Why The North Won The Civil War

11 Pages 2869 Words

ople like Samuel Slater who can be credited with beginning the revolution of the textile industry in America. A skilled mechanic in England, Slater spent long hours
studying the schematics for the spinning jenny until finally he no longer needed them. He emigrated to Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and there, together with a Quaker merchant by the name of Moses Brown, he built a spinning jenny from memory (Furnas 303). This meager mill
would later become known as the first modern factory in America. It would also become known as the point at which the North began its economic domination of the Confederacy.

Although slow to accept change, The South was not entirely unaffected by the onset of the Industrial Revolution. Another inventor by the name of Eli Whitney set out in 1793 to revolutionize the Southern cotton industry. Whitney was working as a tutor for a
plantation owner in Georgia (he was also, ironically, born and raised in New England) and therefore knew the problems of harvesting cotton (Brinkley et al. 200). Until then, the a...