ID 3: Industrial Revolution & cotton …show more content…
The biggest change for the North was the industrial revolution. This was the transformation of economies, societies, due to the rapid improvements in machinery, energy sources, and the changes in labor organization. This, coupled with their internal improvements, grew the North into a superpower, at least in an economical sense. The South also experienced the industrial revolution, but in more of a second-hand sense. While the North was experiencing their revolution, the south focused on more, cotton. To say cotton was a cash crop of the south, is an understatement. Cotton was virtually the south’s entire economy. Their economy grew at an astronomical pace, especially since they relied on so much unpaid slave labor. The combination of the south’s cotton based economy, and the north’s technological improvements transformed the U.S. into a global trading force, and exposed the crucial differences between the two