North vs. South The comparisons continue today as we discuss how transportation and society looked in North and South. Fill in your notes for today!

The North: Transportation Because factories needed fast and cheap ways to transport their goods (products) to far away locations, the North built systems of roads and canals throughout the region. Congress funded the creation of the National Road which crossed the entire northern region of the U.S. Better roads made it easier to transport goods quickly.

The North: Transportation Traveling by water back then was faster than traveling by land. Northern ship-builders used the steam engine to power their boats. But traveling by water was limited to locations where rivers and streams existed. In 1817, the U.S. built its first canal—the Erie Canal. A canal is an artificial river that served as a method of transportation for ships! The creation of canals to the spread of industrialization (the building of factories) throughout the North.

The North: Transportation Eventually, railroads became the most common form of transportation in the North. The steam engine helped power the trains across the country. Steam-powered trains were faster than traveling by car or by steamboat and they could travel anywhere a track could be laid! By 1840, the railway business had become the most important business in the North.

The South: Transportation Most transportation in the South occurred along rivers that served as waterways. The slow current (movement) and broad rivers made travel by water cheap and easy. The most important crop in the South—cotton—was shipped along these rivers to the port cities of Savannah, Georgia, and New Orleans, Louisiana. The picture above shows a steamboat carrying cotton. Because rivers were the main method of travel in the South, towns and cities were built along the main rivers of the South.

The South: Society In the South, your social status (position in society) depended entirely on how much wealth (money) you had and how many slaves you owned. As a result, the few whites who were plantation owners with many slaves were members of the highest social class in Southern society. These plantation owners had large mansions (homes), like the one pictured here: Most whites in the south, however, did not own plantations. The largest social group in Southern society was made up of white farmers—whites who owned land, but did not own slaves.

The South: Society The lowest social group in the South were enslaved African Americans. Some slaves worked as servants or cooks, but most slaves worked in the fields. With the invention of the cotton gin, cotton became the most important crop of the South. White plantation owners enslaved millions of African Americans in order to harvest the cotton (see picture). Slavery had become a “necessary evil” of both the Southern economy and society.

The North: Society In the 1800’s most northerners still lived on a farm. However, as the Industrial Revolution occurred, it led to the growth of factories and more people started to move into the cities. Unfortunately, these cities in the north rarely had proper sewer systems—as more people moved into crowded cities, diseases spread rapidly. African Americans in the north were free—most northern states had ended slavery after the Revolutionary War. Unfortunately, even though blacks were free, they were not treated as equals to whites in the North.

The North: Society Immigrants from Europe were common in Northern society. Many immigrants arrived from Ireland and Germany during the 1800’s. A famine in Ireland and political conflict in Germany encouraged this wave of immigration to the United States. Immigrants usually worked in factories in the North. Unfortunately, not all Americans welcomed these foreigners— many saw them as a threat and would discriminate against the immigrants, refusing to hire them for a job.