Week 14

Cotton was the greatest thing to happen to the South, but also its ultimate undoing. The invention of the cotton gin cataputled the South to the front of the industry. According to A People and a Nation Volume 1: to 1877, by 1825 the South became the leading supplier of cotton. This success in the cotton industry made the South very slow to make the switch to industry. This would become their ultimate downfall; the Civil War, floods, and bugs would eventually lead to downfall of the economy.

Norton, Mary Beth, David M. Katzman, David W. Blight, Howard P. Chudacoff, Fredrik Logevall, Beth Bailey, Thomas G. Paterson, and William M. Tuttle,Jr.. A People and a Nation Volume One: to 1877. Houghton Mifflin Company: New York, 2007.