A House Dividing: Economic Development in Pennsylvania and Virginia Before the Civil War

ISBN-13: 9780521590235 / Angielski / Twarda / 2000 / 236 str.

John D. Majewski

Opis

Professor Majewski compares Virginia and Pennsylvania to explain how slavery undermined the development of the southern economy. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, residents in each state financed transportation improvements to raise land values and spur commercial growth. However, by the 1830s, Philadelphia capitalists began financing Pennsylvania's railroad network, building integrated systems that reached the Midwest. Virginia's railroads remained a collection of lines without western connections. The lack of a major city that could provide capital and traffic for large-scale railroads was the weakness of Virginia's slave economy.

Recenzje

'This scholarly work is also a very pleasurable read.' Open History

Spis treści

Acknowledgments; Introduction: Regional Development in Comparative Perspective; 1. Developmental corporations in a slave-labor society; 2. Developmental corporations in a free-labor society; 3. Railroads and local development; 4. The local politics of market development; 5. Urban capital and the superiority of Pennsylvania's transportation network; 6. Why Antebellum Virginians never developed a big city; Epilogue; Appendix; Bibliography; Index.