During the civil war, both the northern and southern Homefront’s each had their own issues that involved the loyalty of the people and problems within the government. After initial setbacks, many northern civilians experienced an increase of wartime production. Throughout the war, iron production and coal mining reached their highest levels. Sales with merchant ships increased. During this time the railroads and the Erie Canal traffic rose over by half. Northern manufacturer’s profits became so high that many places had to either double or triple their dividends to stockholders. The people who became rich built grand homes and used their money on carriages, silk clothing and jewelry. There was public outrage that such conduct was happening and shouldn’t have been done during war times. There were many people who saw this lifestyle as offensive and feared that workers’ salaries would shrink due to inflation. Salaries rose only half as fast as prices certain products like beef, rice and even sugar doubled. Companies of all kinds made record profits. The role of women changed dramatically …show more content…
Near the end of 1861, the rate of inflation was overall running over twelve percent per month. One example of this was that salt was the only real way to preserve meat during this time. The price of meat rose from sixty five cents for a two hundred pound bag in 1861 to sixty dollars per sack a year and a half late. Things like wheat, flour, and meats of all kinds along iron, tin and copper became way more expensive for the typical family to buy. Certain types of people would buy up all the goods in a store only to resell them back at a way higher price. Riots for food occurred in Atlanta and Richmond. During the the course of the war, the overall inflation in the south made prices to rise nearly by nine thousand
The home front and the battlefront were intimately connected during the Civil War. Both North and South, families sent loved ones off to fight. While countless of the men were gone, fighting in the war. The women stayed back and took care of the children and the home grounds. It was quite troublesome to communicate with your loved one while they were distances away from home. So to stay connected, family members wrote frequently to their relatives in the field, and they cherished the letters they received in return.
Only the North possessed an industrial base, small as it was, before the shooting started. During the fiscal year ending 1 June 1860, the country possessed some 128,300 industrial establishments. Of these, 110,274 were located in states that remained in the Union. Finally, the North contributed 92.5% of the $1.9 billion that comprised the total value of annual product in the country in 1860. The war years stimulated production of new inventions and accelerated the growth of established technology. Due to a deluge of government contracts, sewing machines became an integral part of the clothing industry, and the 50-year-old system of machine-made interchangeable parts became firmly entrenched in the production system. Agriculture-related industrial goods also witnessed production spurts attributable to the war: Gail Bordens condensed-milk process, patented in 1856, became essential to the diets of many Union soldiers, while implements including the thresher and the rotary plow experienced sales booms as machinery took over work abandoned by farm hands gone to war. In other ways, such as by easing unemployment and by promoting the enactment of protective tariffs, the war encouraged wide-scale industrial expansion. No wonder that by 1864 the Unions manufacturing index had risen to a level 13% greater than that of the country as a whole in 1860. But wartime statistics, positive or negative, fail to tell the full story of the Civil Wars impact on Northern
During and before the Civil War, the two economies of the North and South interacted and one had a more negative effect to them than the other. The North benefited from the interaction of the North and South because they received cotton to make their manufactured goods. They also benefited financially because the Northerners put tariffs on imported goods which would cause the people of the U.S. to buy the goods that they made. The South suffered from the tariffs, because the people from other countries would also need to put tariffs on the U.S. causing them to not being able to gain as much profit as they used to do. The Southern suffered from the greed the North had for themselves. The Northern economic system had a negative effect on the Southern economy while the South supported the North’s economy.
The Civil war was the most momentous and crucial period of time in the history of America. Not only did this war bring an end to slavery but also paved way for numerous social and political changes. The country had already been torn by the negative trend in race relations and the numerous cases of slave uprisings were taking their toll on the country 's political and social structure. The country was predominately divided up into 3 sections, the North, the South, and the West. Each of these groups had different fundamental interests. The North wanted economies depending on farming, factories and milltowns, while the West relied on expansion and development of land for farming and new towns. The South mainly relied on agriculture like
The Civil War may not have been as damaging to the economy of the North but it had a catastrophic effect on the South . The South's economy was brought to a halt. Businesses and banks were locked up due to inflation. Factories were still and silent with no workers and no sign of smoke to show even the slightest amount of
The Civil War consisted of nearly ten thousand battles, engagements, and other military actions including nearly fifty major battles and about one hundred others that had major significance. In the spring of 1861, years of boiling tensions between the northern and southern United States over issues including states’ rights versus federal authority, westward expansion and slavery exploded into the American Civil War. Meanwhile the United States was experiencing an era of tremendous growth, an ultimate economic difference existed between the country’s northern and southern regions. While in the North, manufacturing and industry was well established, and agriculture was mostly limited to small-scale farms, the South’s economy was based on a system
When the war ended the South was suffering from financial problems and was still relying on “King Cotton” (Nash 426) to be its main source of income. The South was the most affected by the war ending
In the northern states of the united states, pre-Civil War, they had been booming with new factories. Industrialization had taken over the northern states, becoming their entire economy. After the Civil War though, the industrialization economy really took a hit. Roughly 360,000 Union deaths took place during the Civil war, many companies lost many employees. Shortly after the Civil War the United States entered an era we now know at the “Gilded Era”. During this era, some of the richest men, even in todays money, were born. Big names like Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and J.P. Morgan entered the economy, trying to earn their way to the top.
