Editor's Choice
During the age of industrialization, what can be said about the South?
- A. took full advantage of the new economic trends
- B. received preferential treatment from the railroads
- C. turned away from agriculture
- D. held to its Old South ideology
- E. remained overwhelmingly rural and agricultural
Quick answer:
During the age of industrialization, the South remained overwhelmingly rural and agricultural, aligning with answer E. This was largely due to its adherence to the Old South ideology, which emphasized agrarian values and white supremacy, making a case for answer D as well. Despite some attempts at industrialization, the South's economy and social structure were deeply rooted in agriculture, hindering its ability to adapt to new economic trends.
Answers D and E are intimately related to one another. For the South's maintenance of an agrarian economy was, to a considerable extent, an expression of its dominant ideology. Ever since the days of Thomas Jefferson, landowners had been widely regarded, especially in the South, as the economic and political backbone of society. As they were intimately connected to the soil, landowners had a vested interest in the nation's economic prosperity. At the same time, they had the necessary wealth and leisure to devote themselves to the pressing affairs of the nation, inculcating them with a degree of political wisdom not shared by other classes.
Whether or not this was a true representation of reality, there can be no doubt that the governing ideology seriously hobbled the South's economic development, and by extension its ability to conduct the Civil War. The greater industrialization of the North gave it a distinct...
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advantage over the South before the first shots were even fired at Fort Sumter. The world outside was changing, but the South wasn't changing with it. Its predominantly agrarian economy was being left behind by the rapid advance of the Industrial Revolution across the globe. But because the organization of the Southern economy was an expression of such a deep-seated, widely held ideology, it became virtually impossible to make the necessary changes to compete in the new industrialized world.
Of the choices given here, the best is E. A case can be made for D, depending on what you call the "Old South ideology," but since E is clearly true, that is the best answer.
If we see white supremacy as the ideology of the Old South, then D is clearly true because the South during the late 1800s was still a very racist area. However, E is clearly true. The South did make some moves towards industrialization. However, those moves did not change the nature of the South. As the link below tells us, in 1890 only 10% of the population of the South was urban, with most of the rest making its living by agriculture.