The Growth of the Cotton Industry

The Growth of the Cotton Industry

​Sectional differences had always existed between different regions of the United States. The geographic features of each region contributed to the development of differing economic activities. Revolutionary changes in industry and transportation deepened the differences between North and South. While the northern United States began to focus on industry in the early 1800s, the South remained mainly agricultural.

Multiple Choice

The economy of the north was based on ___________.

• manufacturing
• agriculture
• capitalism
• tourism

Multiple Choice

The economy of the south was based on _________.

• manufacturing
• agriculture
• tourism
• trade

​Before the American Revolution, three crops dominated southern agriculture—tobacco, rice, and indigo. These crops played a central role in the southern economy and culture. They were produced mostly by enslaved African Americans.

After the American Revolution, however, prices for tobacco, rice, and indigo dropped. When crop prices fell, the demand for and the price of slaves also went down. In an effort to protect their incomes, many farmers tried, with little success, to grow other crops that needed less labor. Soon, however, cotton would transform the southern economy and greatly increase the demand for slave labor.

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Multiple Select

Which crops dominated southern agriculture before the American Revolution? (more than one answer)

• tobacco

• rice

• indigo

• corn

​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.

Long-staple cotton, also called black-seed cotton, was fairly easy to process. Workers could pick the seeds from the cotton with relative ease. But long-staple cotton grew well in only a few places in the South. More common was short-staple cotton, which was also known as green-seed cotton. Removing the seeds from this cotton was difficult and time consuming. A worker could spend an entire day picking the seeds from a single pound of short-staple cotton.​

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​By the early 1790s the demand for American cotton began increasing rapidly. For instance, in Great Britain, new textile factories needed raw cotton that could be used for making cloth. American cotton producers could not keep up with the high demand for their cotton. These producers of cotton needed a machine that could remove the seeds from the cotton more rapidly.

Multiple Choice

Which industry guaranteed a high demand for cotton?

• agriculture

• factory

• textile

• grocery

​Eli Whitney’s cotton gin enabled workers to easily remove seeds from the fibers of short-staple cotton. The result was a dramatic increase in cotton production in the South.

Multiple Choice

What is "gin" short for?

• engine

• generator

• enigmatic

• margin

Multiple Choice

Before the cotton gin, how much cotton could a worker clean in one day?

• one pound

• ten pounds

• fifteen pounds

• one hundred pounds

Multiple Choice

Who invented the cotton gin?

• Elias Howe

• John Deere

• Samuel Morse

• Eli Whitney

​Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin made cotton so profitable that southern farmers abandoned other crops in favor of growing cotton. The removal of Native Americans opened up more land. The development of new types of cotton plants helped spread cotton production throughout the South from Virginia and North Carolina to as far west as Texas. This area of high cotton production became known as the cotton belt.

​Production increased rapidly—from about 2 million pounds in 1791 to roughly a billion pounds by 1860. As early as 1840, the United States was producing more than half of the cotton grown in the entire world. The economic boom attracted new settlers and built up wealth among wealthy white southerners. The cotton economy firmly put in place the institution of slavery in the South.

Multiple Choice

Which crop increased the need for slave labor?

• soybeans

• cotton

• tobacco

• sugar cane