Between 1834 and 1836, a combination of high cotton prices,…
Between 1834 and 1836, a combination of high cotton prices, freely available foreign and domestic credit, and an infusion of specie (“hard” currency in the form of gold and silver) from Europe spurred a sustained boom in the American economy.
Read DetailsWho espoused a religious worldview wherein God, “the eternal…
Who espoused a religious worldview wherein God, “the eternal ONE,” manifested through the special harmony between the individual soul and nature, and emphasized the reliability of the individual soul in works like “The American Scholar” (1837) and “Self-Reliance” (1841)?
Read DetailsBy the 1850s, slavery and cotton had become so intertwined t…
By the 1850s, slavery and cotton had become so intertwined that the very idea of change—be it crop diversity, antislavery ideologies, economic diversification, or the increasingly staggering cost of purchasing and maintaining slaves—became anathema to the southern economic and cultural identity.
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