IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberhi/0100.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Manufacturing Where Agriculture Predominates: Evidence from the South and Midwest in 1860

Author

Listed:
  • Kenneth L. Sokoloff
  • Viken Tchakerian

Abstract

We employ the 1860 Census of Manufactures to study rural antebellum manufacturing in the South and Midwest, and find that manufacturing output per capita was similar across regions in counties specialized in the same agricultural products. The southern deficit in manufactures per capita appears to have been largely attributable to the very low levels of output in counties specialized in cotton production. This implies that it was the South's capabilities for the highly profitable cotton production, not the existence of slavery per se, that was responsible for the region's limited industrial development -- at least in rural areas. The other major finding is that in both the South and the Midwest measured total factor productivity was significantly lower in counties specialized in wheat (the most seasonal of agricultural products as regards labor requirements). This is consistent with suggestions that agricultural districts where the predominant crops were highly seasonal in their requirements for labor were well suited to support manufacturing enterprise during the offpeak periods

Suggested Citation

  • Kenneth L. Sokoloff & Viken Tchakerian, 1997. "Manufacturing Where Agriculture Predominates: Evidence from the South and Midwest in 1860," NBER Historical Working Papers 0100, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberhi:0100
    Note: DAE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/h0100.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Magnac, Thierry & Postel-Vinay, Gilles, 1997. "Wage Competition between Agriculture and Industry in Mid-Nineteenth Century France," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 1-26, January.
    2. Kenneth L. Sokoloff & David Dollar, 1991. "Agricultural Seasonality and the Organization of Manufacturing During Early Industrialization: The Contrast Between Britain and the United States," NBER Historical Working Papers 0030, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Goldin, Claudia & Sokoloff, Kenneth, 1982. "Women, Children, and Industrialization in the Early Republic: Evidence from the Manufacturing Censuses," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 42(4), pages 741-774, December.
    4. Kenneth L. Sokoloff, 1984. "Was the Transition from the Artisanal Shop to the Factory Associated with Gains in Efficiency?: Evidence from the U.S. Manufacturing Censuses of 1820 and 1850," UCLA Economics Working Papers 300, UCLA Department of Economics.
    5. Claudia Goldin & Kenneth Sokoloff, 1984. "The Relative Productivity Hypothesis of Industrialization: The American Case, 1820 to 1850," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 99(3), pages 461-487.
    6. Fogel, Robert W & Engerman, Stanley L, 1980. "Explaining the Relative Efficiency of Slave Agriculture in the Antebellum South: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(4), pages 672-690, September.
    7. Meyer, David R., 1988. "The industrial retardation of southern cities, 1860-1880," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 366-386, October.
    8. Bateman, Fred & Weiss, Thomas, 1975. "Comparative Regional Development in Antebellum Manufacturing," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 35(1), pages 182-208, March.
    9. Fogel, Robert W & Engerman, Stanley L, 1977. "Explaining the Relative Efficiency of Slave Agriculture in the Antebellum South," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(3), pages 275-296, June.
    10. Field, Alexander James, 1978. "Sectoral shift in antebellum Massachusetts: A reconsideration," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 146-171, April.
    11. Gullickson, Gay L., 1983. "Agriculture and Cottage Industry: Redefining the Causes of Proto-Industrialization," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(4), pages 831-850, December.
    12. Weiman, David F., 1988. "Urban Growth on the Periphery of the Antebellum Cotton Belt: Atlanta, 1847–1860," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 48(2), pages 259-272, June.
    13. Sokoloff, Kenneth L., 1984. "Was the transition from the artisanal shop to the nonmechanized factory associated with gains in efficiency?: Evidence from the U.S. Manufacturing censuses of 1820 and 1850," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 351-382, October.
    14. Tchakerian, Viken, 1994. "Productivity, Extent of Markets, and Manufacturing in the Late Antebellum South and Midwest," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 54(3), pages 497-525, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yusheng Peng & Lynne G. Zucker & Michael R. Darby, 1997. "Chinese Rural Industrial Productivity and Urban Spillovers," NBER Working Papers 6202, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Irina Rosa Espana E & Irina Rosa España E. y Fabio Sánchez T., 2012. "Colonial Mestizaje and its Consequences for Human Capital and Early Twentieth Century Regional Industrialization in Colombia," Documentos CEDE 10015, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    3. Nicolas Devijlder & Koen Schoors, 2020. "Land rights, local financial development and industrial activity: evidence from Flanders (nineteenth–early twentieth century)," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 14(3), pages 507-550, September.
