Today, cotton is a multibillion dollar industry. Cotton has been, and still is, a major commodity throughout the world for the past hundreds of years. In the early eighteenth century, cotton revolutionized production and trade throughout the world. According to Sven Beckert, cotton began with being “grown in small batches and worked up by hearth” to an empire that “ruled over factories in which tens of thousands of workers operated huge spinning machines and noisy power looms”. As the cotton industry grew, there were many environmental conditions that contributed to the division of labor in setting up the system of production and manufacturing. With regards to globalization and industrialization, cotton had much to do with those ideas expanding …show more content…
and advancing. In Beckert’s novel, Empire of Cotton, he explains how the cotton industry grew from “small batches” to “factories in which tens of thousands of workers operated”.
There is no question that cotton has been around for millions of years. However, it was the ones on the farms who grew cotton who found its great value in this crop. They took these cotton balls and stretched their threads several inches, then they spun these into any type of clothing. In present day India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, “they spun and wove cotton for their own use and for sale in local and regional markets”. Back then, they did not know the great potential in this plant. They used it for their own good and just to survive financially. The process, originally, was not too easy. They harvested their crops by hand, then they had “a roller gin to remove the seeds, removed dirt and knots with help of a bow (a wooden tool with string attached that vibrates if struck with a piece of wood), spun the fiber on a distaff (a tool holding the unspun cotton) and a spindle into thread, and wove this thread into fabric using looms hung between trees”. These techniques were seen across the globe when manufacturing this cash …show more content…
crop. As more and more people saw the importance and value in cotton, the more and more people got involved. Growing and cultivating cotton expanded across the world at a tremendous rate. From Asia to the Middle East to Europe, cotton was now the cash crop for these places. In now a days Pakistan, it was here when spinning and weaving cotton first began. From this area, the production of cotton expanded all over the world. During these times, cotton production was mostly a home-based production. However, this was soon to change. As cotton started to dominate the trade industry, this is when the production processes started to grow and advance.
People wanted to be in this business. As production developed and people started to specialize in weaving and cotton workshops began to be an everyday event. With more and more people learning the ways of growing and educating about cotton, the word started to spread about this crop thorough the world. As workshops grew popularity, new weavers emerged, these weavers manufactured items specifically for sale on the market. They were not creating goods for themselves anymore, it was for others—for their own profits and well-being. This is when merchants and producers started to show the capitalistic society. The merchants “controlled every stage of production”. They bought and sold at their own
will. Soon after these markets emerged, technology grew. With new technology like the roller gin, spinning wheel and loom, productivity in production grew incredibly. Also, slaves picking the cotton in the fields helped get more cotton to the weavers and spinners bringing more products to the factories resulting in plentiful goods being created. The world’s cotton industry expanded because more people were in the game growing, picking, and weaving cotton. This made it possible for these markets to spread across the world. This is when Europe came into the picture and changed the cotton industry. Europe was an outsider when it came to cotton. They did not have this crop available to them simply because they could not grow it there due to the climate. However, they knew they had to get into this business somehow. With their power and money, they could travel and make connections with plantation owners, manufactures and weavers. From here they could ship in tons of cotton so they can make their products. The spinning wheel, also known as the cotton wheel, allowed the weavers to use their feet and hands in the process—allowing productivity to be increased greatly. European factories began to grow and grow as they increased their cotton inputs and as they exported products all over the world. Europeans produced thousands of garments daily and shipped them all over, creating connections between countries. As cotton popularity grew and grew, more countries became connected. Countries needed other countries to be successful in this industry. For example, European countries, who did not have the cotton fields to grow cotton, needed others to ship in cotton to them to produce their goods. So, they traveled and expanded to find these connections. Europeans took production of cotton to the next level which made cotton go from being grown on small farms to being grown on plantations across the globe to be shipped to massive factories. However, not all good came from this expansion of cotton production. There were many environmental conditions that contributed to the division of labor in setting up the system of production and manufacturing. First off, cotton instead of cotton being grown and cultivated in small local farms, when the industry grew to what it was, slavery grew as well. There were millions of slaves that worked throughout the day in hot weather on plantations picking and collecting cotton. They never saw these factories, they probably did not know what they were. However, they picked and picked all day, every day to make their plantation owners happy and the factory owners happy. These slaves labored thousands of miles away from the factories. The Europeans and the plantation owners did not care, they just saw the money filling up their pockets. African-Americans were scooped up from their native land, and shipped off to places to become slaves. They did not choose this, the people of the industries did. They saw cheap labor and this made them see higher profits. Why hire a white male when you can have a black slave work for essentially nothing? Cotton contributed to the division of labor by growing slavery to a massive component to the manufacturing process. These horrid conditions were not just seen in slavery but in the factories as well. Cotton jumpstarted the Industrial Revolution by creating large factories and buildings to help produce their cotton goods. During