Cotton, Slavery, and Steam

I think that the most interesting aspects of chapters 8 and 9 in the book The Hudson by Tom Lewis are his discussions about the importance that cotton played in the development of the Hudson River Valley, as well as the population explosions due to advancements in travel. Lewis starts his discussion about the role that cotton played in the development of the Hudson River Valley saying, "New Yorkers cared less about the question of the morality of slavery than they did about slavery's chief product, cotton...New Yorkers busied themselves with commerce without much concern for conscience." (235) I thought that this was interesting, especially the last section of the quote, because Lewis sees New Yorkers as wanting the benefits of slavery without dealing with the human rights and moral issues that surround slavery. This makes sense, though, because cotton was the chief export of the era, and the North depended on cotton as much as the rest of the globe. In fact, Lewis goes on to say that, "Every forty cents of every dollar paid for Southern cotton went to the merchants of New York City. New York merchants owned the ships that carried the cotton from the South to New York and Europe." (236) It is hard to imagine New York City as the 'cotton capital' that Lewis makes it out to be, but cotton was indeed a major part in the development and population shifts of early New York City.

As we have talked about numerous times this semester, steam was a crucial aspect of the development of the Hudson River Valley and New York City. Lewis comments on the importance of the key families in the development of the Hudson River Valley (Livingstons and Van Rensselaers), and the role that the concentration of wealth in New York City and the Hudson Valley had on the development of New York, the Northeast, and the country as a whole. The emergence of engineers in the latter half of the 19th century led to the construction of new steam power machines and boats, and the economy on the Hudson flourished. The rise in the number of immigrants is also an interesting point that Lewis talked about in his book, and I thought it was especially interesting to see the actual number of immigrants from each foreign country in New York. The development of the brick industry was also vital to the economic success of the Hudson Valley, and this dynamic river valley became the center of a developing nation.