2. Work, Exchange, and Technology: How did the Market Revolution impact the country? How did the continuing dominance of agriculture and the slave system affect the southern economy? The Market Revolution impacted the country dramatically and the continuing dominance of agriculture and slavery in the south isolated the region from the West, Midwest, as well as the North, and connected it only to its trading partner, Britain. The Market Revolution was caused by a population spurt, due to an influx of immigrants as well as a high natural birth rate. Immigrants increased the population dramatically because they came due to quicker transportation, famine in mother countries, and the fact that America was the land of opportunity. This made it easier for …show more content…
America’s economies and regions were becoming more connected than ever, which also contributed to a resulting better economy. However, the dependence on agriculture and slavery in the South resulted in further sectionalism and isolating ties to England. Though the connection between the Midwest and the North was strong due to numerous railroads, canals, and paved roads, the South was not as included in the new Market Revolution that was taking place. In addition to this, the South barely traded with any of the other regions. In fact, the South exported most of its cotton to England, and imported foreign goods more than any other region. Only connected to England, the South cut off a substantial amount of ties with its American sister regions. Slavery also contributed to the economy of the South. The only region that relied on slaves, the South was the minority when it came to favoring the peculiar institution. The invention of Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin revived the need for slavery in the South which made the picking and production of cotton faster and more profitable that it was before. In the South, “Cotton was King,” and because of this, the
The Market Revolution can be defined as the economic transformation that took place in America during
Before the American civil war, the Southerner’s economy had almost entirely been constructed on slave and cash crop agriculture. The cotton gin was invented by Eli Whitney. The cotton gin was a contraption that transmogrified the fabrication of cotton by significantly making the task of removing seeds from the cotton fiber faster. The invention benefitted the slaves because it saved the slaves
“The contrast in the relative prominence of slavery between the Upper South and the Lower South reflects the adverse health conditions and arduous labor requirements of lowland rice cultivation, whereas tobacco farming continued to be attractive to free family farmers as well as to slave owners”(Engerman, Sutch, & Wright, 2004). The lower South depended on their slaves more than the Upper because they were in the process of cropping tobacco. The Upper South had to keep up with the lower south, because they had to focus on their slave trade that would build and expand their plantations. During this era, the diverse between these two regions were more concerned with the values of slaves. The values of slave price can increase because of high demands between the upper and the lower South. As the upper South was coming up short, the slave profession took off. The slave profession helped the Upper South, yet there were numerous deformities. The slave percentage was at the end of its usefulness of significance “in the Upper South” significance it had a weaker understanding of community reliability than in the cotton areas. This made the upper south separate on what the future may hold. It was not clear on whether if the future was based on the Deep South’s financial growth between the North and the
While the north experienced dramatic economic change, the south remained relatively unchanged from the 1800s to the 1850s. The southern economy was a slave-based, agrarian society. The south's main resource of production w...
Within the economy a great development had been achieved when the upper south handed its power to the lower south all due to the rise of an agricultural production. This expansion was led by the excessive growth of cotton in the southern areas. It spread rapidly throughout America and especially in the South. During these times it gave another reason to keep the slavery at its all time high. Many wealthy planters started a ‘business’ by having their slaves work the cotton plantations, which this was one of a few ways slavery was still in full effect. Not only were there wealthy planters, at this time even if you were a small slave-holder you were still making money. While all of this had been put into the works, Americans had approximately 410,000 slaves move from the upper south to the ‘cotton states’. This in turn created a sale of slaves in the economy to boom throughout the Southwest. If there is a question as to ‘why’, then lets break it d...
Secondly, the demand for cotton grew tremendously as cotton became an important raw material for the then developing cotton industries in the North and Britain. The growing of cotton revived the Southern economy and the plantations spread across the south, and by 1850 the southern U.S produced more than 80% of cotton all over the world. As this cotton based economy of the south grew so did the slave labor to work in these large scale plantations since they were more labor-intensive...
The Market Revolution was one of the most important changes of American society before 1850. It was the adoption of a nation wide commercial change that would later alter all the different societies within the country. Wilentz described this period as the development of a market based economy and the dramatic changes in America’s behavior during the first half of the nineteenth century. Collectively, Sean Wilentz wrote about how historians argued about the topic of the market revolution and how each part of the country was affected by this time period and the changes that resulted.
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 Market Revolution was a drastic change in the economy of the 19th century. The Marketplace expanded exponentially. This marked the most significant change in American communities. This era was a time of great technological and economic innovation. The Industrial Revolution was taking off and American inventors were transforming the U.S. economy with new innovations and technological advances. The rapid development of manufacturing and improved farming had great impact on American
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.
The increase in population meant that there were more people in surplus from agricultural jobs and they had to find work in industrial factories, which was the basis of the Industrial Revolution. One of the darker causes for the Industrial Revolution was the slave trade with overseas colonies at the time. For many merchants who saw the easy money to be made from the voyages, the merchants became extremely rich – and as it is in human nature – these rich merchants wanted to become even more rich, the seemingly best way to do this was to invest profits from the slave trade into the new factories that were arising, this is called “Commercial Revolution”. Britain was one of the few countries that was able to bring in profits from other countries and keep profits in their country, aiding them into being the first country to Revolutionise Industrially. The new invention of steam power was one of the great motives for the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, steam was used to power many of the machines, thus with the invention of steam power, the Industrial Revolution was powered onwards.
The Market Revolution, from 1790 to 1840, inspired by the developments of commercialization, industrialization and the advances in transportation altered the lives of Americans in areas such as labor, transportation, commercialization, family life, new values and the new middle class. American entrepreneurs with new technology created an entirely different economy which shaped and affected all other aspects of society. The Market Revolution gradually shifted society from a rural agricultural lifestyle to the focus of work in the urban cities as it is today. While the vast majority of American citizens participated in agriculture and farming in 1800, the percent of farmers working in 2013 is less than 1 percent: this is the everlasting effect of the Market Revolution.
In the late 1700’s the slave population in the United States had decreased. Before the invention of the cotton gin the South, which could only make money by farming, was loosing money because it didn’t have a major crop to export to England and the North besides tobacco and rice. However, these crops could be grown elsewhere. Cotton was the key because it couldn’t be grown in large amounts in other places, but only one type of cotton that could be cleaned easily. This was long-staple cotton. Another problem arose; long-staple cotton only could be grown along the coast. There was another strain of cotton that until then could not be cleaned easily so it wasn’t worth growing. The cotton gin was the solution to this problem. With the invention of the cotton gin short stemmed cotton could be cleaned easily making cotton a valued export and it could be grown anywhere in the south. The era of the “Cotton Kingdom” began with this invention leading into an explosion in the necessity of slaves.
By 1860, the North and South had developed two very different economies. The primarily agricultural South relied on its chief crop, cotton, which accounted for a good deal of US exports. To produce cotton in such large amounts, the South depended on the plantation system, and thus on slavery. The North, however, was an industrial giant and had no desire for slave labor. The South avoided industrialization and imported nearly all manufactured goods.
Market Revolution- The market revolution is a term used to describe the expansion of the marketplace. As well as this the market revolution also represents the new approach that farmers and manufacturers took when dealing with their work. Due to the fact that people now produced goods for the market instead of for subsistence and self consumption farmers and manufacturers would instead make elaborate calculations that were designed to maximize profits.