AHC: Industrialize the American South

[Hierophant]

With a pod not before 1789 increase the rail network, cotton and steel mills in the south.

Bonus points if more than half of all cotton produced in slave states is processed and spun in slave states.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

With a pod not before 1789 increase the rail network, cotton and steel mills in the south.

Bonus points if more than half of all cotton produced in slave states is processed and spun in slave states.

Since that would require knocking out England where most of the raw cotton went iOTL, and therefore knocking out the most likely source of capital to make those improvements, this would be tough, really tough.

 

[Shtudmuffin]

You could possibly have a plague of some sort strike the cotton industry early on in the South's existence, after the Industrial Revolution arrives in America

 

[Snake Featherston]

The problem with this is that the South *did* experience a commercial revolution: the emergence of cotton slavery, which in turn did much to help bolster the North's industrial revolution. Which is why the Lords of the Loom did not want the Civil War at all, and Northern businessmen generally were some of the most vehement opponents of the whole thing. To have the entire USA industrialize at the same time and the same rate is not the simplest thing in the world, not if we're wanting US politics to resemble the OTL pattern.

 

[Revolutionary Avocado]

Have the North secede during the War of *1812. The USA's major port then gets relocated to either Charleston or Philly, and the slaveholding states have complete political domination. Once the cotton industry starts and cotton is getting shipped out, someone decides that it might be a good idea to start spinning cotton at home. Industrialization happens. Done.

 

[Johnrankins]

Have the North secede during the War of *1812. The USA's major port then gets relocated to either Charleston or Philly, and the slaveholding states have complete political domination. Once the cotton industry starts and cotton is getting shipped out, someone decides that it might be a good idea to start spinning cotton at home. Industrialization happens. Done.

There were some attempts at trying to get textile manufacturing to move down south. After all it is the obvious thing to do. Almost all attempts failed miserably. Remember that any successful manufacturers will be a threat to the political domination of the planters and they really didn't want a threat to their near monopoly in political power!

 

[Snake Featherston]

There were some attempts at trying to get textile manufacturing to move down south. After all it is the obvious thing to do. Almost all attempts failed miserably. Remember that any successful manufacturers will be a threat to the political domination of the planters and they really didn't want a threat to their near monopoly in political power!

Well, phrase that another way: any manufacturers who succeed with free, as opposed to slave, labor are threats to their near-monopoly. If somehow they can combine factories and slaves, well, any money made by slaves is good money to planters. An independent working class of poor whites, OTOH.....

 

[Utgard96]

Well, what if a natural disaster happens (let's say an early boll weevil infestation) during Reconstruction, as the planters find themselves having to pay their former slaves (pocket money, but still) and as Northern industry is expanding rapidly? Could that persuade the planters to reinvest their capital in industry?

 

[Snake Featherston]

Well, what if a natural disaster happens (let's say an early boll weevil infestation) during Reconstruction, as the planters find themselves having to pay their former slaves (pocket money, but still) and as Northern industry is expanding rapidly? Could that persuade the planters to reinvest their capital in industry?

No. That's not going to do this at all, as the South was too gutted from the disintegration of the CSA to find the money, while it would seem at the time as basically vindicating the North had been right all along.