The Industrial Revolution

The industrial revolution began in Great Britain in the 18th century. Inventors developed machinery that supported mass production. Factories began to spring up, decreasing the need for manual labor. The revolution really spread to the US when Samuel Slater established the first successful textile factory in America. He did this by studying the factories in Britain. He memorized the way the factories worked, which helped him to build his own factory. Inventions such as the cotton gin also helped to industrialize America, especially the South. During the revolution, the Erie Canal and the National Road were constructed and helped transportation and communication.

This revolution also had some negative effects. Cotton had become "king" in Louisiana, Mississppi, and Alabama. This was caused by the invention of the cotton gin which made it easier to clean cotton. Although the boom in the cotton industry wasn't bad, the fact that slavery became more popular was. Cotton was now bringing in more money, meaning that Southern farmers needed more workers to produce more cotton. The number of slaves in the South went from 700,000 to 1,200,000 because of this surge in cotton. Although many good things came about because of the revolution, the popularity of slavery that accompanied it would later lead to the Civil War. This just goes to show that with every good thing, a bad thing will follow.