Industrialism and the "new South"
- textile factories appeared in the South through the abundance of water power
- the tobacco-processing industry similarly established an important foothold in the region largely through the work of James b. Duke of North Carolina whose American Tobacco Company established a virtual monopoly over processing of the raw tobacco into marketable materials
- In the lower south, the iron industry grew rapidly and by 1890, the southern iron and steel industry represented nearly a fifth of the nations total capacity
- railroad development increased substantially in the post-Reconstruction years
- Southern industry developed within strict limits and its effects on the region were never even remotely comparable to the effects of industrialization on the North
- the growth of industry required the region to recruit a substantial industrial work force for the first time
- large groups of widowed women flocked to work at the factories
- Some mill towns were pales where black and white culture came into close contact