1. Cotton: A Cash Crop

2. Instructions: As you view the PowerPoint, fill out the note guide. Remember key words/terms will be in Red.

3. Economic Conditions After the War During the Civil War, many people’s savings were tied up in Confederate bonds. Bonds are interest bearing certificates of debt due to be paid by the government. After the war, these bonds became worthless. People and businesses became ruined because the Confederate government could not repay the debt.

4. Return of the Small Farm When businesses failed, people had to rely on farming to feed themselves. Tenant farming, where a farmer works land owned by someone else, became popular again.

5. Sharecropping When a tenant farmer couldn’t pay for his land in cash, he shared the crop. This is known as sharecropping. Mortgages, became common. Interesting: Mortgage is a compound word from Latin. Mort = death and Gage = grip.

6. Transportation Texas was isolated from commerce, an exchange of goods between states, due to lack of transportation for shipping goods. This negatively impacted the Texas economy and its growth. The Texas government allowed railroads to be built after the Civil War. The period of 1876-1885 was a time of rapid expansion of the railroads in Texas. More than 8000 miles of track was built.

7. Effects of the Railroads in Texas Since goods could now be shipped anywhere, Texans began to build towns and farms near railroads. Farming also expanded into West Texas.

8. Texas Railroad Commission Governor Hogg created the Texas Railroad Commission to oversee all railroad operations. Governor Hogg created the Texas Railroad Commission to oversee all railroad operations.

9. Effects of New Technology The steel plow made tilling soil easier and more cost effective. The Kelly Plow Company developed a longer- lasting plow called the Blue Kelly. Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, A machine for separating cotton from its seeds, to speed the production of cotton. Along with the railroad, these inventions changed the fate of Texas forever.

10. Cotton Farming As the cotton industry grew, so did the size of cities, manufacturing, and the number of flour and gristmills. A gristmill is a place where grain is ground into substances such as cornmeal and grits. The rise of the cotton industry caused other industries to be created to meet the needs of the cotton farmers. This effect was the beginning of manufacturing, or production of items using machines, in Texas.

11. A “Cotton Culture” The calendar was soon built around the cotton-growing season. Planting in the spring, cultivation in the summer, harvest in the fall. When the harvest was poor, so were the people. In those bad years, people turned to credit to buy necessities. The use of credit was usually a bad thing, as it resulted in yet another cycle of poverty.