The Growth of the Cotton Industry
Sources
www.wikipedia.com - Pictures
Social Studies Book - Chapter 13 Section 1
The South's Cotton Economy
Tredegar Iron Works
Hemp and Flax
- Corn was the primary southern food crop.
- Hemp and flax were also major cash crops that were used to make rope and sack cloth.
- Most of the factories in the south were built for farmers.
- The number of cotton mills more than tripled in 10 years.
- Joseph R. Anderson was the owner of Tredegar Iron Works, one of the most productive iron works in the nation.
Corn - main food crop
Nat Turner's Rebellion leads to fears of further slave revolts in the South.
Eli Whitney invents the Cotton Gin
The Cotton Belt
By: Mikah Goins, Azalea Henderson, Breana Owens, Sydney Calhoun and Jillian Cornish
1848
1808
1831
1793
- The Cotton Belt was an area of high cotton production
- Production increased from 2 million pounds in 1791 to 1 billion pounds in 1860.
- Cotton uses alot of nutrients in the soil to grow.
Joseph R. Anderson becomes the owner if the Tredegar Iron Works, the South's only large iron factory.
A congressional ban on importing slaves into the United States takes effect
How does it work?
Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin
Cotton is King
1. The operator turned the crank.
2. The crank turned a roller with teeth that stripped the seeds away from the cotton fiber.
3. Brushes on a second roller lifted the seedless cotton off the teeth of the first cylinder and dropped it out of the machine.
4. A belt connected the rollers so they would both turn when the crank was turned.
Diagram of the Cotton Gin
- Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin on March 14th, 1793.
- Whitney's invention was special because of it originality but also because it was the first machine to use interchangable parts.
- Slaves did most of the manual labor.
- The cotton was shipped on steamboats to ports.
- From these ports, the goods would be shipped to textile mills in the North.
- Cotton was sold to the textile mills in the Northeast.
- Great Britain bought most of the cotton that was made in the South.
Cotton's Rise to Fame
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The iThe
Growth of The Cotton Industry
Before The American Revolution, there were 3 crops that dominated the South's agriculture:
-tobacco
-rice
-indigo
Most of these crops were produced by slaves from Africa. These 3 crops played a big role in the southern economy & culture.
AFTER the American Revolution, prices for the 3 main crops dropped and also the demand for slaves went down. Farmers struggled to grow crops .
The next crop that took over as the number one cash crop was cotton.
Cotton would help increase the demand for slave labor.
Cotton is used for weaving into cloth, The seeds had to be removed from the cotton fibers, but the process was difficult because it had to be done manually.