A nation changing

The Industrial Revolution brought new machines, factories, and transportation systems to the United States. In the early 1800s, textile mills grew in parts of the North. These mills turned cotton into cloth. Much of the cotton was grown on Southern plantations by enslaved people, who were forced to work and denied freedom. This linked Northern manufacturing to Southern slavery, even though the regions had different labor systems. Slavery was especially widespread in the South, where enslavers forced millions of people to labor in agriculture, including cotton production. In the North, many states ended slavery gradually after the American Revolution, but racial discrimination continued. Some Northern businesses and consumers also profited from goods connected to slavery. In 1793, Eli Whitney patented a cotton gin, a machine that separated seeds from cotton fiber. It made processing cotton faster. As demand for cotton increased, enslavers expanded cotton production and forced more people into bondage. The machine did not cause slavery by itself, but it helped make cotton more profitable within an already violent system. Frederick Douglass escaped slavery in 1838 and became an abolitionist and writer. He described being denied an accurate record of his age while white children could know theirs. His account shows how slavery denied people control over basic parts of their lives. Abolitionists worked to end slavery, while enslaved people resisted in many ways. These struggles continued as the country industrialized.