12/2/2020The Cotton Revolution - Primary Source Images - 14244 HIS141 Hist Of United States I1/412The Antebellum South ReaderThe Cotton Revolution - Primary Source ImagesIntroductionCotton created the antebellum South. The wildly profitable commodity opened a previouslyclosed society to the grandeur, the profit, the exploitation, and the social dimensions of alarger, more connected, global community. Populations became more cosmopolitan, moreeducated, and wealthier. Systems of class—lower-, middle-, and upper-class communities—developed where they had never clearly existed. Ports that had once focused entirely onthe importation of slaves, and shipped only regionally, became homes to daily and weeklyshipping lines to New York City, Liverpool, Manchester, Le Havre, and Lisbon. The worldwas, slowly but surely, coming closer together; and the South was right in the middle. Butslavery remained, and the internal slave trade rose as the 1860s approached. Political
