Number of factories and workers in the United States 1861

Just before the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861 Union states had approximately five times as many factories as the Confederacy, and ten times the amount of factory workers. This level of industrialization is reflective of the economies at the time, with the Confederate and Border states depending more heavily on agriculture for their economic output, whereas the more industrialized cities of the northern states had many more factories. This also ties in with the issue of slavery at the time, which was arguably the most influential factor in the cessation of the southern states. The rural farm owners of the south depended on slave labor to maintain their output, and did not have large concentrations of population to pull workers from, whereas the factory owners of the north had a large supply of workers from more urbanized areas.