Secondary Source: Northern Industry and Southern Slavery

Since the American Revolution, the United States developed into three distinct regions. These regions were the North, South, and West. The Northern States had numerous rivers and streams, a larger population, and access to good shipping ports for selling goods. As a result, the Industrial Revolution had the greatest impact on the lives of those living in the North. The Southern States had a warmer climate and were perfect for growing cotton, which could then be sold to factories in the Northern states. The Western states and territories were new lands that were being settled by pioneers and explorers. Some settlers in the west wanted the land for farms, others were hoping to expand industry.

In the North, factories appeared in nearly every town and near every river. The rivers and streams in the North provided the energy needed to power the massive water mills. Northern states also had a larger population, which meant factories had plenty of workers. By the 1930s, factories in the north began to adopt the steam engine to replace the water powered mills. This meant that factories were no longer limited to buildings near water sources. New machines in the north meant that products could be produced at a lower cost. Families no longer needed to spend time making their own clothes, a could spend more time working in factories increasing their wealth. Many families worked in the textile mills making cloth to sell around the world. The good shipping ports in the North meant that goods could be sold around the world allowing America to become a wealthy nation.

Some Northern states allowed slavery after the American Revolution, but as the Industrial Revolution took hold, Northerners began to dislike slavery more and more. Some felt slavery was morally wrong and violated the ideas natural rights of mankind, while others felt that it was against the teachings of Christianity. Possibly the greatest reason slavery was losing popularity in the north was due to factories. Factory workers and owners did not like the idea of competing with other factories who had slaves working for free. Also, it was much easier for a slave to rebel in a factory since breaking machinery was easy to hide, and much more costly. As a result of the Industrial Revolution, the North slowly banned slavery and became known as "free states."

The Southern economy was dominated by agriculture since long before the American Revolution. Crops like tobacco, rice, indigo, and sugar cane were all popular goods produced in the Southern States. The South also produced over 90 percent of the nations mules and over 60 percent of the nation's hogs. Some states like Kentucky even specialized in breeding and raising horses. With the start of the Industrial Revolution, the demand for cotton increased dramatically because factories could produce textiles much faster than most farmers could supply them with other materials like wool or silk.

Ironically, slavery was slowly declining throughout the nation after the American Revolution. In 1793, Eli Whitney was traveling through the South and recognized that cleaning the seeds from cotton was very difficult, making it not as profitable for farmers. In less than 10 days, Eli Whitney had developed an idea and invested capital into a new invention known as the Cotton Gin. The Cotton Gin was a simple and cheap mechanical device that used two rollers with wire teeth to brush clean the cotton. The Cotton Gin sped up the cleaning process and increased the supply of cotton for Northern factories. Soon after hundreds of farmers were able to produce and sell cotton to the North. As a result, the South became reliant upon slave labor in order to produce enough cotton to supply enough for the Northern factories that were being built in large numbers.

Slavery is sometimes called the "peculiar institution," because of how odd it as that a nation that proclaimed to be the land of freedom and natural rights would also enslave African Americans. Relatively few people in the South owned slaves, and those that did often were the only ones allowed to vote in elections. Elected leaders in the south did not support public education like in the North, and also passed laws known as slave cotes. Slave Codes forbid African slaves from gathering in large groups, prevented whites from allowing their slaves to read and write, kept them from leaving the farm of their slave owner, and did not allow them to use or carry weapons. The slave codes made it more difficult to run away or rebel against their slave owners. In the North, many were against the ideas of slavery, while at the same time their factories benefited from the cheap cotton produced by slaves.

The Western parts of the United States seemed to continually grow and move. There were few populated areas in the West and was sometimes called the wild frontier. As a result, many pioneers had to take all they needed with them when traveling to their new settlements. Settlers moving west purchased large amounts of factory goods, such as tools, furniture, wagons, plows, and textiles before moving west. Settlers that supported slavery often supported the laws that would remove Indians from their native land so that they could expand slavery and cotton production.

For many pioneers, moving west would not have been possible without the products of the Industrial Revolution. For Example, before Illinois became a state, many early pioneers felt that the soil was infertile due to the lack of trees in the central part of the state. The soil was heavy, full of clay, and held in place by a thick web of grassroots, making it nearly impossible to plow a new field for crops. As a result, Americans ignored most of Illinois, and instead only settled the southern tip of Illinois where the soil was better and trees for building barns and houses were more abundant. Illinois became a state in 1818 because a heavier the plow was invented which could plow the sod that made up the soil in the central plains of Illinois, encouraging farmers to move to Illinois.