriculture, in which they cut and burned forests to make room for their fields of corn, beans, and squash.