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3
Birth of the
“New South”
SECTION OBJECTIVES
1. Find out how farming in the South
changed after the Civil War.
2. Explore how the growth of cities and
industry began to change the
South’s economy after the war.
3. Learn how money designated for
Reconstruction projects was used.
3
Birth of the “New South”
READING FOCUS
KEY TERMS
TARGET READING SKILL
• How did farming in the South change
after the Civil War?
sharecropping
tenant farming
infrastructure
Identify Supporting Details Copy the chart
below. As you read, fill in details about economic changes that occurred in the South
during Reconstruction.
• How did the growth of cities and industry
begin to change the South’s economy
after the war?
Activating Prior Knowledge Ask
students to consider the types of people who might be drawn to help rebuild
the South. Would it be likely that their
interests would be mainly for the good
of society, for their own personal gain,
or both?
The end of slavery brought about new patterns of
agriculture in the South, while expansion of cities
and industry led to limited economic growth.
“
V I E W I N G F I N E A R T Despite
emancipation, the cotton still
needed to be picked. This painting
by Winslow Homer (1876) shows
young women in the fields, probably
working just as their mothers had
before the war, except for some
small wages. Making Comparisons
Compare the details in this painting
to the photograph on the next page.
436
436 • Chapter 12 Section 3
Farming
•
•
•
Industry
•
•
•
We have been faithful in the field . . . and think that we ought to be
considered as men, and allowed a fair chance in the race of life. It has
been said that a black man can not make his own living, but give us
oppor tunities and we will show the whites that we will not come to
them for any thing.
”
Ask students to complete the graphic
organizer on this page as they read the
section. See the Section Reading
Support Transparencies for a completed version of this graphic organizer.
Viewing Fine Art Similarities: the great
size of the cotton fields is clear. The
facial expressions are also very similar
between the two illustrations. Differences: in the photo, the whole family
is present in the field; the painting only
shows two women. The dirt and dust
that can be seen on each family member’s clothing in the photo conveys
the difficulty of the work.
•
•
•
Setting the Scene Writing to a South Carolina newspaper late in
1865, a black soldier in the United States Army stated:
TARGET READING SKILL
CAPTION ANSWERS
Labor
MAIN IDEA
BELLRINGER
Warm-Up Activity Ask students to
think about the term economic reorganization. What do they suppose it means?
Ask students if they know of any countries that have undergone economic
reorganization in the last decade.
Economic Changes in the South
• How was the money designated for
Reconstruction projects used?
—Black Union soldier
This demand for a “fair chance in the race of life” was echoed by freedmen
across the South. For most of them, the key to that fair chance was land. “Give
us our own land and we can take care of ourselves,” said one freedman, “but
without land, our old masters can hire us or starve us as they please.”
As you read in Section 1, proposals to distribute formerly white-owned land
to freedmen received little political support. Few freedmen had the money to
buy their own land, and even those who did often found that whites refused to
sell or rent land to them. As a result, most freedmen had little choice but to work
the land of others. They soon discovered, in one freedman’s
words, that “No man can work another man’s land [without
getting] poorer and poorer every year.”
One black family in Alabama learned this lesson the hard
way. The Holtzclaw family worked on the cotton farm of a
white planter. Every year at harvest time they received part of
the cotton crop as payment for their work. Most years, however, the Holtzclaws’ share of the harvest didn’t earn them
enough money to feed themselves. Some years the planter gave
them nothing at all. To earn more money, Mrs. Holtzclaw
worked as a cook, while Mr. Holtzclaw hauled logs at a
sawmill for 60 cents a day. Their children waded knee-deep in
swamps gathering anything edible. This was not the freedom
they had hoped for.
Chapter 12 • Reconstruction
RESOURCE DIRECTORY
Teaching Resources
Learning Styles Lesson Plans booklet, p. 27
Guided Reading and Review booklet, p. 52
Technology
Section Reading Support Transparencies
Guided Reading Audiotapes (English/Spanish),
Ch. 12
Student Edition on Audio CD, Ch. 12
Prentice Hall Presentation Pro CD-ROM, Ch. 12
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Changes in Farming
The Holtzclaws were part of an economic reorganization in the “New South” of
the 1870s. It was triggered by the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in
1865, which ended slavery and shook the economic foundations of the South.
The loss of slave labor raised grave questions for southern agriculture.
