Growth in the Postbellum Economy Looking at Agriculture and Industry

By Robert Hupel:

The Civil War started multiple changes within the United States as the country started to recover from one of the worst wars that it has been through. The changes were well noted in looking at the economy of the nation and the how the different sectors of the economy had been affected by these changes. The two sectors that will be examined in this work will be agriculture and industry and how they were impacted by the effects of politics and the changes in culture. In the United States before the Civil War had begun there were some noted differences between the North and the South, and the largest one was that the North focused more on industry where the South was focused on agriculture. The fact that the North won the war becomes evident when looking at how these two sectors start to change. One of the major changes was the end of slavery and the removal of free labor in the South, which were the driving factors in the agricultural sector. The South would still strive to keep things as normal as they had been as they enacted laws to restrict the former slaves’ movement as well as forcing them to work at the bare minimum rate of pay. The South would also start to make changes to how agriculture would work, and they would start such things as wage labor, cash renting, and the widespread use of sharecropping, where people would work the farmers’ land for a share of the crops that were taken in. These all were means that were used to keep the former slaves in check and still under their former “master’s” control. In review of the thirty years after the war it is notable that the South and agriculture did not make major growth as industry would, which is a notable comparison of the outcome of the war as the North won, and industry thrived. In review of the progression of agriculture drawing from the census from 1860 to 1890 the cash value of the collective of all the farms in the United States in 1860 was noted to be $6,645,045,067 having $246,118,141 of farming equipment and machinery. This was using 407,212,538 acres of land to farm on. By 1890 the farms were noted to be worth $13,279,252,649 with $494,247,467 worth of equipment. These numbers do show that there was a growth within agriculture which had almost doubled over thirty years, but industry seemed to have grown even more over that time.

In this time the world was going through another industrial revolution and the Unites States was no different, as people were leaving agriculture and moving to the cities were there was work for those willing to work, but there was a cost as well. The birth of modern industries was built on the backs of the working class and though they were not slaves, the factories worked these people hard with little regard to their health or well-being. There was also an increase of immigrants to the United States and caused this swell of unskilled worker, as well as an increase in the number of factories and urban populations. This situation also created a disproportionate number between skilled and unskilled labor who could be hired in at a cheaper pay. This increase also notes the increase in the number of factories that would open and spread throughout the United States. Many of the immigrants that were fleeing Europe was due to a potato famine in Ireland which destroyed their potato crops in 1845. The influx of immigrants would then be drawn into factory work as many would arrive in New York and were processed there with the added draw industry being in the North and agriculture the South would add to the huge growth of industry at the time. The factors of change like in agriculture can be seen when looking at the census from 1860 to the 1890s. One of the things that can be noted is that in the 1860s there were 140,443 establishments in the United States and products ranging from alcohol to zinc ore oxide of paint, and these establishments employed 1,311,246 employees and had capital of $1,009,855,715, paid out $378,878,966 of wages, used $1,031,605,092 in material and had $1,885,861,676 in product. These numbers would swell over the next thirty years. In 1890 the industry sector had grown to the point that there were 355,415 different establishments in the United States boasting a $6,525,156,486 capital and employing 4,712,622 employees who were paid $2,283,216,539 and using $3,162,044,076 in material and having products that hit $9,372,437,283. The number of businesses increased two and a half times from the ones in the 1860s. Every aspect of industry grew especially the product which was almost five times the amount that was being earned in the 1860s.

In review it is obvious that industry outpaced and surpassed agriculture products and economically. In looking at the numbers and the history of this is can be seen that the United States was moving like many cultures into becoming an industrial power, and it was evident to many of those of the time as they strived to become part of that drive as the country would see these industrial leaders and part of the elite such Rockefeller, Carnegie, Edison, and other rising stars such Henry Ford.

Resources:

Bureau, US Census. “1870 Census: Volume 3. the Statistics of Wealth and Industry of the United States.” Census.gov, December 16, 2021. https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1872/dec/1870c.html.

Bureau, US Census. “Decennial Census Official Publications.” Census.gov, December 16, 2021. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census/decade/decennial-publications.1880.html.

Catalog record: Compendium of the eleventh census, 1890 | Hathitrust Digital Library. Accessed May 22, 2025. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001306750.

DeCanio, Stephen. “Productivity and Income Distribution in the Post-Bellum South.” The Journal of Economic History 34, no. 2 (June 1974): 422–46. https://doi.org/10.1017/s002205070008013x.

Kim, Sukkoo. Immigration, Industrial Revolution and Urban Growth in the United States, 1820-1920:  Factor Endowments, Technology and Geography. Accessed May 23, 2025. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w12900/w12900.pdf.