    4. Nicolas De Vijlder & Koen Schoors, 2019. "Land Rights, Local Financial Development And Industrial Activity: Evidence From Flanders (19th – Early 20th Century)," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 19/962, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    5. Irina Rosa Espana Eljaiek & Fabio Sánchez Torres, 2010. "Industrialización regional, café y capital humano en la primera mitad del siglo XX en Colombia," Documentos CEDE 7723, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gillian Hamilton, 1999. "The Decline of Apprenticeship in North America: Evidence from Montreal," Working Papers hamiltng-99-01, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    2. Eriksson, Katherine & Alsan, Marcella & Niemesh, Gregory T., 2020. "Understanding the Success of the Know-Nothing Party," CEPR Discussion Papers 15562, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Jeremy Atack & Fred Bateman & Robert A. Margo, 2000. "Rising Wage Dispersion Across American Manufacturing Establishments, 1850-1880," NBER Working Papers 7932, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Kris Inwood & Ian Keay, 2005. "Bigger establishments in thicker markets: can we explain early productivity differentials between Canada and the United States?," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 38(4), pages 1327-1363, November.
    5. Tetsuji Okazaki, 2021. "The Impact of Technological Change on Labor and Wage: The Japanese Silk Weaving Industry during the Industrial Revolution," CIGS Working Paper Series 21-002E, The Canon Institute for Global Studies.
    6. Sukkoo Kim, 2007. "Immigration, Industrial Revolution and Urban Growth in the United States, 1820-1920: Factor Endowments, Technology and Geography," NBER Working Papers 12900, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Atack, Jeremy & Bateman, Fred & Margo, Robert A., 2003. "Productivity in manufacturing and the length of the working day: evidence from the 1880 census of manufactures," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 170-194, April.
    8. Hutchinson, William K. & Margo, Robert A., 2006. "The impact of the Civil War on capital intensity and labor productivity in southern manufacturing," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 689-704, October.
    9. Tetsuji Okazaki, 2021. "The Impact of Technological Change on Labor: The Japanese Silk Weaving Industry during the Industrial Revolution," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-1166, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    10. Trevon D. Logan, 2022. "American Enslavement and the Recovery of Black Economic History," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 36(2), pages 81-98, Spring.
    11. Robert A. Margo, 2014. "Economies of Scale in Nineteenth-Century American Manufacturing Revisited: A Resolution of the Entrepreneurial Labor Input Problem," NBER Chapters, in: Enterprising America: Businesses, Banks, and Credit Markets in Historical Perspective, pages 215-244, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Jeremy Atack & Michael R. Haines & Robert A. Margo, 2008. "Railroads and the Rise of the Factory: Evidence for the United States, 1850-70," NBER Working Papers 14410, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Sukkoo Kim, 2006. "Division of Labor and the Rise of Cities: Evidence from U.S. Industrialization, 1850-1880," NBER Working Papers 12246, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Kim, Sukkoo, 1999. "The Rise of Multiunit Firms in U.S. Manufacturing," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 360-386, October.
    15. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2023. "Scientific Background to the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2023," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2023-2, Nobel Prize Committee.
    16. Ramona Dumitriu & Razvan Stefanescu, 2015. "The Relationship Between Romanian Exports And Economic Growth After The Adhesion To European Union," Risk in Contemporary Economy, "Dunarea de Jos" University of Galati, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, pages 17-26.
    17. Jeremy Atack & Robert A. Margo, 2019. "Gallman revisited: blacksmithing and American manufacturing, 1850–1870," Cliometrica, Journal of Historical Economics and Econometric History, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC), vol. 13(1), pages 1-23, January.
    18. Tetsuji Okazaki, 2017. "Disentangling the Effects of Technological and Organizational Changes in the Rise of the Factory: The Case of the Japanese Fabric Industry, 1905-1914," CIGS Working Paper Series 17-006E, The Canon Institute for Global Studies.
    19. Haluk I. Ergin & Serdar Sayan, 1997. "A Microeconomic Analysis of Slavery in Comparison to Free Labor Economies," Economic History 9710001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Parente, Stephen & Desmet, Klaus, 2009. "The Evolution of Markets and the Revolution of Industry: A Quantitative Model of England's Development, 1300-2000," CEPR Discussion Papers 7290, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • N0 - Economic History - - General
    • N5 - Economic History - - Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment and Extractive Industries

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberhi:0100. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.