CHAPTER VIII.

THE TRANSFER OF INDUSTRIES TO THE VALLEY.

Many circumstances had tended to localize the manufacturing industries in the East. They had been established there while yet the West was a new, thinly-settled frontier and very difficult of access, and had reached a vast development while the mass of the population and the general capital of the country remained on that side of the mountains; great investments had been made in machinery and buildings, and the people had been taught the necessary skill. Only powerful inducements could transfer them, or the recent growth of them, to another locality whose leading feature was agriculture, the almost miraculous growth of which was creating so much wealth among the masses of the people, and making so many fortunes. It was natural to suppose that the growth of manufactures would -until the Valley became comparatively old in its specialty -be slow, and that no great degree of actual transfer would take place for many decades.

Up to 1860 this had been the case. Between 1850 and 1860 the product of manufacturing industries outside of the Valley had doubled; within the Valley the increase was less-about as 11 to 6. Between 1860 and 1870, on the contrary, the gain in the value of the products of manufacturing industries in the Valley was about as 14 to 4-or increased by three and a half times itself-while the gain in the East was nearly as 42 to 19-only a little more than doubled. This great change in the direction of the gain intimated a sudden and extensive process of transfer of the seat of some manufactures from East to West. At the same time the growth of population in the Valley had been only as 20 to 15; while outside the Valley it had been as 18 to 15.

INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS IN AND OUTSIDE THE VALLEY. 433

That is to say, products of manufacturing industry in the Valley had been given as about $242,000,000 in 1850; $440,000,000 in 1860, and $1,455,000,000 in 1870; while the entire manufactures of the whole country were worth $1,019,000,000 in 1850; $1,885,000,000 in 1860, and $4,232,000,000 in 1870. In the latter year one third the value of all the manufactures was produced between the summits of the Alleghany and the Rocky Mountains. The gain in manufacturing establishments was not so great. The Valley had 41,900 in 1850; 52,100 in 1860, and 118,100 in 1870. The increase in the proportion of products to the proportion of manufacturing establishments in the Valley was as 3 to 21.

Of the manufactures in the Valley about 60,000,000 more than one half were produced in the five States formed out of the original Northwest Territory; one third was obtained in the States originally slaveholding, and more than one fifth west of the Mississippi. More than one third was produced in twelve principal cities; Pittsburgh, Chicago and St. Louis furnishing four fifths of this, and St. Louis-the third manufacturing city in the Union-nearly one half of that, and about one ninth of all the manufactures of the entire Valley.

Not far from one eighth of these manufacturing products of the Valley came from the flouring mills-although but a portion of her grain was made into flour within her borders. Of the $51,000,000 worth of agricultural implements made in the United States $32,000,000 were made in the Valley, and nearly two thirds of these were produced in Ohio and Illinois. Ohio made these implements to the value of $11,900,000; New York $11,800,000, and Illinois $8,800,000. No other State made to the value of $2,000,000 except Pennsylvania $3,600,000; Indiana $2,300,000, and Wisconsin $2,100,000. Of the $125,000,000 in value of machinery (other than agricultural), made in the United States, $43,000,000 worth came from the workshops of the Valley-more than one third. Much of her pure metal and some of her ores went to the

great manufactories of the East to be worked up, and some metal was exported. Of the amount made in the Valley, Ohio, Western Pennsylvania, Illinois, Missouri and Indiana produced more than three fourths, of which Ohio produced one fourth, Illinois one seventh, and Missouri one tenth. Of the carriages and wagons--amounting to sixty-five million dollars in value in all the country-the Valley States made thirty-one million dollars' worth, or very near half. In this industry Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Missouri took the lead; Wisconsin, Iowa and Kentucky following in order. About six million dollars' worth of cotton goods were manufactured in the Valley, not far from two thirds of which were made in the southern part of the basin.

