lurid
First Sergeant
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2019
Cotton's economic importance to the United States was extraordinary. So was its amazing rate of growth, especially in the years when production moved west of the Appalachians. Here are the annual numbers in bales for the milestones. From 1790 to 1820 production increased 100-fold. Over the next 15 years (1820-1835) it grew 3-fold. Over the next 7 years, it doubled; and then less than two decades it more than doubled again.
1790 3,135
1815 208,986
1820 334,378
1835 1,000,000
1842 2,000,000
1860 4,500,000
But, its overall importance to the American export economy is consistently exaggerated in many of our discussions. By 1842 cotton was the largest single export; but it was only 36% of total U.S. exports. Coal, iron ore and petroleum were 32%, meat, lard and honey 14%, ships, machinery and building materials (lumber, iron plates, copper) were 14%, and foodstuffs 4%. "The South" was growing ever wealthier; but, after the Great Depression of 1837-1842/3, the rate of growth for its major output was no longer miraculous. It was not even keeping up with the railroads, which was where the smart money Southerners were placing their bets.
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What exactly is your thesis? You open up with cotton's extraordinary importance to the USA but follow up with its overall importance to the export economy is consistently exaggerated. I agree, cotton exports were/are exaggerated, and I also think cotton's overall importance to the USA was/is also exaggerated. If you convert export percentages to GDP percentages: 50% of exports equates to 5% of the national GDP, in real GDP numbers. According to you, cotton exports reached 36% of total exports in 1842, and that's 14% less than 50%, which would equate to 3-4% of the national real GDP. I would argue and I have, that cotton exports were not an economic importance remotely to extraordinary.