Industrial Revolution

[Rebel from Finland]

I remember about a year ago I was discussing here about how war usually accelerates industrial revolution. I remember talking about Finland and that how paying war reparations to Soviet Union actually helped our industry to grow cause Finns HAD TO build it fast. One southern gentleman here said something that really stopped me at the time: Is that a good thing? I didn´t answer his question, but it stayed in my mind. I started to think why is that the industrial revolution had so "good tone" in my head, I automatically thought it was a good thing. Now I started to think it again and I realized that was taught us, and correctly, that only that ended the extreme poverty, constant hunger and repeated famines that killed Finns like flies. For example in 1866-1868 during the great hunger years, almost 10% of Finland´s population DIED of hunger.

What about there, across the Atlantic? What do You feel about the IR? How was it taught to You in school, only as a good thing..? I would think that there is some sectional difference, like that people from Maine think it more as a good thing, and maybe Louisiana not so good..? One reason being that southern folks were much more self-sufficient with food production, maybe able to harvest two crops over the season, or even farm something to eat year around, and those from northern states depended more on import, because of shorter growing season and thus much more vulnerable for loss of crop..

D@mn its hard to explain this the way I want it, but I hope You got my point and hopefully some discussion will be born..

 

[ole]

Yes. It's hard because different people had different ideas of nirvana. Jefferson hoped for a perpetual agricultural nation.

Actuality swept past him.

Civilization was built on wandering tribes staying in place to work the soil. Now we have to think about those who made the shoes and provided the clothing and tools. A perpetual agricultural society gave birth to the industrial revolution. Jefferson was deluded.

I don't blame him for thinking that -- I've held the same belief. But civilizatin was outpacing his convictions. One can't have a society without progressive evolution. And someone who makes the stuff it takes to make an advancing civilization.

 

[lakertaker]

Grandfather was a carpenter with little work around prior to WWII. My father used to say, "We moved every time the rent was due." War broke out and grandfather found work in Seattle ship yards. The sons enlisted in the military. War was good for the economy - back then. Can't say the wars in Middle East have done us any good.

 

[ole]

Grandfather was a carpenter with little work around prior to WWII. My father used to say, "We moved every time the rent was due." War broke out and grandfather found work in Seattle ship yards. The sons enlisted in the military. War was good for the economy - back then. Can't say the wars in Middle East have done us any good.

Yours too?

Maternal grandfather was a carpenter and spent WWII in the Northwest building barracks and such. They might have known each other well enough to say hey.

 

[Red Harvest]

One reason being that southern folks were much more self-sufficient with food production, maybe able to harvest two crops over the season, or even farm something to eat year around, and those from northern states depended more on import, because of shorter growing season and thus much more vulnerable for loss of crop.

Actually the Deep South was highly dependent on grains from the Northern states. The Deep South climate was dependent on cash crops like cotton and sugar. The South did not grow enough food crops for self-sufficiency. From what I've read some of the period corn and grains were not well suited to the Southern climate so even switching out of cotton into food crops could be problematic.

In the South the more fertile lands were typically owned by planters, big-agri business types of the day. The plantations were much larger than subsistence farms.

The average white northerner was a farmer, as was his southern counterpart. While the North had many larger cities, most of its population still lived on small farms. The Northern states did have a lot more industry though, particularly heavy industry, while the South had less. Most Southern industry was in the states of the Upper South--those that were reluctant to secede.

Modern economies with high standards of living are those of industrialized nations.

I definitely prefer farm life, but also the modern amenities and jost that came with the industrial revolution. Given a choice I would prefer to live on the farm and commute to an industrial setting, or travel doing consulting, etc.

 

[Freddy]

Jefferson had been to Europe and he fell in love with the French farmers while viewing the IR in England as a curse on workers. By the time of the French Revolution Jefferson had co opted Virtue for the noble farmers of America. Imagine that, noble slave owners and family farmers would build America. Hamilton, who loved the British, on the other hand had built America through banking, business, and industry. No wonder the two despised each other. In the end Jefferson almost destroyed the US economy with his Embargo Act of 1807. Hamilton of course, had his date with Burr a few years earlier. Too bad the two men who fought each other from 1789 on could not have compromised on a vision for America.

 

[John Hartwell]

The IR first reached the USA in New England -- and in general it was a carefully planned development. Industrialists had been to England, and seen the squalid slums and tenements that had risen from unrestricted industrialization, and were determined not to transplant the same conditions over here. So, the first New England developments were Industrial Estates: factories, with worker housing, churches, schools, farms to supply food for company owned stores, where workers could buy at a discount. This, of course, was not all altruism on their part: because of serious labor shortages, a very large proportion of the early mill workers were young girls from the traditionally large New England farm families. And no responsible father was about to allow his daughter to work if he was not assured of her physical safety and moral wellbeing. So, the girls generally lived in dormatories or boardinghouses with round the clock supervision, chapparones, etc. Classes, lectures, and concerts were provided. There was a degree of child-labor, but by law (at least in Massachusetts) no child could work unless he attended at least one term of school each year -- and the employer was held responsible for seeing to it.