The main economic hurdle the country faced was centered in the south. After the war many Southerners were dependant on federal aid subsistence and the emancipation proclamation cost the South $2 billion of it’s capital (Farmer). Furthermore, agriculture had been what maintained southern economy but post-war most farms and plantations were desolate and many of the few railroad tracks that were there before had been destroyed. Historian Charles Beard looks at the war as, “the triumph of the forces of industrialism over plantation agriculture.” However this is not entirely true. While there was some movement towards industry, the south was still primarily agriculturally based and had adopted a system of sharecropping to do so. It took until 1867 for
economy of America, and the role that it conveyed in the conflicts leading up to the Civil War.
In the Civil War, the key issue is the confliction between the northern industrial economy and the southern plantation economy; North focus on the industry that pushed the factory growth, also offered large amounts of job opportunities to Northerner. Also, North is anti-slavery that they rejected to use slaves in their factories or any of industries. South focus on agriculture and had plenty of slaves work for them, especially on the cotton plantation. South had a lot of labor from slaves to work on the field that leads to a maximal cotton exportation in the world; meanwhile, owning plenty of slaves is the symbol of wealth in the North. Therefore, the demand of slaves in the north has increased extremely fast in the
The War of Succession, universally known as the Civil War, was a war unlike any other. According to the Civil War Trust, “ it was the most immensely colossal and most destructive conflict in the Western world between the cessation of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the onset of World War I in 1914.” It commenced when the Confederate army assailed Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. The Civil War was a rigorously catastrophic event for both the North and the South. About 360,000 of the Union’s men were killed ( Some passed later on because of their fatal wounds or diseases.), the rest of the casualties were on the Confederate side. That makes 600,000 men killed in this war. It was not easy but, after four years, the war ended on April 9, 1865.
As the war went on, the effects of occupation and Union General William T. Sherman’s “total war” led to high levels of deprivation and hunger. With Confederate troops to feed and Union soldiers turning to thievery in many cases and then burning everything that was left, combined with a lack of available rail transport – it was being used by the war effort – to ship crops that did make it to harvest, food became very scarce. They also experience a lack of material goods because most manufacturing was in the North and the Southern factories that did spring up devoted most of their energy to supporting the
One of the several factors which helped cause the Civil War was the economy at the time. For the most part, the North and South economies were in good shape for their time. However, their economies were very different from each other which led to different views about how they should work on their futures. The North for starters was very different than the South. The North's soil wasn't able to handle having large farms and plantations like the South had. So upon realizing this, the North began to find new ways to make money. This led to the focus on industry and the railroad. Items like cotton, wool, corn, food, pig iron, weapons, furniture, and other important items were being produced and sent to wherever they needed to go at a fast rate. Faster than the South could keep up with. "By 1860, 90 percent of the nation's manufacturing output came from the northern states" (Industry and Economy during the Civil War, Benjamin T. Arrington ) This eventually led to large cities and growing even larger businesses. With
The Civil War played a big role in transforming Old industries into Modern industries. After the Civil was industrialization played a big part in helping the country progress. Industrialization helped move society forward with new transportation methods, new jobs, and the economy. The period when railroads were being built was a process that benefited many people. Stockholders brought. The authors of the book state “Stockholders bought a share in the company and received dividends if the company prospered.” Roark, James L.; Johnson, Michael P.; Cohen, Patricia Cline; Stage, Sarah; Hartmann, Susan M. (2014-12-16). The American Promise, Value Edition, Volume II, Sixth Edition: 2 (Page 473). Bedford/St. Martin's. Because of the expiation of