Without going into further details it is plain that the East has no monopoly of manufacturing; that many of those industries have displayed an evident intention of emigrating across the mountains in the wake of much more than half the inhabitants of the country. This movement did not become decided, as a large one, until after the war, and, in 1870, it had but fairly set in. It was actively kept up until 1873, when the financial reverses of the country struck manufactures, generally, with paralysis, where not required for immediate consumption. Yet, the West was more fortunate than other sections, because its great industry-farming-gave more clear revenue to the producers than ever before, from the greater cheapness of transportation, and could spare more, in proportion, for improvements and luxuries than the other parts of the country.

That it steadily advanced in the direction assumed previously to 1870 is proven by the great growth of its large cities and multitudes of its towns. Chicago and St. Louis, with a population of 298,000 and 310,000, respectively, in 1870, came to contain, by estimate of their people, each nearly half a million inhabitants, in 1876, and many smaller towns grew in proportion, which implied great progress in the variety and extent of the manufacturing industries which, in considera

GROWTH OF MANUFACTURES IN THE CENTRAL VALLEY. 435

ble part, supported them. While there is not likely to be any failure, in the East, to hold a steady progress in its industries, great growth will more and more characterize the manufactures of the interior in directions which seek to supply those regions, while greater convenience of access to the materials used will lead to a constant process of transfer of certain industries from the East to the West.

The great city in the heart of the Valley and of the country, on the banks of the Mississippi and near the mouths of the Missouri and Ohio, which has passed so many others so rapidly in attaining the rank of the third manufacturing city in the Union, has every reason to believe it possible that, at no distant day, she may occupy the first place. As the upper and lower Valley and the region between the Mississippi and the Pacific coast fill up with prosperous inhabitants her industries must increase in proportion. It is difficult to see why the causes that have led to so startling a development there, in a few years, should not continue in operation with an increased

momentum.

The manufactures of Missouri, which, in 1850, were $24,000,000, and in 1860 $41,000,000, were, in 1870, in spite of the disorder, waste and depression of four years of civil war in the State, $206,000,000. Illinois and Ohio had less to interrupt and much more to stimulate them during the years of the war. They lost no time, labor or means in the re-organization required in Missouri, and a fuller tide of prosperity had set in for them both by 1860. In 1850 the manufacturing industries of Ohio produced values given, by the census, at $62,000,000, which, in 1860, amounted to $121,000,000, and in 1870 to $269,000,000. Illinois manufactured, in 1850, to the amount of $16,000,000, in 1860 of $57,000,000, and in 1870 of $205,000,000. The rate of increase in Ohio during the second decade was 2.22; in Illinois 3.59, and in Missouri 5, notwithstanding the stagnation and waste of war. The development of the southern Valley, near the Mississippi,

the Missouri, and the regions west and southwest of them, in the years to come, and the singular extent and variety of their resources, with the favorable situation and mineral riches of Missouri, would seem to assure it a far greater ratio of progress in the future. St. Louis, as a manufacturing center, will grow in proportion.

Arkansas is rich in some of the best qualities of coal and has already begun preparations to supply to the lower Valley what it has been accustomed to receive from Ohio and Western Pennsylvania; Texas is said to possess anthracite coal; Colorado is already producing coal at the rate of 200,000 tons yearly; and other regions west of the Mississippi are known to be rich in that essential of manufacturing and mechanical progress. The southwestern and the western sections of the Valley are therefore certain soon to display the high speed of progress in all the elements of wealth and industry that has been so marked in the States north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi since 1850. Progress in every section of the United States can scarcely fail to be immense; but the period for the transfer of capital, of skill, and of the most profitable activity to the Southwest has but just arrived, and the dial which shall mark the advance of that growth is located in St. Louis.

The need of cotton manufactures in the South is being met and a certain amount of transfer from New England of that industry has set in and proved so highly successful as to justify the foresight of its great increase in the near future; the ⚫ production and manufacture of iron is gaining a solid footing in East Tennessee and Alabama, with the promise of a magnificent development in due time; and Michigan, so favorably situated and so remarkably rich in its upper Peninsula, in mineral resources, has given indications of a growing tendency to compete with other manufacturing States of the Valley for a high place in the front rank. Her products in this line of industry advanced from $11,000,000 in 1850, to $32,000,000