1 in What Ways and to What Extent Was the Industrial Development from 1800 to 1860 a Factor in the Relationship Between the Northern an Southern States?

Free Response #1 In what ways and to what extent was the industrial development from 1800 to 1860 a factor in the relationship between the northern an southern states?

From 1800 to 1860 the Northern and Southern states relationship became worse and eventually led to the separation of the North and South states. Before the 1800's the North and South were both agricultural societies. The industrial development started in the 1800's changed the northern society. It changed the agricultural society to a society with urban cities, technological advancements, and a lack of a need for slavery while the southern states kept their agricultural society.
The industrial development change the lifestyle of the common people. Before the industrial revolution house could support themselves with the farms they had. When the industrial revolution became cities became more urban. Houses became more small because of the higher populations in the cities. The North purchased a majority of their food supply from the South. While the North move to an urban society eliminating their need for slavery then South kept their agricultural society. However, It was the North who benefited from technological advancement. Just previous to the Civil War, the vast majority of the railroads were in the North, which proved to be a significant advantage during the Civil War because the Northern troops could be resupplied far faster than Southern troops. The South was entirely dependant on slaves, while the North was increasingly dependant on technology and Southern farms. Since the South remained agricultural, the technological gap between the South and the North was widening and becoming evermore noticable. However, there was a downside to the North's technological advancment. More and more people moved to the cities resulting in increasing dependance on outside food sources (mainly the South), so when the Civil War errupted, the price of food in the North shot way up since the large majority of food was produced in the South. Perhaps an even bigger problem for the North was that the cities were growing faster than the medical advances could support. That is, medicine didn't advance nearly enough to support the growing needs of the cities' population and therefore the average lifestyle deteriorated significantly and that didn't change for nearly a hundred years (it was only after WWII that medicine finally caught up with population growth).