these times, there were about 446,000 people working in the cotton industry. And this industry relied heavily on the labor side of the market. The people who started the factories only had the slavery model they saw in foreign countries. So, they thought this was the best way to do it. Resulting from these ideas, “one way manufacturers tried to circumvent the problem of attracting large numbers of people to work in factories was by recruiting the weakest members of society first”. They knew they had power over these people to persuade them to work in the horrible conditions in the factories at a low cost. These people had limited resources and any type of work intrigued them greatly. This is when children emerged as the majority workers in the factories. Up to half of the workers were children. Factory owners liked children because they were cheap. Their wages amounted to between one-third and one-fourth of those paid to adults. And if they did not perform at their jobs, they would be punished by the adults. These children worked out of fear because they knew if they did not perform up to standards they would be punished. You can see an example of this within Samuel Greg’s factory Quarry Bank Mill. He hired children for more than half his employs during this time. He housed them in dormitories as they worked for about seven years. One child worker, Esther Price was locked in a cell for “disobedience”. Sadly, this story is not an extreme during these times. The environment that the cotton industry created was one that is highly found upon. These times created slavery in many ways. The slaves on the plantations lived a life no one should ever live and the factories hired children who should have been playing with friends and be in school. The environment that the system of production and manufacturing caused the division of labor which resulted in slavery across the board. This helped the capitalistic views by maximizing their profits as they hired workers to next to nothing. Industrialization caused these working conditions driven by profit minded men in charge. Cotton changed the world as it was. Countries expanded and explored the globe trying to find ways to make money with cotton. Cotton quickly turned from a small, domestic good to a global good. With Europe taking charge in building factories and producing cotton goods at a large scale, they connected many different cultures and discovered new ways to produce. They industrialized the globe through cotton. They connected the world through cotton. Sure, the workers in the factories and the slaves on the field should not have been working under those conditions. However, the cotton empire changed the way the world worked. Instead of transporting goods on camels and horses, goods were shipped across seas on massive boats. The industrial world started to advance and grow in ways no one could imagine. And this all started because a small fluffy ball coming from the ground. Cotton opened many doors to this world. Cotton changed the industrial world. Cotton changed the world. References: Beckert, Sven. Empire of Cotton: A Global History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2015
The Industrial Revolution in America began to develop in the mid-eighteen hundreds after the Civil War. Prior to this industrial growth the work force was mainly based in agriculture, especially in the South (“Industrial Revolution”). The advancement in machinery and manufacturing on a large scale changed the structure of the work force. Families began to leave the farm and relocate to larger settings to work in the ever-growing industries. One area that saw a major change in the work force was textile manufacturing. Towns in the early nineteen hundreds were established around mills, and workers were subjected to strenuous working conditions. It would take decades before these issues were addressed. Until then, people worked and struggled for a life for themselves and their families. While conditions were harsh in the textile industry, it was the sense of community that sustained life in the mill villages.
Prior to the cotton gin, a laborer could only pick the seeds out of approximately one pound of cotton a day. The cotton gin made it possible to clean up to 50 pounds per day. The farmers could now plant as much cotton as they wanted and not have the worry about the difficulties of seed removal. Eli’s invention spurred the growth of the cotton industry, and the South took up the slogan “Cotton is King.”
Cotton had first become popular in England mainly because it was cooler and more comfortable than wool, plus it could be dyed in many colors and patterns. However, English manufacturers had to battle the Indian cotton textiles, which were much cheaper. Therefore, the British government enacted protectionist tariff and barriers against Indian cotton that allowed the infant British textile industry to grow and nourish. The United States did the same thing to grow its own textile industry in the northeastern part of the country. The U.S. government enacted tariffs to protect its infant industry against British textile imports, the textile industry sparked the Industrial Revolution in the U.S..
The 19th century market revolution was a period of dramatic socioeconomic development in the United States. According to Ronald Takaki, this “revolution” culminated in a boom of entreprenuership, ease of business, and an insatiable demand for labor that led to the racialization of minorities in the United States. After a stagnate economy in the late 1700s due to poor soil quality, the invention of the Cotton Gin by Elie Whitney jumpstarted the market by allowing tougher strains of cotton to be grown and processed. Suddenly, the “Cotton Kingdom” was immensely profitable. In addition, a decrease in shipping costs (76) and spreading use of banking and capital (76) made doing business in the US easier. The United States also had, in contrary to
The Industrial Revolution was a fundamental change in the production of goods that altered the life of the working class. Similar to most other historical turning points, it had skeptics, or people that doubted the change, and fanatics, people who saw the value in the change being made. The Industrial Revolution and the period that followed shortly after highlight these varying opinions, as people were more conflicted than ever about the costs of industrialization. While industrialization started in England as an attempt to capitalize on the good fortune they had struck, it quickly developed into a widespread phenomenon that made the production of goods more exact and controlled by higher level people. Many industries, such as the cotton and textile businesses, were previously run through organizations called “cottage industries”.