That's how it all began. But, in the 1840s, a big influx of immigration had begun. New immigrants were willing to work for far less than the Mill Girls (who by then had also begun organizing). Industrialists now could find abundant help for much smaller wages, who were unlikely to complain about housing or working conditions -- and the social reformers were, of course, less likely to stand up for the welfare of these largely unwelcome "foreigners". Conditions began to deteriorate. Still, speaking here only of New England (with which I am most familiar), there were still child-labor laws, public health regulations, and limits to the number of consecutive hours women and children were allowed to work; also some attempts to limit the number of hours laborers could be required to work. And there remained a fair number of "High Class Mills" (largely in textiles) where quite good conditions persisted -- local communities often demanded it.

Before the Civil War there were relatively few of the blighted Industrial slums that eventually came all too common in the "Gilded Era" of the late 19th century.

jno

 

[Freddy]

Jefferson did not see the difference between a New England Mill Village and the IR in England. He simply assumed if it was industry it was bad for America. None of the six textile Mill Villages that sprung up in the town I grew up in were built on US government aid. Investors and banks supplied financial capital needed to build a mill. As the mill grew and made money expansion occurred. After about a century from 1825 to 1950 these textile mills died out.

 

[Dugger]

I remember about a year ago I was discussing here about how war usually accelerates industrial revolution. I remember talking about Finland and that how paying war reparations to Soviet Union actually helped our industry to grow cause Finns HAD TO build it fast. One southern gentleman here said something that really stopped me at the time: Is that a good thing? I didn´t answer his question, but it stayed in my mind. I started to think why is that the industrial revolution had so "good tone" in my head, I automatically thought it was a good thing. Now I started to think it again and I realized that was taught us, and correctly, that only that ended the extreme poverty, constant hunger and repeated famines that killed Finns like flies. For example in 1866-1868 during the great hunger years, almost 10% of Finland´s population DIED of hunger.

What about there, across the Atlantic? What do You feel about the IR? How was it taught to You in school, only as a good thing..? I would think that there is some sectional difference, like that people from Maine think it more as a good thing, and maybe Louisiana not so good..? One reason being that southern folks were much more self-sufficient with food production, maybe able to harvest two crops over the season, or even farm something to eat year around, and those from northern states depended more on import, because of shorter growing season and thus much more vulnerable for loss of crop..

D@mn its hard to explain this the way I want it, but I hope You got my point and hopefully some discussion will be born..

Good post and it summomed forth tales of hunger and poverty and stuff that indeed happened in America. I might blab some more tommorow but ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,the all time great killer of peoples is Famine. Europe and Asian know this. We have been very lucky over our 200 + years as a nation. VERY fortutnite. A tangent.....ugly can get. Check out what Stalin did to the Ukraine in 1930/31.........killed 12,000,000 million people delibertly by sending the "RED "army and taking their grain. Cause they did not wanna be Communists. Hell..............check it out. THe far left will kill you...ifiin u do not agree with em....they are crazy. They will kill you over wrong-think.....yes. They will kill u not because of robbery, or rape, or plunder.....they will kill ya cause they are Utopians......

They are contol freaks. UTOPIANS.....perfectionists. They are dangerous mindless contol freaks. Hell....happens every century and ya gotta have a dang war with em. Communists, Fascists, freaky dictators.....all cut from the same cloth of "control freaks". You cannot have perfection in a culture or a nation.....nope. But the **** happens and ya just gotta stand up.........against the freaks.

 

[wilber6150]

Can we ease up a tad Dugger...
Posted as Mod

 

[Freddy]

Of course, Jefferson had his own version of the IR. At Monticello he set up a nail factory, nailery, where he employed his child slaves. Jefferson's nail making finally went bust when cheaper English nails made by free factory labor flooded the market. "Oh, those dam British and their IR!"

Jefferson wrote: "My new trade of nail-making is to me in this country what an additional title of nobility or the ensigns of a new order are in Europe."

"Randolph reported to Jefferson that the nailery was functioning very well because "the small ones" were being whipped. The youngsters did not take willingly to being forced to show up in the icy midwinter hour before dawn at the master's nail forge. And so the overseer, Gabriel Lilly, was whipping them "for truancy."

​

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http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/The-Little-Known-Dark-Side-of-Thomas-Jefferson-169780996.html#ixzz2DlLDqSrb ​

​

 

[dvrmte]

Actually the Deep South was highly dependent on grains from the Northern states. The Deep South climate was dependent on cash crops like cotton and sugar. The South did not grow enough food crops for self-sufficiency. From what I've read some of the period corn and grains were not well suited to the Southern climate so even switching out of cotton into food crops could be problematic.

In the South the more fertile lands were typically owned by planters, big-agri business types of the day. The plantations were much larger than subsistence farms.

