How Capitalism Saved the Working Class

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U.S. Labor & Work
The Civil War was a defining moment for the 19th Century America. Following the culmination of the Civil War, the American economy was in a transition state. What was nearly a pure agriculture-driven economy in the 1800s began to move to the first phases of the industrial revolution. This advancement made the United States one of the world’s leading industrial economies by 1900. However, the prewar industrial revolution was mainly restricted to the Northern region, leaving the South far much behind. For instance, in 1860, the South was principally agricultural, depending primarily on the sale of staple foods to the world market, especially cotton. On the contrary, the North had a more advanced economy due to the shift towards a commercial and manufacturing economy. Before the Civil War, the southern economy was primarily tied to the slave trade. After the Civil War, the economy of the South wakened. The Emancipation Proclamation endangered the existence of the primary source of labor. 
The passage of the Pacific Railway Act in 1862 was critical in transforming the South. The purpose of the rail’s establishment was to link the East and West. The construction of the first transcontinental railway created job opportunities for thousands of people in factories. More workers were needed to assist in the production of tracks and other tools meant for the construction of the railway. At the same time, more opportunities were available for the laborers laying the highways across the terrain. Douglas A. Blackmon’s Slavery by Another Name: reveals that the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery, somewhat it just changed a name. The author indicates that things became worse before they became better under freedom for the slaves. The author suggests how a considerable portion of the South was developed by coerced Black labor. While slavery was declared unconstitutional in 1863 and the South surrender in 1865, many blacks had already been convicted. A majority of them had been convicted of petty crimes and given long sentences. These individuals were made available to the newly established factories. The steel industry, for instance, benefited from prison labor, as were the coal and iron mines that supplied raw materials to the mills. Additionally, Gordon H. Chang’s Ghosts of Gold Mountain demonstrates that the expansion of the railway had adverse effects on the workers. A majority of the people working on the railway were immigrants from southern China who came to the U.S. to escape poverty. The immigrants spent years working at the Transcontinental Railroad. The working conditions of the immigrants were poor. They were forced to live in the margins of American life and late forgotten in American history despite their enormous contribution.  On the contrary, Thomas J. DiLorenzo’s revelation How Capitalism Saved America, disagrees with the anti-capitalistic arguments. The author demonstrates that mercantilistic tax and trade policies in the North were meant to assist the political entrepreneurs. The Southerners paid for the increased costs of imported products. The income raised was spent on wasteful subsidies an...