1. The South Growth of the Cotton Industry
Chapter 13, Section 1
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2. Building Background
Sectional differences had always existed between different regions of the United States. The revolutionary changes in industry and transportation deepened the difference between the North and the South. The South remained mainly agricultural. New technology helped the region become the Cotton Kingdom.

3. Reviving the South’s Economy
Before the American Revolultion, three crops dominated southern agriculture – tobacco, rice, and indigo. These crops a central role in the southern economy and culture. After the American Revolution prices for these crops dropped. When the crop prices fell, the demand for, and the price of, slaves also went down.

4. Cotton Becomes Profitable
Cotton had been grown in the New World for centuries, but it had not been a very profitable crop. Before cotton could be spun into thread for weaving into cloth, the seeds had to be removed from the cotton fibers – a very costly procedure.

5. Long-Staple vs. Short-Staple Cotton
Long-staple (black-seed) cotton was fairly easy to process, but grew well in only a few places in the South. Short-staple (green seed) cotton was more common. Removing the seeds from green seed cotton was difficult and very time consuming – workers could spend an entire day processing just one pound of cotton.

6. Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin
Eli Whitney had visited a Georgia plantation where workers were using a machine that effectively removed the seeds from long-staple cotton (LSC), but not as well for short-staple cotton (SSC). Whitney was asked to see if he could make improvements on the machine’s design. He patented a machine in 1793 that worked on SSC.

8. The Cotton Boom
Whitney’s Cotton Gin made cotton so profitable that southern farmers abandoned other crops in favor of growing cotton. Cotton production quickly spread throughout the South and as far west as Texas. Cotton production increased from about 2 million pounds in 1791 to roughly a billion pounds by 1860.

10. Advantages of Cotton Cotton had many advantages as a cash crop.
It cost little to market.
It could be stored for a long.
Because of its weight, it cost less to transport long distances.

11. Disadvantage of Cotton
The one major disadvantage of cotton as a crop is that it rapidly used up the nutrients in the soil.
After a few years of growing cotton, it could make the land useless for growing anything else.
Crop rotation became a process in which different crops were planted in a field from year to year. Different crops needed nutrients and thus would keep the land fertile.

12. Cotton Trade
The cotton boom made the South a major play in world trade. Great Britain became the South’s most valued foreign trading partner. Southerners also sold tons of cotton to the growing textile industry in the northeastern United States.

13. Transportation Issues
The increased cotton trade led to the growth of major port cities in the South, including Charleston, SC; Savannah, GA; and New Orleans, LA. The biggest problem that faced the cotton growers was getting the cotton to the port cities. Few major roads existed in the South and farmers relied on shipping their cotton on riverboats.

14. Other Southern Crops
Other cash crops existed in the South, among them corn, rice, sweet potatoes, wheat, and sugarcane. Production of tobacco, the first major southern cash crop, was very time consuming – tobacco had to be cured (dried) before it could be shipped to market.

15. Southern Industry
Many of the first factories in the South were built to serve the needs of farmers. In 1803, the nation’s first steam-powered sawmill was built in Donaldsonville, Louisiana. By the 1840s, cotton mills were being built in Georgia.

16. Tredegar Iron Works
In 1848 Joseph R. Anderson became the owner of the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, Virginia. It became one of the most productive iron works in the nation and was the only factory to produce bridge materials, cannons, steam engines, and other products in the South.