Comment by legitster
13 hours ago
It's true the first mills were in the north because they had some good sites, but there are good mill sites throughout the South as well. More tellingly, when the first steam engines in the US were imported from Europe - they could have been just as easily installed in the South.
I think more importantly, steam mills solved for a problem the south did not have. If one was to tell a southerner, I have a technology that will save on labor costs, the southerner's response would have been "what are labor costs?"
You still have to wonder why the south never built factories to compete with the north. They exported most of their cotton to the north just to buy it back again the the form of textiles, so slavery working by hand wasn't able to compete with factories on that level.
I'd venture that the north's earlier industrialization built up experience and supporting infrastructure which made it a dubious business prospect for any southerner that might have considered building a factory, along with the fact that making textiles by manpower alone made less money than picking cotton and exporting it.
> They exported most of their cotton to the north just to buy it back again the the form of textiles, so slavery working by hand wasn't able to compete with factories on that level.
It seems to fit the pattern of a resource curse.