Midterm Essay

There were many things that separated the north from the south in the antebellum era. The antebellum ear was the era before the civil war and tensions were rising between the north and the south. Eventually the two side believed their different ways to foreign and the south seceded from the Union. The major differences of this period were economy, class, and gender roles.

First was the economic reasons for the indifference. As the south believed land to be a man’s worth the north believed a job to be his. The south relied on large farming plantations, which was heavily based upon slave labor. The north was moving towards industrialization as factory work and working outside the home became more and more the norm. Slavery gained a big boost from Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin and the South would rely more and more on slave labor.  The North opposed to slave labor and banned slavery from the north and started to try and get slavery banned in the South.

Another major difference was the uneven distribution of wealth and discrimination between classes. The south was becoming very wealthy, mainly due to slave labor, but only a small fraction owned hundreds of slaves and huge plantain mansions. These were the upper class, the middle class did not own slaves or if they did only one or two. And they lower class was highly discriminated against in the south but they held on to the truth that slaves were still viewed lower than me. In the north there wasn’t any slave labor and not many people had the wealth and riches of the south. They worked in the home or outside, maybe at a factory, and really didn’t make that much money. Usually just enough to provide for their family. This is just another example of differences that pushed the north and the south apart.

Another difference that tore the south and the north apart was gender roles. As I said before during this time the men in the south viewed their job to be to own land and farm and north men would work outside of the house maybe in a factory. The real gender role difference was between how females were treated. After the American Revolution women in the north were given more education opportunities. As the men went to work outside of the house the women needed to take over educating the kids and taking control at home. In the south it was socially wrong to be an educated women. It was common belief that men would run away from educated women and that they would remain single and unmarried.