Geography

North• Maine to Iowa• Four distinct seasons• Cold winters and

short summers• Bays and inlets used

for harbors• Forests used for timber

in shipbuilding

South• Maryland to Florida and

west to Louisiana and Texas

• Mild winters and long, hot, humid summers

• Ideal for raising warm-weather crops

• Coastal plains used for growing rice and sugarcane (cash crops)

Geography

Economy

Economy of the North

Industrial Revolution• A shift from hand

manufacturing to machines.

Francis Cabot Lowell

• Built first American textile factory that combined spinning and weaving in one building.

Economy of the North

• Factory owners wanted a strong national government that would promote improvements in manufacturing, trade, and transportation.

• By 1860, value of manufacturing in the North was 10 times greater than the South.

Cyrus McCormick• Invented a

mechanical reaper.• Brought the Industrial

Revolution to northern agriculture.

Elias Howe

• Developed a sewing machine.• Made sewn goods cheaper and more plentiful.• Shifted work from skilled craftspeople to skilled

laborers.

Economy of the South

• Economy based on agriculture.• Most white southerners were agrarians (farmers).• Plantation owners used slaves to grow such crops

as tobacco, rice, indigo, and sugarcane.• White southerners put all their money into land

and slaves and had little interest in building factories.

Cotton Gin

• Cotton was difficult to clean.• Seeds were difficult to get out of the fiber.• Eli Whitney invented a cotton engine that cleaned as

much cotton as 50 laborers working by hand.• The cotton gin made cotton the South’s main

crop and increased the need for slaves and land.

Cotton boll

Transportation

Transportation

North

• Most roads very poor.• National Road built in 1806.• River travel faster and

cheaper.• Clipper ships introduced in

1840 that cut ocean travel time in half.

• By 1850, cheapest and fastest way to move goods was by railroad.

• North had 20,000 miles of rail lines.

South

River travel was the South’s main form of transportation.

Most goods in the South moved by river.

Southern towns and cities developed along waterways.

South opposed federal money being spent on internal improvements. Felt it would benefit only the North.

South only had 10,000 miles of rail lines.

Railroad Lines

Northern transportation improvements

• In 1807, Robert Fulton used the steamboat the Clermont to show that steam power was practical.

• Raced the Clermont up the Hudson River.

Northern transportation improvements• Erie Canal• Built in 1817 by the state of New York and was 363 miles long.• First all-water link between farms on the Central Plains

and the East Coast.

Society

Society

North• 7 out of 10 lived on

farms.• Between 1800 and 1850,

cities with populations of 2,500 increased from 33 to 237.

• Cities lacked sewers and paved streets.

• Free blacks in the North were not treated as equal to whites.

• Could not vote, hold office, serve on juries, or attend white churches or schools.

South• Measured wealth in terms of

land and slaves.• Political leaders were

wealthy planters and at the top of the social structure.

• White farmers and workers were in the middle and slaves were at the bottom.

• Only about 1 in 4 landowners owned slaves.

• Small minority of free blacks in the South.

• They had to wear special badges, pay extra taxes, and live separately from whites.

Immigrants in the North

• Between 1845 and 1860, four million immigrants came to America.

• Most settled in the North rather than the South because there were more jobs in mills and factories.

• German immigrants came because of a failed revolution.• Irish immigrants came because of a potato famine.

Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit

Brer Rabbit’s Laughing Place

Brer Rabbit and Tar Baby