No economic gulf Flashcards
(5 cards)
topic sentence
Some historians such as Susan Mary Grant argue that the North and South shared common economic feature.
population growth
By the 1850s, American economy as a whole was beginning to grow, with the standard and quality of life for most Americans increasing. For example, total American population began to drastically increase as it was doubling every 25 years. With the increased population, came a higher demand for manufactured goods and as a result, the value of manufactured goods produced in the USA between 1850-1860 rose by 90% and the number of factories rose by 17 000. This suggests that the economic gulf between the North and South was not significant as this evidence implies that the whole of America was going through a period of economic development to keep up with their growing population, not just the North.
evidence 2 - agriculture superior in both sections
Furthermore, Agriculture was the dominant economic aspect for both the North and South. Indeed, it would be wrong to label the North as industrialised because in 1860 only 4 Northern manufacturing industries employed over 50 000 people, meaning that they had to rely on agriculture to run their economy. Therefore, this suggests that the North and South shared common economic features as they were both heavily relied on agriculture to run their economy, historian Susan Mary Grant argues that, “agriculture was the dominant means whereby Northerners and Southerners made their living”.
counter analysis
However, it can still be argued that there was a significant economic gulf between the North and South because cotton was the dominant means of Southern economy, whereas it was not in the North and this meant that the South was industrialising at a slower rate than the North. Therefore, despite the South having 35% of the US population, they only produced 10% of the manufactured output highlighting their lack of industrialisation.
evaluation
To evaluate, despite the North and South sharing common economic features such as sharing a duration population increase and agriculture being both their dominant economic aspect, it is still clear that there was an economic gulf between the North and South. This is because while slavery still dominated Southern economy, the North were becoming less dependent on cotton to run their economy. Indeed, Alan Farmer argues, “Cotton ensured that white Southern society was fluid, mobile and enterprising.”
