Factories are places that rely on the division of labor to mass-produce items for a profit. They often rely on machines (as well as people) to produce items more cheaply than would be possible if the goods were produced by a craftsman. Factories didn't come into existence automatically, as if there were no other possible ways to organize production, and that is particularly true for clothmaking.

Question

In England, for example, cloth merchants often "put out" raw materials to artisans who worked at home or in shops where several people would labor together. Some things--straw hats and shoes, for instance--were made that way in America, too. But most early textile factories in this country tended to emerge from two lines of development. In one case, they grew out of existing water-powered milling operations. So, for instance, a miller added a carding machine to the equipment of a grist mill or saw mill, drawing upon the water power already in use at the site. That experiment then often led an owner to introduce some of the new spinning machines and power looms, in many cases taking out the older grist or saw mill machinery, and by such a process a textile mill was created. These kinds of factories were often small and oriented to local markets. By 1815 there were lots of them, especially in southern New England.

Advantages

From an investor's or a manager's point of view, the advantages of combining raw materials, workers, machines, and power--all under one roof--were obvious. One of the first benefits was better supervision of workers and work processes. Someone working at home without the pressure of immediate supervision might not work as hard or as regularly. Working and drinking (not an uncommon practice in some early industries) could also result in less than perfect yarn or cloth. With workers in a single place for 11-to-13 hours a day, almost all these problems could be minimized, giving managers a more predictable output-per-week at a lower cost-per-yard.

Employing the new textile machinery in a water-powered factory setting provided huge gains in productivity and that was another important benefit for mill owners. Single spinning machines and power looms spun and wove much faster than individuals could; assembling a great many of these machines, with each worker tending several at once, multiplied the possibilities for profits. Here is an important difference from plantations, where gains in productivity came only by adding more workers.

Disadvantages

But like plantation owners, factory managers also had to be concerned with discipline, to insure control over production. Small factories employed families, relying primarily on the labor of children (usually between the ages of 10 and 20) to produce cloth. The large factories of places like Lowell employed young women (usually between the ages of 13 and 25) to produce their cloth. In both cases, factory managers argued that these groups of people needed close supervision because they could not be trusted to take care of themselves. Some owners argued that poor families who did not work in factories would only become idle, immoral, and even criminal. Those who employed young women in places such as Lowell did not feel that these young women were likely to become immoral, but they did feel that the women needed to live in boarding houses with strict rules of behavior, and they certainly never expected these young women to move up the factory ladder to become overseers, much less owners. Although factory workers were given more independence than slaves, factory owners still looked down upon them.

However, in the North, factory owners paid wages to their workers (or the parents of their workers where family labor was used). They expected their workers to provide their own food and clothing and they expected their workers to depend on family members for support in a time of crisis. In this way, northern workers were treated differently from slaves. Factory owners only claimed to own the labor of their employees, not their whole person.

Slaves in the South

In 1805 there were just over one million slaves worth about $300 million; fifty-five years later there were four million slaves worth close to $3 billion. In the 11 states that eventually formed the Confederacy, four out of ten people were slaves in 1860, and these people accounted for more than half the agricultural labor in those states.

In the cotton regions the importance of slave labor was even greater. The value of capital invested in slaves roughly equaled the total value of all farmland and farm buildings in the South. Though the value of slaves fluctuated from year to year, there was no prolonged period during which the value of the slaves owned in the United States did not increase markedly.

Constructed Response Question
Using the sources construct a claim, cite evidence, produce reasoning, and evaluate a counterclaim that answers: Critique how the economies of the North and South differed. How might this have contributed to the Civil War?
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Answer 1

Claim: The economies of the North and South differed significantly, with the North relying on factory-based industrial production and wage labor, while the South heavily relied on slave labor in agriculture, particularly in the cotton industry. These differences in economic systems contributed to the tensions that led to the Civil War.

Evidence:
- The North's economy was centered around factories and industrial production, with workers being paid wages for their labor. Factory owners relied on machines and division of labor to increase productivity and profits. In contrast, the South's economy was primarily based on agriculture, particularly the production of cotton, which was heavily reliant on slave labor.
- The value of capital invested in slaves in the South was comparable to the total value of all farmland and farm buildings. Slaves were seen as property and were bought and sold like commodities, contributing to the economic wealth of Southern plantation owners.
- The North's economy was more diversified and connected to international trade, while the South's economy was heavily dependent on cotton exports. This reliance on a single crop made the Southern economy vulnerable to fluctuations in the cotton market.

Reasoning:
The differences in economic systems between the North and South created competing interests and ideologies that played a significant role in the lead-up to the Civil War. The North's industrial economy and wage labor system fueled debates over labor rights, workers' conditions, and the role of government in regulating industry. In contrast, the South's reliance on slave labor reinforced beliefs in white supremacy, property rights, and the economic necessity of slavery in maintaining the plantation system.

Counterclaim:
Some might argue that the Civil War was primarily about states' rights and the issue of secession, rather than economic differences between the North and South. While states' rights were certainly a central issue in the conflict, the underlying economic disparities between the two regions, particularly the institution of slavery in the South, exacerbated tensions and fueled the divisions that ultimately led to the outbreak of the Civil War. Economic interests and ideologies played a crucial role in shaping the political and social landscape of the antebellum period, contributing to the deep-seated conflicts that led to the secession of Southern states and the outbreak of the Civil War.