North and South: The Effects of the Industrial Revolution

Today I was asked to contrast the effects of the Industrial Revolution on both the south and north. The Industrial Revolution, with it's innovation, turned the north into a manufacturing region which enabled America to be dependent on itself, and not Britain, for manufactured goods. Ease of production in multiple industries continued to increase with each new invention. In the south there were different results. The dependence mentality of the south was so deeply entrenched that the people in it simply switched from importing goods from Britain to importing goods from the north. They didn't take advantage of the opportunity to manufacture, and the south remained a majorly agricultural society. The inventions in the south all revolved around production of cotton and the like (the gin is one example), and the slavery/cotton system remained a crucial part of the southern economy. While manufacturing cities grew in the north, the old plantations sat in the south. These two very different lifestyles clashed frequently on capital hill, notably in the event known as "the missouri question", and eventually the conflict escalated into the civil war.