Large-Scale Manufacturing in the South and West, 1850–1860

Abstract

An examination of the manuscript censuses of manufacturing in 1850 and 1860 indicates the forthcoming revision of many traditional interpretations of American industrial development. This study suggests that large-scale manufacturing in the South and West was quite similar in the decade before the Civil War and that antebellum manufacturing was sufficiently concentrated to imply that the model of perfect competition is as inappropriate a description of mid-nineteenth century industrial structure as it is of twentieth century industry.