The Growing Divide between North and South
Factors Leading to the Growing Divide between North and South
The conclusion of the War of 1812 was the beginning of the industrial revolution that, by the time of the civil war, divided the US into Northern and Southern cultures. This division was gradual, and greatly motivated by technological, international, and agricultural factors of the time. Canals linked the agricultural Northwest to the industrial Northeast, creating an economic relationship that excluded the Southern states. The steady flow of cheap labor was supplied by a huge international immigration to the North, establishing it as the industrial sector of the US. The South’s economic dependence on their newly implemented staple crop – cotton – established the South as the agricultural sector of the US. The improvement in transportation of goods created by the canals was one of the first factors to separate the North from the South.
Until the 1820’s, goods from the Northwest were delivered to New Orleans via rivers, and then transported to the East coast by ships sailing along the coast of the US. This was a very roundabout way of delivery, but it turned out to be cheaper than hauling any goods over the rough terrain separating the Northeast and West. Canals were the solution. They cost a lot to build, but once construction was complete traffic was so heavy that it paid off the construction bill, through tolls, in matters of years. The Erie Canal, for example, gave New York access to the Great Lakes, and all of the Northwestern cities that bordered them. The South was left mostly untouched by Canals, but suffered from the newly formed relationship between the Northwest and East. The North no longer relied on the South alone for raw materials, but contrarily, the South relied on the North for the manufacturing of the raw materials it provided. The North’s newly established responsibility of creating manufactured goods from the Northeastern and southern sources would not have been fulfilled if not for the immigrants that labored in the North’s factories.
The large workforce of immigrants lived in the North for many reasons. Firstly, few immigrants had the means with which to travel far from the places of their arrival, which were usually the coastal cities of the Northeast. Those that did travel found that cities provided more opportunities for them than farms, because much land and experience was necessary to succeed as...