Would cotton still be king? If so, who would work the plantations? Would freed
people flee the South or stay? How would black emancipation affect the poor
white laborers of the South? No one really knew.
LESSON PLAN
Focus Explain that the passage of the
Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 and
Reconstruction brought great economic changes to the South. Ask students what these changes were.
Wanted: Workers Although the Civil War left southern plantations in tatters, the destruction was not permanent. Many planters had managed to hang
on to their land, and others regained theirs after paying off their debt. Planters
complained, however, that they couldn’t find people willing to work for them.
Nobody liked picking cotton in the blazing sun. It seemed too much like slavery. Workers often disappeared to look for better, higher-paying jobs. For
instance, railroad workers in Virginia in the late 1860s earned $1.75 to $2 a
day. Plantation wages came to 50 cents a day at best. Women in the fields
earned as little as 6 cents a day. In simple terms, planters had land but no laborers, while freedmen had their own labor but no land. Out of these needs came
new patterns of farming in the South.
Sharecropping The most common new farming arrangement was known as
sharecropping. A sharecropping family, such as the Holtzclaws, farmed some
portion of a planter’s land. As payment, the family was promised a share of the
crop at harvest time, generally one third or one half of the yield. The planter
usually provided housing for the family.
Sharecroppers worked under close supervision and under the threat of harsh
punishment. They could be fined for missing a single workday. After the harvest,
some dishonest planters simply evicted the sharecroppers without pay. Others
charged the families for housing and other expenses, so that the sharecroppers
often wound up in debt at the end of the year. Since they could not leave before
paying the debt, these sharecroppers were trapped on the plantation.
Instruct Discuss economic reorganization in the South. How did the end of
slavery bring about new patterns of
farming? Ask students why state governments poured money into creating
infrastructure. What were the good
and bad effects of this kind of business
development? Why didn’t the South
become as industrialized as the North?
INTERPRETING DIAGRAMS
Whether white or black, most
southern farmers remained poor in
the years following the Civil War—
as did this Florida family (below
right), thought to be sharecroppers
or tenant farmers. The chart (below
left) shows the cycle of debt that
poor families faced. Drawing Conclusions How did farmers get caught
in a cycle of debt?
1. Poor whites and
freedmen have no
jobs, no homes, and
no money to buy land.
2. Poor whites and
freedmen sign contracts
to work a landlord’s
acreage in exchange
for a part of the crop.
cannot leave the farm
as long as he is in
debt to the landlord.
4. At harvest time,
3. Landlord keeps track
the sharecropper owes
more to the landlord
than his share of
the crop is worth.
of the money that
sharecroppers owe him
for housing and food.
Chapter 12 • Section 3
CUSTOMIZE FOR …
Less Proficient Writers
Have students do library research to find out, by
approximate percentages, how many freed
African American slaves became sharecroppers
or tenant farmers, moved to cities, or found other
types of work. Have students display the information they discover in a pie chart.
BACKGROUND
Recent Scholarship
In her book The Dispossessed:
America’s Underclasses from the Civil
War to the Present, historian Jacqueline
Jones writes that the sharecropping
system had a “superficial simplicity”
behind which “lay an intense power
struggle between planter and field
hand, a struggle that went to the heart
of power relations in the rural South.”
One aspect of that struggle was the
practice of fining sharecroppers up
to a dollar a day for “time lost” if they
refused to devote all their time to field
work, as they had been forced to do
when they were enslaved.
Sharecropping and the Cycle of Debt
5. Sharecropper
Assess/Reteach What do students
think were the biggest challenges
faced by the United States as a whole,
and by southern states in particular, as
the country tried to reunite and recover
from the Civil War?
437
CAPTION ANSWERS
Interpreting Diagrams Sharecroppers
always had debts that exceeded what
they earned in a given season. Therefore, sharecroppers remained in debt
even after the harvest each year.
Chapter 12 Section 3 •
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American Cotton Production, 1860–1870
ACTIVITY
Select students to take the roles of the
following: sharecropper, tenant farmer,
merchant. Have them tell one another
about their situations and compare
their lives. How are they similar? How
are they different? Each group might
also discuss how they would like to
improve their situations. You might also
suggest that groups present their situations, and then have them take questions from the class. (Verbal/Linguistic)
BACKGROUND
Recent Scholarship
The story of Reconstruction for African
Americans is a story of 4 million people
who experienced freedom only to find
that freedom had its limitations. Nonetheless, they persevered. Generally,
their stories are similar. Those who left
rural life and farming traveled to southern urban centers, such as Atlanta,
Georgia. In To ’Joy My Freedom:
Southern Black Women’s Lives and
Labors After the Civil War, Tera W.
