Question

Explain in your own words how Henry Grady affected the South’s economy during the Reconstruction period?

Answer 1

Henry Grady was a Georgian journalist who encouraged the industrialization of the South following the model of the North. After the Civil War, the North experienced a period of fast industrialization and a rapid technological advance. All this prosperity was boosted by the Industrial Revolution that affected all over in the world during the 1800s. In contrast, the South was still predominantly agricultural. Its economy was based in a sharecropping model, in which white landlords had their fields worked and tended by farm laborers. Under this system, the landlord would provide the capital (usually obtained by a loan) to buy seeds and equipment, and the laborers would work. The profit would be not equally divided between both parts. Because of the low prices of the products, the farmers often fell in a cycle of indebtedness. This system left both farmers and workers in deep poverty. Grady had a voice. He was not just a journalist, but a newspaper editor with great oratory skills. In a series of public speeches, he envisioned an industrialized South, with manufacturing facilities, commerce and "thrilling with the consciousness of growing power and prosperity", in his words. This remake would be called "New South" and its main feature would be a "diversified industry that meets the complex needs of this (the post-Reconstruction period) complex age". His speeches motivated politics and he gained the empathy of the public in general. The modernization did happen, but it wasn't quite the same as Henry had dreamed. Some success could be seen in the iron and steel manufacturing segments. The textile mills was a great initiative, but it could have had more success if the wages weren't so low. Henry also defended the white supremacy and this idea held back the economic improvement. While landlords and factories prospered, the low-wage factoring work kept many in dire poverty.