A look at the role of state policies in North-South economic divergence and in American industrial development leading up to the Civil War.
In 1796, famed engineer and architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe toured the coal fields outside Richmond, Virginia, declaring enthusiastically, тАЬSuch a mine of Wealth exists, I believe, nowhere else!тАЭ With its abundant and accessible deposits, growing industries, and network of rivers and ports, Virginia stood poised to serve as the center of the young nationтАЩs coal trade. By the middle of the nineteenth century, however, VirginiaтАЩs leadership in the American coal industry had completely unraveled while Pennsylvania, at first slow to exploit its vast reserves of anthracite and bituminous coal, had become the countryтАЩs leading producer.
Sean Patrick Adams compares the political economies of coal in Virginia and Pennsylvania from the late eighteenth century through the Civil War, examining the divergent paths these two states took in developing their ample coal reserves during a critical period of American industrialization. In both cases, Adams finds, state economic policies played a major role. VirginiaтАЩs failure to exploit the rich coal fields in the western part of the state can be traced to the legislatureтАЩs overriding concern to protect and promote the interests of the agrarian, slaveholding elite of eastern Virginia. PennsylvaniaтАЩs more factious legislature enthusiastically embraced a policy of economic growth that resulted in the construction of an extensive transportation network, a statewide geological survey, and support for private investment in its coal fields.
Using coal as a barometer of economic change, Old Dominion, Industrial Commonwealth addresses longstanding questions about North-South economic divergence and the role of state government in American industrial development.