Question

Please explain the entrenchment of slavery and regional conflict.

Explain how American railroads and economic change?

Please explain in page each. Thanks

Answer 1

The Entrenchment of Slavery and Regional Conflict

• African slave trade ends in the 1860s
• United States actually only accounted for 6% of slaves brought into the new World, but accounted for 36% of slaves in the Western hemisphere due to natural rates of population growth
• Gradual emancipation schemes – living population not slaves not freed; instead, newborn babies emancipated when they reached adulthood (free-born)
• Massive, growing demand for raw cotton by the British and New England textile firms
• Eli Whitney’s cotton gin invention gave South comparative advantage in supplying the demand for raw cotton: nation’s highest-value commodity export

Plantation Efficiency

• Distinguishing characteristic of southern agriculture in the antebellum period was the plantation
• Plantation – based on forced labor; represented the economic grandeur and social tragedy of the southern economy

Capital Asset Value of a Slave:

• Phillips (1905) claimed that antebellum southern slavery had become unprofitable by the 1840s and 1850s
• Phillips based his analysis on two time series: the price of prime field hands, and the trend of cotton prices
• With slave prices rising, especially between 1845 and 1859, but cotton prices hardly increasing, Phillips reasoned that investments in slaves increasingly were realizing losses
• Alfred Conrad and John Meyer, in the late 1950s, actually measured the rates of return on investments in slaves. Their asset pricing model in its simplest form took into account the yearly expected output values (the price of cotton [Pc] times the marginal physical product of the slave [MPs], minus yearly maintenancecosts (M) summed over the expected remaining length of life of the slave (t = 0…30 years). This sum was discounted by (r) to equalize the price paid for the slave (Ps)
• if the price of cotton should rise, or output per worker rise, or maintenance costs fall, profits would rise, sending the price of the slave upward
• Prices of slave rose when cotton did not because “more output per slave”
• Phillips overlooked productivity gains/advance that arose from economics of scale as plantations grew andfrom other organizational advances such as assigning tasks, from moving into more productive areas (SW migrations), new and improved cotton seeds
• Plantations vs free southern farms: agricultural output comparisons are valued outputs rather than physical output comparisons; variations in soil type and location
• Because of their size, plantations produced more cotton and other goods and foodstuffs than the southern free-family farms. But when comparing output per unit of input (capital, labor, and land in combination), and after adjusting at least in part for variations in land quality, location, length of workday and work year, and other factors, it is clear that the large plantations were considerably more productive than the small and slaveless farms
• Small-scale farming was less productive per unit of input employed, and there was little difference in efficiency between southern free-family farms and small farms employing only a few slaves

Trains offer an efficient way to move goods over long distances. Over a third of all freight transport happens via the railway system, but our railroads have not always been as expansive as they are today. Now, we have hundreds of thousands of miles of rail connecting major cities across the country, but this was not the case two hundred years ago. The transcontinental railroad was built in the 1800s to connect Council Bluffs, Iowa, with the San Francisco Bay and revolutionize transport in the U.S.

Origin of the Transcontinental Railroad

The 1850s were a time of westward expansion for the United States. The California Gold Rush and Nevada Silver Rush pushed U.S. Americans further and further west with the promise of economic prosperity. In 1862, Congress passed the Pacific Railroad Bill and several grants that allowed financial support for the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroad companies. These two companies then began constructing what would become the transcontinental railroad.

Social and Economic Impacts

Travel was obviously one of the aspects of U.S. life most impacted by the completion of the transcontinental railroad. Before the railroad, it took almost six months and cost $1000 to travel between California and New York. After the transcontinental railroad was completed, it cost $150 and took one week. For the first time, U.S. Americans could freely travel from coast to coast. This radically changed both business and pleasure travel.

Easier transcontinental business travel allowed direct growth through expanding markets and cheaper distribution, as well as increased possibilities for partnerships and exchange of ideas. This movement between coasts allowed for business professionals to have a more expansive idea of their industry and allowed improved access to information and skills.

Within ten years of the transcontinental railroad’s competition, it was already shipping $50 million worth of freight from coast to coast every year. A marked production boom occurred as resources had faster transport to industrial settings, thus speeding up the process of making goods.

Despite the benefits it brought to the U.S., the transcontinental railroad had some negative consequences. Most starkly, the forced relocation of Native Americans from their lands resulted in widespread destruction of Native American cultures and ways of life. Many conflicts arose as the railroad project continued westward, and the military was brought in to fight Native American tribes. In addition, many natural resources were destroyed to make way for the expanding train tracks and stations.

Current State of the U.S. Railroad System

Currently, the U.S. freight rail network has over 140,000 rail miles in operation. This system employees at least 221,000 people throughout the country and is a large part of our transportation industry. For the most part, freight moves through the U.S. by rail and truck, with rail making up 39.50% of shipments.

Our economy depends on our railroad system, but it would not look the way it does today without the construction of the transcontinental railroad. From the 1800s to today, train transport continues to shape our economic and social lives.