scholarly journals Self-Sufficiency, Cotton, and Economic Development in the South Carolina Upcountry, 1800–1860

1985 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lacy K. Ford
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
South Carolina ◽  
Local Market ◽  
Cotton Production ◽  
The South ◽  
Self Sufficiency

The expansion of short-staple cotton production into the southern backcountry during the nineteenth century opened opportunities for backcountry planters and yeomen alike. But contrary to the claims made by agricultural reformers, South Carolina upcountry farmers did not neglect the production of foodstuffs. The Upcountry as a whole was self-sufficient in foodstuffs though a significant minority of farms failed to achieve self-sufficiency. Thus a limited local market in foodstuffs developed, but it did little to stimulate the development of towns in the region.

Cotton, Corn and Risk in the Nineteenth Century

1975 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 526-551 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gavin Wright ◽  
Howard Kunreuther
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Civil War ◽  
World Cotton ◽  
The South ◽  
Satisfactory Explanation ◽  
Corn Production ◽  
Historical Literature ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
Per Capita

Why Did “Uncle Remus” exhort the post-bellum South to reduce its cotton-growing in favor of corn? His complaint was prompted in the immediate sense by the low cotton prices of the early 1890's, but such comments reflected a continuing discontent over the region's abandonment of self-sufficiency in foods after the Civil War. The ratio of cotton output to com was probably at an antebellum peak in 1860, but this ratio had been easily exceeded by 1880, as Table 1 indicates. In the leading cotton states, per capita corn production and the per capita stock of hogs were only about half of what they had been twenty years earlier. Coinciding as it did with a major era of stagnation in world cotton demand, this shift into cotton is of great importance for the subsequent economic development of the South. Despite its size and significance, the shift lacks a satisfactory explanation in the historical literature.

Mechanizing the Cotton Harvest in the Nineteenth-Century South

1965 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 704-706 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heywood Fleisig
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Economic Structure ◽  
Cotton Production ◽  
The South ◽  
Persistent Problem

A persistent problem in American economic history is the explanation of the failure of the South to mechanize cotton production. Summarily, the following argues that the failure to mechanize was due to a southern economic structure which operated to reduce the effectiveness of the factors in society conducive to invention and innovation.

Labor Contracting in Turn-of-the-Century California Agriculture

1980 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 757-776 ◽  
Author(s):  
William S. Hallagan
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Wage Labor ◽  
Agricultural Labor ◽  
The South ◽  
Japanese Immigrants ◽  
Fruit Orchards ◽  
California Agriculture

During the course of U.S. economic development, the institutions used to organize agricultural labor have undergone interesting and sometimes puzzling transformations. The transitions from wage contracting to tenancy observed in the post-bellum South and in nineteenth-century Iowa have been studied extensively.2 This paper evaluates the relatively neglected transition from wage labor to tenancy that occurred in the California fruit orchards during the period 1900–1910.3 Before 1903 Chinese and Japanese orchard workers were organized via the padrone system of wage labor, but in an abrupt series of events there ensued a shift into tenancy so dramatic that by 1909 contemporary observers noted that virtually all orchards were under tenant control. The fact that the new tenants were recent Japanese immigrants prompted investigations by the Immigration Commission as well as other agencies so that this particular shift into tenancy is documented in greater detail than those occurring in the South and in Iowa.

Bitter Harvest:The South Carolina Low Country in Historical Perspective

1985 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter A. Coclanis
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
South Carolina ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
The South ◽  
High Demand ◽  
Low Country ◽  
White Settlers

The factors responsible for the South Carolina Low Country's rapid economic rise in the eigthteenth century and for the area's subsequent lapse into stagnation and decline are described and analyzed. The conclusion is that the rise and fall of the Low Country grew out of the white settlers' early economic commitment to the production of plantation staples with bound labor. The Low Country was locked into a pattern of economic development that required a high demand for low country staples. When demand for low country staples abated, the area faced economic ruin.

The Effect of Geography and Institutions on Economic Development: The Case of Lodz

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 523-538 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna Dzionek-Kozlowska ◽  
Kamil Kowalski ◽  
Rafal Matera
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Environmental Factors ◽  
World War I ◽  
Institutional Factors ◽  
Sufficient Condition ◽  
Cotton Production ◽  
World War ◽  
Railway System

Economic development in the Polish city of Lodz was a function of both geography and institutions. Neither geographical nor institutional factors, if taken separately, was a sufficient condition for long-term development. Although the economic achievements of Lodz depended on environmental factors throughout the entire period before World War I, dynamic progress there had to await the establishment of a beneficial institutional background—a change from wool to cotton production, the abolition of a custom’s border, and the construction of a railway system—in the nineteenth century.

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