4-6.1

It Is Essential For Students To Know:

• The economies and way of life of the North and the South developed differently as a result of geographic conditions and the institution of slavery.
• The South developed as an agricultural region because of its fertile soil and temperate climate that permitted the growing of cash crops.
• The abundance of rivers for the transportation of agricultural products to market also contributed to the development of the South’s economy.
• The institution of slavery made a significant contribution to the development of the way of life of the slave owners and their slaves and even impacted the majority of the population who did not own slaves.
• Dependence on slavery intensified after the invention of the cotton gin.
• Geographic isolation due to dependence on agriculture, white elite attitudes that considered access to education a social and racial privilege not open to the masses, as well as a lack of a unified religious emphasis on literacy all contributed to the fact that there was little opportunity for public education in the South.
• Because the North had rocky soil and a much shorter growing season, they did not have cash crops.
• The many natural harbors and abundance of lumber in the region led Northerners to develop an economy based on shipbuilding and commerce.
• Factories were built in the North that took advantage of the swift flowing rivers for water power.
• Northern states emancipated their slaves in response to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and because they were not as dependent on slave labor for their farms or factories.
• The North believed in a free labor system whereas the South believed in a slave labor system.
• The industrial revolution brought many immigrants who found jobs in the factories.
• Population grew much more quickly in the north than in the South, as did towns and cities.
• Banks and other businesses developed in the North to serve the needs of the growing industry and population.
• Despite this economic growth, the majority of people in the North still lived on small farms at the time of the Civil War, as they did in the South.
• Public education, including colleges, was a well-established tradition in the North because of the early Puritan insistence on biblical literacy as essential to salvation.
• However, as in the South, the type and amount of educational opportunity varied, depending on gender and social class.
• The boundary between the North and the South was located on the border between Maryland and Pennsylvania [known as the Mason Dixon line].

It Is Not Essential For Students To Know:

• It is not essential for students to be able to name all of the states that were located in the North and in the South.
• Students do not need to know specific names of cities in the North or the South.
• Students do not need to know that Samuel Slater started the first factory in the North or that the Lowell System employed young women in factories.
• Students do not need to know about the idea of interchangeable parts that was introduced at the outbreak of the Civil War.
• Students do not need to know that it was introduced by Eli Whitney nor that it was Whitney who invented the cotton gin.
• Students do not need to know that the predominant immigrant groups that went to the North before the Civil War were Irish and German.