Hunter details the individual stories of
newly free African American women
who moved to Atlanta. Atlanta was a
key city in the South after the Civil War
because it became the symbol in the
New South of urbanization and industrial growth. And black women are key
to understanding the African American
community because their lives, work,
and sacrifices informed the activities
of the men, children, and other women
in their communities.
4.0
3.5
Bales (in millions)
Connecting with
Economics
4.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
.5
0
1860 1861 1862 1863 1864 1865 1866 1867 1868 1869 1870
Year
SOURCE: Historical Statistics of the United States,
Colonial Times to 1970
INTERPRETING GRAPHS
Cotton production was the South’s
main economic activity until 1930.
Making Inferences What accounts
for the drop in production in the
middle of this graph?
CAPTION ANSWERS
Changes in farming during
Reconstruction affected the long-term health of the South’s
economy in several important ways:
Changes in the labor force Before the Civil War, 90 percent
of the South’s cotton was harvested by African American slaves. By 1875, white
laborers, mostly tenant farmers, picked 40 percent of the crop.
Emphasis on cash crops Sharecropping and tenant farming encouraged planters
to grow cash crops, such as cotton, tobacco, and sugar cane, rather than food
crops. The South’s postwar cotton production soon surpassed prewar levels. As
a result of the focus on cash crops, the South had to import much of its food.
READING CHECK
In what ways did the end of
slavery change agriculture in
the South?
Rise of merchants Tenant farming created a new class of wealthy southerners:
the merchants. Throughout the South, stores sprang up around plantations to
sell supplies on credit. “We have stores at almost every crossroad,” a journalist
observed. By 1880, the South had more than 8,000 rural stores. Some merchants were honest; others were not. Landlords frequently ran their own stores
and forced their tenants to buy there at high prices.
After four years of tenant farming, the Holtzclaws watched as creditors
carted away everything they owned. “They came and took our corn and, finally,
the vegetables from our little garden, as well as the chickens and the pig,”
Holtzclaw said. The family had no choice but to return to sharecropping.
Cities and Industry
Southerners who visited the North after the Civil War were astounded at how
industrialized the North had become. The need for large-scale production of
war supplies had turned small factories into big industries that dominated the
North’s economy. Industrialization had produced a new class of wage earners.
438
Chapter 12 • Reconstruction
RESOURCE DIRECTORY
Teaching Resources
Learning with Documents booklet (Primary
Source Activity) A Bleak Future for Freedmen,
p. 17
Interpreting Graphs The Civil War.
Other Print Resources
Nystrom Atlas of Our Country Settling the West,
pp. 28–29
438 • Chapter 12 Section 3
Effects on the South
Cycle of debt By the end of Reconstruction, rural poverty was deeply rooted in
the South, among blacks and whites alike. Both groups remained in a cycle of
debt, in which this year’s profits went to pay last year’s bills. The Southern
Homestead Act of 1866 attempted to break that cycle by offering low-cost land
to southerners, black or white, who would farm it. By 1874, black farmers in
Georgia owned 350,000 acres. Still, most landless farmers could not afford to
participate in the land-buying program. In the cotton states, only about one
black family in 20 owned land after a decade of Reconstruction.
READING CHECK
Sharecropping and tenant farming
by emancipated African Americans
and poor whites allowed destitute
planters to get their land worked.
Cash crops became the focus.
Some former slaves found higherpaying non-agricultural jobs.
Tenant Farming If a sharecropper saved enough
money, he might try tenant farming. Like sharecroppers,
tenant farmers did not own the land they farmed. Unlike
sharecroppers, however, tenant farmers paid to rent the
land, just as you might rent an apartment today. Tenants
chose which crops to plant and when and how much to
work. As a result, the tenant farmers had a higher social
status than sharecroppers.
The Holtzclaws managed to move from sharecropping
to tenant farming. They rented 40 acres of land. They
bought a mule, a horse, and a team of oxen. William Holtzclaw was a child at the time. “We were so happy at the
prospects of owning a wagon and a pair of mules, and
having only our father for boss, that we shouted and leaped
for joy,” he later recalled.
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It had ignited city growth and generated wealth. Could all this
happen in the South?
