Search this site
Embedded Files
Ethen Choy's High School Portfolio
  • Home
  • Science
    • Earth Science/Engineering Design 1 (9th)
  • History
    • Honors World History (9th)
      • State of Water (Grade Level Project)
      • Ancient Civilization Digital Story
      • Belief and Politics Though Time Portfolio
    • Turning Points Project
      • Social Paragraph
      • Political Paragraph
      • Moral Paragraph
      • Intellectual Paragraph
      • Technology Paragraph
      • Economic Paragraph
      • Bibliography
    • What is the US? Infographic
  • Math
    • Math 3 Honors (9th)
      • Math 3 Unit 1
      • Math 3 Unit 2
      • Math 3 Unit 3
      • Math 3 Unit 4
      • Math 3 Unit 5
      • Math 3 Unit 6
      • Math 3 Unit 7
      • Math 3 Unit 8
      • Math 3 Unit 9
    • Math 4 Honors (10th)
      • Math 4 Unit 1: Sequences and Series
      • Math 4 Unit 2: Functions and Their Graphs
      • Math 4 Unit 3: Polynomial Functions
      • Math 4 Unit 4: Rational Functions
      • Math 4 Unit 5: Exponential and Logarithmic Functions
      • Math 4 Unit 6: Trigonometry
      • Math 4 Unit 7: Graphing Trigonometric Functions
      • Math 4 Unit 8: Analytical Trigonometry
    • Topics in Calculus (10th)
      • Topics in Calculus Unit 1: Systems & Matrices
      • Topics in Calculus Unit 2: Conic Sections
      • Topics in Calculus Unit 3: Vectors
      • Topics in Calculus Unit 4: Parametric & Polar Equations
      • Topics in Calculus Unit 5: Discrete Mathematics
      • Topics in Calculus Unit 6: Statistics
      • Topics in Calculus Unit 7: Calculus - Limits & Derivatives
  • English
    • Honors English 1
      • Honors English 1 Unit 1
      • Honors English 1 Unit 2
      • Honors English 1 Unit 3
      • Honors English 1 Unit 4
      • Honors English 1 GLP
    • Honors English 2
      • Padlet Log
      • 20 Time Project
        • Weekly Checkpoints
          • Checkpoint 1: January 10th
          • Checkpoint 2: January 17th
          • Checkpoint 3: January 24th
          • Checkpoint 4: January 31st
          • Checkpoint 5 + 6: February 14th
          • Checkpoint 7: February 21st
          • Final Checkpoint 8: March 2nd
  • Foreign Language
    • Spanish 1 (9th)
      • Spanish 1 Unit 1
      • Spanish 1 Unit 2
      • Spanish 1 Unit 3
    • Spanish 2 (10th)
      • Spanish 2 Unit 1
      • Spanish 2 Unit 2
      • Spanish 2 Unit 3
      • Spanish 2 Unit 4
  • Computer Programming
    • Computer Programming 1 (9th)
      • ES 2.00 - Understand The Solution Development Process
      • ES 3.00 - Apply Procedures To Construct Windows Form
      • ES 4.00 - Understand Variables And Naming Conventions
      • ES 5.00 - Apply Programming And Conditional Logic
    • Computer Programming 2 (10th)
  • By Grade
    • 9th Grade
    • 10th Grade
    • 11th Grade
    • 12th Grade
  • Personal Portfolio
Ethen Choy's High School Portfolio

< Back to Turning Points

Economical Turning Point

The Industrial Revolution created factories and looms in 1730s Britain that could quickly process cotton to make cloth and then clothing. The demand for cotton quickly grew. Some farmers worked to fulfill that need, but cotton was not easy to grow. The trouble lay in the need for cotton to be seeded. The many seeds in the cotton had to be hand removed, taking an average worker a day to seed a pound of cotton. For decades, cotton farmers barely scraped by in a necessary but unprofitable industry. But with the invention of the cotton gin, the process suddenly became 10 times faster, and the plant became the cash crop. By the turn of the century, cotton had ballooned from a $150,000 business to a $8 million dollar powerhouse. Plantation owners wanted to get in the business as much as possible, so they purchased more and more slaves, revitalizing the slave trade. It made South, and to some degree, the US as a whole, rich, but it would ultimately lead to the Civil War as America grappled with the constitutionality and morality of bondage.

Connection

Today, cotton is still a large industry in the US, valued at $25 billion annually. But of course, much of the demand for materials from the manufacturing industry has shifted to polymer fabrics.

< Back to Turning Points

Social

Political

Moral

Intellectual

Technology

Economic

Report abuse
Report abuse