The Cotton Industry. An Essay in American Economic History: Part I. The Cotton Culture and the Cotton Trade
M. B. Hammond's economic history of the American cotton industry, Part I, covers the cotton culture and the cotton trade. The first half traces how cotton was introduced and spread across the South, its ties to slavery, Southern agriculture before and after the Civil War, the agricultural credit system, and proposed remedies for over-production, including co-operative credit. The second half covers the history of the cotton trade from colonial times to 1897, including the Lancashire cotton famine, the evolution of the cotton market and futures trading, and trade patterns from 1866 to 1897. It includes many statistical tables, price charts, a map of slave labor and cotton production in 1860, a bibliography, an appendix of statistics and an index.