Some southern leaders saw a unique opportunity for their
region. They urged the South to build a new, industrialized economy. One of the pro-business voices was that of Henry Grady,
editor of the Atlanta Constitution. He called for a “New South”
of growing cities and thriving industries.
ACTIVITY
Connecting with
Geography
Suggest that students choose a southern city mentioned in the text and
research what it was like in the New
South and what it is like today. Have
them create a chart showing similarities and differences between the city
in the past and present. Students might
also prepare a written report summarizing changes and reasons for the
changes. (Visual/Spatial)
The Growth of Cities
Atlanta, the city so punished by Sherman’s army, took Grady’s advice. Only months after the war,
the city was on its way to becoming a major metropolis of the
South, as one observer noted:
“
A new city is springing up with mar velous rapidity. The narrow and irregular and numerous streets are alive from morning till night . . . with a never-ending throng of . . . eager and
excited and enterprising men, all bent on building and trading and swift fortune-making.
”
—Visitor to Atlanta, 1865
A major focus of Reconstruction, and one of its greatest successes, was the
rebuilding and extension of southern railroads. By 1872, southern railroads
were totally rebuilt and about 3,300 miles of new track laid, a 40 percent
increase. Railroads turned southern villages into towns, and towns into cities
where businesses and trade could flourish. Commerce and population rose not
only in Atlanta, but also in Richmond, Nashville, Memphis, Louisville, Little
Rock, Montgomery, and Charlotte. On the western frontier, the Texas towns
of Dallas, Houston, and Fort Worth were on the rise.
San Antonio, Texas, prospered following the Civil War as a mercantile and cattle center. This 1872
photo shows a view of the east
side of Main Plaza.
Limits of Industrial Growth Despite these changes, Reconstruction did not
transform the South into an industrialized, urban region like the North. Most
southern factories did not make finished goods such as furniture. They handled
only the early, less profitable stages of manufacturing, such as producing
lumber or pig iron. These items were shipped north to be made into finished
products and then sold.
Most of the South’s postwar industrial growth came from cotton
mills. New factories began to spin and weave cotton into undyed fabric.
The value of cotton mill production in South Carolina rose from about
$713,000 in 1860 to nearly $3 million by 1880. However, the big
Achievements of Black Legislators
profits went to northern companies that dyed the fabric and sold the
Thomas E. Miller defended the work of
finished product.
the South Carolina legislature in which
Funding Reconstruction
The Republicans who led Congress agreed with southern legislatures
on the importance of promoting business. The strong conviction that
the growth of business would bring better times for everyone was
called the “gospel of prosperity.” It guided the Reconstruction efforts
of Congress and the Reconstruction legislatures throughout the 1870s.
Raising Money
In a sense, the postwar South was one giant business
opportunity. The region’s infrastructure, the public property and services that a society uses, had to be almost completely rebuilt. That
included roads, bridges, canals, railroads, and telegraph lines. In
addition to the rebuilding effort, some states used Reconstruction funds
he served: “We had built school
houses, established charitable
institutions . . .
rebuilt bridges
and reestablished ferries. In
short, we had
reconstructed the State and placed it
upon the road to prosperity.” The lithograph above shows seven African
Americans who were elected to the
United States Congress.
Chapter 12 • Section 3
TEST PREPARATION
Have students read the paragraph on the previous page that begins “Emphasis on cash crops”
and then answer the question below.
Which of the following describes the South’s economy
after the Civil War?
439
BACKGROUND
Biography
Though he grew up on a slave-holding
plantation, and his father died from a
Yankee bullet, Henry W. Grady (1850–
1889) used his platform as the editor of
the Atlanta Constitution to present the
idea of the New South, in which the
past was put to rest. He gave his most
famous speech, “The New South,”
before the New England Society of New
York on December 22, 1886. In a speech
frequently interrupted by applause,
Grady said, “The New South is enamored of her new work. Her soul is stirred
with the breath of a new life. The light of
a grander day is falling fair on her face.
She is thrilling with the consciousness
of growing power and prosperity. As
she stands upright, full-statured and
equal among the people of the earth,
breathing the keen air and looking out
upon the expanding horizon, she understands that her emancipation came
because in the inscrutable wisdom of
God her honest purpose was crossed
and her brave armies were beaten.”
ACTIVITY
Connecting with
History and Conflict
Ask students to suppose they are living
in the year 1865, first as a poor African
American sharecropper and then as a
white southern planter whose plantation
lies in ruins. Students should write two
brief essays in which the characters tell
how they hope their life will be ten
years in the future. (Verbal/Linguistic)
A Most former slaves became land owners.