The average white northerner was a farmer, as was his southern counterpart. While the North had many larger cities, most of its population still lived on small farms. The Northern states did have a lot more industry though, particularly heavy industry, while the South had less. Most Southern industry was in the states of the Upper South--those that were reluctant to secede.

Modern economies with high standards of living are those of industrialized nations.

I definitely prefer farm life, but also the modern amenities and jost that came with the industrial revolution. Given a choice I would prefer to live on the farm and commute to an industrial setting, or travel doing consulting, etc.

I don't have time to argue this properly but wheat and corn were grown from the mountains to the coast of South Carolina during the antebellum era. Winter wheat was planted in November for a May harvest. I'm not sure where you got your info on corn from, as it's been grown in the hottest most humid areas of the state for a long time. Coastal SC and GA produced large amounts of rice too. Georgia was said to have always grown more corn than cotton.

As railroads progressed into the upstate, agriculture self sufficiency declined there, as participation by the yeoman classes in the market economy(cotton) increased. Prior to that, most farmers practiced safety first agriculture by concentrating on food crops. The railroads actually stabilized grain prices in the area and allowed farmers to dedicate more land for staple crops and to buy grain cheaply if necessary. Here's an article by Lacy K. Ford, the preeminent antebellum historian of the upstate.
http://scholarcommons.sc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1065&context=hist_facpub

Gavin Wright disagrees though. He claims the South was self sufficient in basic foodstuffs in 1860, but not in 1880.
http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/22945/1/0000512.pdf

Oh, back to the topic. I work in industry as a necessity, if I could farm, I would. I compromise and have a large garden and small orchard. I think industry causes many problems but I don't have the time at the moment to go into that in more detail. I'll do that as time permits.

 

[Red Harvest]

It's been a few months, and the corn info might be off, but the other grains were a real problem, hence the large volume of import. I wasn't aware of it until I started looking at wheat purchases in the South and exports.

They were not self-sufficient in food stuffs in the Deep South in 1860. This posed a problem during the war, as planters were slow to convert to food crops, that was a common complaint.

 

[dvrmte]

It's been a few months, and the corn info might be off, but the other grains were a real problem, hence the large volume of import. I wasn't aware of it until I started looking at wheat purchases in the South and exports.

They were not self-sufficient in food stuffs in the Deep South in 1860. This posed a problem during the war, as planters were slow to convert to food crops, that was a common complaint.

I think you need to update your reading. I'm serious, as I believed the same thing until I read into it further.

http://books.google.com/books?id=kP...page&q=grain imports antebellum south&f=false page 156

...the South, particulary the Cotton South, produced very nearly enough food to meet all its needs. Sam Hilliard, in his comprehensive study of southern self-sufficiency before the war, cautiously concluded that the South as a whole was "largely feeding itself....

 

[ole]

I think you need to update your reading. I'm serious, as I believed the same thing until I read into it further.

http://books.google.com/books?id=kP5qDIDDzFwC&pg=PA392&lpg=PA392&dq=grain imports antebellum south&source=bl&ots=G3YY1H-IHS&sig=Aycl5yWhiJAfvb2vpMtpecYJBOw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=yA-6UMShKrKv0AH4qYGYDg&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=grain imports antebellum south&f=false page 156

Perhaps Red's post was a bit effusive. Your link admits that some areas were deficient in the production of food grains and meats, and that there were some importations from the west.

To me, self-suffiency means no imports of necessity. When Tennessee and Kentucky were lost, anything close to self-sufficiency disappeared.

 

[dvrmte]

Perhaps Red's post was a bit effusive. Your link admits that some areas were deficient in the production of food grains and meats, and that there were some importations from the west.

To me, self-suffiency means no imports of necessity. When Tennessee and Kentucky were lost, anything close to self-sufficiency disappeared.

Tell you what, I'll start a thread rather than hijack this one.

 

[dvrmte]

One of the side effects of industry is the resulting concentrated population that requires food from outside the area.

 

[Red Harvest]

Perhaps Red's post was a bit effusive. Your link admits that some areas were deficient in the production of food grains and meats, and that there were some importations from the west.

To me, self-suffiency means no imports of necessity. When Tennessee and Kentucky were lost, anything close to self-sufficiency disappeared.

Pretty much nails it.

In one of the links I came across while examining this months ago it was noted that it was easier to get grain from the Midwest to the Southern ports than from the interior of Texas for example. The planters already had a transportation method for getting cotton to ports...so backshipping imports of grain, etc. makes a lot of sense.

In a similar vein there was the issue of all the stranded cattle in Texas--an issue not solved until after the war when Kansas supplied a rail link. Same thing was happening in Florida. Resistance to investing in infrastructure to the interior non-cotton regions during the war.

At any rate, Rebel from Finland seems to have been under the impression that the South was "more self-sufficient in food production". The opposite was true.

 

[M E Wolf]

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[ole]

The southern states may have been self-sufficient (or close to it) before secession. After February, 1862, it was not. And it got worse from there.