Agriculture vs. Industrialization
Industrialization in the South was held back in favor of quick profits.
Slaves working a cotton gin
- Large scale commercial agriculture in the South was extremely profitable
- Due to the invention of the cotton gin, cotton farming was more efficient than ever
- Cotton gin + slave labor = super effective cotton farming
- Factories were not very well suited to a slave-driven plantation economy
- Slaves weren't allowed to handle machinery, since they had a bad reputation
- Factories required heavy investment, vs. great immediate profits from plantations
A factory in the antebellum era
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