I will focus my paper on what the Antebellum (Pre-Civil War) economy was instead of my original topic (The Economy and it's Contribution to the Civil War) because this focus better fits a descriptive essay.
Thesis: The Antebellum economy was a time of progress for America as a budding nation and conisited of three major aspects: cotton, slaves, and industry.
Introduction: Extensive economic growth
1830-1850: Economic boom GNP doubles every 15-years
South agriculturally based
North Industrially based
Northern dominance over Southern economy
Cotton: 1800-1860: Doubled output each decade
1815-1860: cotton equals more than half of American exports
"Factors"
Drained $100 to $150 million annually during the late Antebellum period
Picked in bolls seeds harvested by slaves or cotton gin
Dates of agricultural technological advances
"Cotton is king"
Processed by Northern factories
Slaves: 75% of slaves worked agriculturally and 55% of those raised cotton
Slaves raised more than half of the tobacco, three-quarters of the cotton and nearly all of the rice, sugar, hemp, and food crops
One-third of all Southerners owned slaves
Nearly half of all owners held less than five slaves
More than half of all slaves belonged to the 12% of owners
Twenty or more slaves distinguishes a plantation from a farm
"Necessary evil"
Slave vs. wage slave
Necessary to Southern economy and white supremacy (Herrenvolk)
Industry: All dates consisting of industrial advancements
Advanced forms of transportation which lowered prices on goods dramatically
Lowered the wholesale price index by 40% and the cost of living index by 15%
Education, Horace Mann, and literacy
Machinery out of wood instead of steel
Repetative work but subsistent pay
Northern power over the South by dominating transportation, industry, education and through factoring
Conclusion: Northern dominance over the South
Southern unrest due to Northern advancement
A prosperous yet uneasy period in American history
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