B There was greater reliance on cash crops
than on food crops.
C There was decreased dependency on
imports.
D All of the above.
Chapter 12 Section 3 •
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to expand services to their citizens. For instance, following the
North’s example, all southern states created public school systems by 1872.
Reconstruction legislatures poured money into infrastructure. Some of the money came from Congress and from private
investors. The rest, however, was raised by levying heavy taxes
on individuals, many of whom were still deeply in debt from the
war. White southerners, both wealthy and poor, resented this
added financial burden. Spending by Reconstruction legislatures added another $130 million to southern debt. What further angered southerners was evidence that much of this big
spending for infrastructure was being lost to corruption.
Assessment
Reading Comprehension
1. The work too closely resembled
slavery; workers often left to look for
better jobs and more money.
2. Tenant farmers rented land from a
planter, chose which crops to plant,
and decided how much to work,
whereas sharecroppers farmed a
portion of a planter’s land in
exchange for a share of the crop at
harvest, and, oftentimes, housing.
3. As railroads were rebuilt in the South,
and new track vastly extended, towns
and villages were transformed into
cities, trade and businesses flourished, allowing an increase in commerce and population.
4. Southern factories often did not
make finished goods, but rather
focused on the early stages of manufacturing. Profits from the cotton
industry shifted to northern companies. Cotton from southern mills
went north to facilities that dyed the
fabric and sold the finished product.
5. Congress, private investors, and the
levying of heavy taxes on individuals.
Critical Thinking and Writing
6. To increase and ensure profits; the
subsequent need to import food into
southern states would create further
expense for those living in poverty.
7. Answers will vary. Students may want
to mention that southern cities like
Atlanta were devastated by the war.
Corruption
INTERPRETING POLITICAL
C A R T O O N S This cartoon, which
appeared in Harper’s Weekly in
1876, poked fun at President
Grant’s promise to “get to the
bottom” of the corruption in government. Making Inferences What
does the cartoon imply about
Grant’s ability to investigate and
put an end to corruption?
The laws and business methods of an earlier era
simply could not control corruption in a time of such massive
change and growth. During Reconstruction, enormous sums
of money changed hands rapidly in the form of fraudulent
loans and grants. Participants in such schemes included blacks
and whites, Republicans and Democrats, southerners and
northern carpetbaggers. “You are mistaken if you suppose that all the evils . . .
result from the carpetbaggers and negroes,” a Louisiana man wrote to a
northern fellow Democrat. Democrats and Republicans cooperated “whenever anything is proposed which promises to pay,” he observed. The South
Carolina legislature even gave $1,000 to the Speaker of the House to cover
his loss on a horse race!
Scandal and corruption also reached to the White House. Late in Grant’s
first term, a scandal emerged involving the Credit Mobilier Company. Credit
Mobilier had been set up by the owners of the Union Pacific Railroad to build
their portion of the transcontinental railroad westward from Omaha. The
Union Pacific gave the Credit Mobilier enormous sums of federal money. While
some of this money paid for work, much of it went into the pockets of the
Union Pacific officers and politicians who were bribed into ignoring the fraud.
3
READING
COMPREHENSION
1. Why did planters have trouble finding people to work for them?
2. How did sharecropping and tenant
farming differ?
3. How did railroads contribute to the
growth of cities?
4. Why was southern industrial growth
limited?
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CAPTION ANSWERS
Interpreting Political Cartoons
President Grant is “in over his head,”
meaning he is unaware of the scope
and magnitude of the corruption problem he has promised to address. From
the number of papers and notes coming from the barrel, the cartoonist is
suggesting that the corruption comes
from all parts of the government.
440 • Chapter 12 Section 3
5. What were the sources of funding
for Reconstruction programs?
440
Chapter 12 • Reconstruction
RESOURCE DIRECTORY
Teaching Resources
Units 3/4 booklet
• Section 3 Quiz, p. 66
Guide to the Essentials
• Section 3 Summary, p. 65
Assessment
CRITICAL THINKING
AND WRITING
6. Predicting Consequences Why did
sharecropping and tenant farming
encourage planters to grow cash
crops rather than food crops? What
impact might this have had on
people living in poverty?
7. Creating an Outline Create an outline for an essay in which you
explain why the physical reconstruction of the South was necessary.
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