Within the economy a great development had been achieved when the upper south handed its power to the lower south all due to the rise of an agricultural production. This expansion was led by the excessive growth of cotton in the southern areas. It spread rapidly throughout America and especially in the South. During these times it gave another reason to keep the slavery at its all time high. Many wealthy planters started a ‘business’ by having their slaves work the cotton plantations, which this was one of a few ways slavery was still in full effect. Not only were there wealthy planters, at this time even if you were a small slave-holder you were still making money. While all of this had been put into the works, Americans had approximately 410,000 slaves move from the upper south to the ‘cotton states’. This in turn created a sale of slaves in the economy to boom throughout the Southwest. If there is a question as to ‘why’, then lets break it d...
Slavery had a big impact on the market, but most of it was centered on the main slave crop, cotton. Primarily, the south regulated the cotton distribution because it was the main source of income in the south and conditions were nearly perfect for growing it. Cheap slave labor made it that much more profitable and it grew quickly as well. Since the development in textile industry in the north and in Britain, cotton became high in demand all over the world. The south at one point, was responsible for producing “eighty percent of the world’s cotton”. Even though the South had a “labor force of eighty-four percent working, it only produced nine percent of the nations manufactured goods”, (Davidson 246). This statistic shows that the South had an complete advantage in manpower since slavery wasn’t prohibited. In the rural South, it was easy for plantation owners to hire slaves to gather cotton be...
During the Antebellum Era, slavery was about one-third of the South’s population. The Antebellum Era was the period before the Civil War broke out. The South’s economy was booming which was credited to slavery. Their argument about slavery was that slaves were necessary and important to their economy. It would kill their economy if they got rid of slavery. Slavery was the foundation of their economy. Without any slaves, cotton would not be able to be produce. Nearly 60 % of their exports was cotton. Southerners would also point out that slaves were better working in plantations than working in a northern factory. According to them, the North had bad workplaces and long hours. They insisted that slaves were cared for and helped when they needed it unlike the North. However, slaves were still treated bad in the South. They would resist slavery in a variety of ways. For example, running away was one form of resistance. The most common form of resistance was known as “day-to-day” resistance which were
Railroads opened new areas as settlement and stimulated the mining and manufacture. At the same time, the telegraph appeared. It brought uniform price of the country. Because of these improvements, many people migrated to west. The market revolution and westward expansion heightened the nation’s sectional divisions. The most dynamic feature of the American economy in the beginning of the nineteenth century was the rise of the Cotton Kingdom. But the increasing demand of cotton lead to larger number of slaves. For white people, westward expansion was a chance to get more freedom, but for black people, it means that they would have less freedom and their families will be broken. In the north, Market Revolution turned it to commercial system. Farmers focus on producing crops and livestocks. In some industries, the factory superseded traditional craft production. Both men and women could earn money by taking jobs from factories. Market Revolution changed the time concept of Americans. In cities, time of work and relax is divided clearly. Early New England textile mills largely relied on female and child labor.
The Cotton Gin was an invention that allowed the mass production of cotton. Cotton was previously a very difficult crop to profit from, because of the long hours required to separate cotton seeds from the actual cotton fibers. This all changed when Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793, a machine that sped up the process, thereby making cotton farming a profitable industry for the Southern States. With large areas of prime land ready for crops the Southern states bought and transported slaves in record numbers in order to work on their cotton farms. Although there are no definitive statistics approximately 1,000,000 slaves were moved west from the 'old Southern states' to the new ones; i.e. Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas to Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama. The new ease of cotton ginning coupled with the high demand for cotton in the textile industry gave rise to the need for a workforce to harvest the cotton. The farmers turned to a readily available labor force they didn't have to pay: slaves.
produce cotton. This new market needed a labor force to drive it to it's full potential. The creation of
“If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the new stand side by side...when the glories of the old can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era? This time...is a very good one.”
In Colonial America indentured slavery happen gradually. The colony of Virginia was one place the “terrible transformation” took place. There were Africans and poor whites that came from English working class, black and whites worked side by side in the fields. They were all indentured servants as servants they were fed and housed. After their time was served, they were given “freedom dues,” with that came a piece of land and supplies. Black and whites became free. The English would not enslave non-Christians slaves; they could be set freed by converting to Christianity (PBS Online, nd).
The invention of the cotton gin helped speed up the growth of the United States, of course with the help of Eli Whitney who helped the United States in many other ways. As a result, cotton became the cheapest and most widely used textile fabric in the world.
Many, many things that we wear, sleep on, sleep under, walk on, or utilize in wound-care, etc., contain some percentage of cotton. It is a fiber that is used everyday, by everyone, in one way or another. It has qualities that have made it a choice crop for centuries around the world. Today though, cotton is being largely displaced by synthetic fibers that have qualities that exceed the natural crop plant. These fibers can also be mass-produced and sold at relatively lower costs.