Because they felt that the Republican Party had forced the Civil War and the reconstruction programme upon them the secession States after their readmission were solidly Democratic in their political sympathies until 1928. The border States, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia and Kentucky, however, fell away from Democratic allegiance with the McKinley election of 1896, and Missouri followed in (X.) The industrial history of the South falls into four periods: (I) healthy beginnings, manufactures mixed with agriculture, to the end of the War of 1812, when British manufactures coming into America put an end to industries already on the wane; (2) lapse of manufacturing to the end of reconstruction, or, say, 1880, due to absorption in cultivation of staple crops with slave labour; (3) industrial revival with recovery from war, passing of political vexations and re-emergence of free white labour, reaching to the outbreak of the World War; (4) expansion and diversification of industry, marked by southward migration of capital.
The South in 1925 had about 33,500,00o population, or approxi mately 28% of that of the country, and the total value of its manufactured products was $7,755,195,000, or approximately 12%. Per caput production of manufactures in the South (meas ured by value of product) was in 1925 about $231, or less than half of that for the United States as a whole. However, the percentage value of Southern manufactured products has constantly mounted (with the exception of a slight recession between 1920 and 1923) from 6.2% in 1880 to 12.37% in 1925.
Between 1910 and 1920 the proportion of all Southerners gain fully employed in manufacturing and mechanical industries rose from 14.7% to 18.2%. In the United States as a whole, the figures for the same years were 27.8 and 30.8%. Thus the South has rather more than half as many of its wage-earners in industry as the whole country. Of the aggregate value of industrial products in the South in 1925, cotton manufacture was responsible for 10.5%. General manufactures, however, have made greater progress than cotton goods in the past few years. Hydro-electric power ushers in a period of more wide-spread and varied industry. The South in 1925 had 5,696,809 primary horse-power, which was 15.93% of that for the country. Of this total, electric motors driven by pur chased current had 2,212,805 h.p., being of the purchased electric current of the country. That is, about 31% of the total horse-power in the South is rented current, as opposed to about 5o% in the entire country—a good showing for a district in which manufacturing is comparatively recent. The power companies, steam and hydro, which are springing up throughout the South, are duplicating campaigns of the railroads with the purpose of drawing new industries to the region. Southern society is beginning
to coagulate, as it were; in 1900 about 14% of the population of the section was urban; in 1929 more than 25% live in cities. Textiles.—Cotton manufacturing is the South's predominant industry. The cotton mills convert the South's characteristic raw material, and employ roughly one-third of all industrial workers. This is one of the few manufactures, capable of being conducted elsewhere, in which the South has assumed leading place. In 1926 the South's 814 cotton mills contained 48% of the spindles in the United States, but of more significance is the fact that the South's 17,612,000 active spindles were nearly 57% of the country's total. The South had almost half of America's looms. The cotton-growing States in 1925 turned out cotton goods worth $929,107,255 or 53% of the country's total, using, for the year ending July 31, 1926, 4,796,000 bales of cotton, or two-thirds of the total American consumption of American cotton. North Caro lina, both in number of wage-earners (84,183 in 1925) and value of products ($316,324,008) was the leading Southern State in cotton manufacture, with South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama next in order. The cotton mills in the South prior to 1880 were generally small, scattered, inefficient and made a coarse product, mostly yarns. At that time the South had recovered in a measure from the Civil War, sectional bitterness was allayed, and the abolition of slavery brought the "poor whites" to public notice as a labour asset. Manufacture of the everywhere-present cotton seemed the obvious recourse. Towns vied with each other in a boom of mill building, 78 new plants appearing by 1890 and 162 more by 190o. In these two decades active spindles in the South increased from 561,000 to 4,368,00o. Local communities sought capital with which to put up the buildings, and leaders in the ventures went North to secure working funds and equipment.
Ordinarily commission firms taking stock were given the selling account of the mill, and machinery makers, who were glad of orders after the long depression, accepted shares in payment.
Where water-power was not available, steam was eagerly turned to. These mills were extraordinarily successful, regularly making profits up to 5o% of the invested capital. Cotton was bought locally at a saving, and was in the best condition, coming fre quently directly from the gin without baling. Wages were much less than in the North, hours were longer, the proportion of women workers was large and child labour was universal. There was no complaint against these conditions. What the poor whites wanted was security, and they found this in the mill villages. Cotton mills employ whites. They come from all regions; at first, principally from Piedmont and the mountains. A very few negroes are employed separately.