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Commercial agriculture and domestic manufacturing became crucial sectors of the American economy. In 1793, Eli Whitney's cotton gin revolutionized the cotton industry in the South.

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The Mississippi River Valley slave states became the epicenter of cotton production, an area of frantic economic activity where the landscape changed dramatically as land was transformed from pinewoods and swamps into cotton fields.

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In the 1820s and 30s, the Black Belt identified a strip of rich, dark, cotton-growing dirt drawing immigrants primarily from Georgia and the Carolina's in an epidemic of "Alabama Fever." Following the forced removal of Native Americans, the Black Belt emerged as the core of a rapidly expanding plantation area

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The cotton gin (short for cotton engine) was a machine that quickly and easily separated cotton fibers from their seeds, a job that otherwise had to be performed painstakingly by hand, most often by slaves. Whitney went on to develop muskets with interchangeable parts, a technology employed by northern manufacturers in many different industries. Many new products revolutionized agriculture in the West as well. John Deere, for example, invented a horse-pulled steel plow to replace the difficult oxen-driven wooden plows that farmers had used for centuries. The steel plow allowed farmers to till soil faster and more cheaply without having to make repairs as often.

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Beginning in July in south Texas and in October in more northern areas of the Belt.

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By 1850, of the 3.2 million slaves in the country's fifteen slave states, 1.8 million were producing cotton; by 1860, slave labor was producing over two billion pounds of cotton per year. Indeed, American cotton soon made up two-thirds of the global supply, and production continued to soar.

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Now that the cotton has been harvested from the field, it's transferred from the boll buggy to a module builder. From there, the cotton is then packed into large cubes that weigh approximately 20,000 pounds each.

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Cotton compresses, which had been largely at the warehouses and shipping points in Houston and Galveston, became more commonplace in the interior, allowing for the expedited shipping of bulk cotton on railroads. Cotton compresses in the interior also made for more localized markets, as buyers could purchase the cotton locally from the farmers, and ship it themselves on the rail lines.

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Is transported by canals and railroad systems.

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The Erie Canal made an immense contribution to the wealth and importance of New York City, which became the chief U.S. port, and it fostered a population surge in western New York State. It also served to increase trade throughout the nation by opening eastern and overseas markets to midwestern farm products, and it opened regions farther west to settlement. The success of the Erie Canal led to a proliferation of smaller canal routes in the region.

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The Mississippi River carried just about every trade good imaginable: furs from the Great Lakes and the Missouri River; staple agricultural products like corn and wheat from the Midwest; cotton, sugar, and tobacco from the plantations of the Deep South.

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Factories and mass production increasingly displaced independent artisans. Nearly 32 million people labored not just on farms, but in shops and factories making iron and steel products, boots and shoes, textiles, paper, packaged foodstuffs, firearms, farm machinery, furniture, tools, and all sorts of housewares.

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Did Technology Build Interchangeable Parts?

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Did Technology Build Interchangeable Parts?

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Yes, interchangeable parts allowed relatively unskilled workers to produce large numbers of weapons quickly and at lower cost and made repair and replacement of parts infinitely easier. This innovation laid the groundwork for the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century, which saw machines take over most of the manufacturing work from men, and factories replace craftsmen’s workshops.

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How Cotton Was Used in the North (Textile Method)

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How Cotton Was Used in the North (Textile Method)

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The cotton gin helped accelerate the US economy. It made the southern economy rich (although, since cotton became their main source of income, it also made the south vulnerable), which led to more cotton being produced, which in turn helped the northern textile industry have more cotton, which stabilized exports and made money. Textile mills played a significant role in transforming the country from a farming nation to a wage-earning one. The introduction of the textile mill, powered by a water wheel, by Samuel Slater, helped textile mills become the chief industry of New England. This also helped women start working outside the home in the Lowell Mills, started by Charles Lowell and began the system by which factory owners would hire individuals, rather than family units, to work for wages in their factories

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During the Market Revolution in the United States, Pawtucket, Rhode Island was a major center for textile manufacturing. The town experienced rapid industrialization during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and became renowned for its textile mills, which produced cotton, wool, and textiles1. The first cotton-spinning mill in the United States was established in Pawtucket by Samuel Slater in 1793, which played a significant role in American industrial history. Slater also developed the “Rhode Island System,” a management style where an entire family, including children between 7 and 12 years old, is hired to work in the factory. Mills throughout the Blackstone Valley followed suit.

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As the nation deepened its technological base, artisans and craftsmen were made obsolete through the process of deskilling, as they were replaced by non-specialized workers. These workers used machines to replicate in minutes or hours work that would require a skilled worker days to complete. As New England 's textile industry took off, mill villages quickly grew into large factory towns, attracting rural workers from the surrounding countryside.

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The monotony of repetitive tasks made days particularly long. In the winter, when the sun set early, oil lamps were used to light the factory floor, and employees strained their eyes to see their work and coughed as the rooms filled with smoke from the lamps. Some factories did not allow employees to sit down. Doors and windows were kept closed, especially in textile factories where fibers could be easily disturbed by incoming breezes, and mills were often unbearably hot and humid in the summer. In the winter, workers often shivered in the cold. In such environments, workers’ health suffered. The workplace posed other dangers as well. The presence of cotton bales alongside the oil used to lubricate machines made fire a common problem in textile factories. Workplace injuries were also common. Workers’ hands and fingers were maimed or severed when they were caught in machines; in some cases, limbs or entire bodies were crushed. Workers who didn’t die from such injuries almost certainly lost their jobs, and with them, their income. Corporal punishment of both children and adults was common in factories; where abuse was most extreme, children sometimes died as a result of injuries suffered at the hands of an overseer.

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The many children employed in early factories were paid very low wages because they were seen to be supplementing family income.

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Irish - In the 1840s, Ireland experienced a potato blight when a rot attacked the potato crop, and nearly two million people died of disease and hunger. Tens of thousands of Irish fled the country during the “Black Forties,” many of them coming to America.

German - During the eighteenth century, many Germans moved to America in response to William Penn's offer of free religious expression and cheap land in Pennsylvania.

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Lowell's factory employed young female workers, some as young as ten years old.

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During this period, foreign transport played a crucial role in the growth of the American economy. The development of new transportation technologies such as steamboats, canals, and railroads made it easier and cheaper to transport goods across long distances, which in turn facilitated trade with foreign countries.

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Canals lowered transport costs, connected eastern and western markets, fueled economic growth, and in some cases generated waterpower for manufacturing.

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The steamboat played a vital role in opening the west and south to further settlement. They stimulated the agricultural economy of the west by providing better access to markets at a lower cost. Farmers quickly bought land near navigable rivers, because they could now easily ship their produce out.

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Steamboats moved down the river transporting cotton grown on plantations along the river and throughout the South to the port at New Orleans. From there, the bulk of American cotton went to Liverpool, England, where it was sold to British manufacturers who ran the cotton mills in Manchester and elsewhere.

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About to 11 cents a pound.

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By 1860, on the eve of the American Civil War, cotton accounted for almost 60% of American exports, representing a total value of nearly $200 million a year.

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Many stakeholders benefited from the cotton economy — plantation owners in the South, banks in the North, shipping merchants, and the textile industry in Great Britain. Cotton transformed the United States, making fertile land in the Deep South, from Georgia to Texas, extraordinarily valuable.

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Not a lot of profit went to the workers.