HIST 216 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Cotton Gin, Subsistence Agriculture, Erie Canal
28 Sep 2016
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Document Summary
Regional/local focus on daily lives i. e. which state one is from. Early and late 18th c, travel between states was difficult. 10% of northerners lived in a city with more than 2,000 people. Literacy rates for free persons was 94% in the north and 83% in the south. Southerners 50% less likely to be able to read a newspaper. Between 1820-30s labour in agricultural dropped in the north. In the south, majority of people remain working in agricultural sector. Value of farmland & machinery raises in free states. Little diversity in labour sector in the south. Agriculture in the south was subsistence farming. Cultivation of cotton grows the southern economy and was vital to the total american economy. Increase of the cultivation of cotton: more land put under cultivation in this period (1820s-40s, extensive use of labour (slaves). From the 1820-s to the civil war, increase in # of enslaved labour.
