Cotton - Why didn't poor white farmers start co-ops

NH Civil War Gal

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I talked to @jgoodguy weeks and weeks ago about starting a cotton thread but the more I tried to put my thoughts together, the crazier the thread got in my mind. So I had my little break and was in Maryland and suddenly this one idea about cotton seemed to come together.

I really, really, really, don't want this to devolve into a slanging match about slavery, so please don't let it. But let's face it, the slaves grew cotton. As we sometimes hear, slavery was going to die out anyhow, why is it then:

we don't hear about poor white farmers joining in marketing co-ops to grow cotton without using slaves, but using their own power to grow cotton, get profits and better their own lives?

I came across this in the georgiaencyclopedia.org

"By the 1850s farmers in the Northeast and South had succeeded in organizing and operating cooperatives to process and market cheese, wool, cotton, tobacco, and food grains."

I have never, not once, read about poor white farmers in the South forming or joining a co-op to better themselves or keep profits for themselves.

Surely there was a niche market in there somewhere.
 
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