Alexis Deberry

Economics 1740
12/13/2015
Reflection
Over the course of this semester, Economics 1740 has helped me expand my knowledge
on Economic history. The economic topics that I found most interesting that we covered were;
the financial system and the economic effects of the Civil War, as well as the Great Depression. I
found it quite intriguing to read about the total percentage of white and nonwhites in the United
States, as well as the percentage living in urban areas from 1790-1860.
When I reflect on the last 4 months in this class, I am quite satisfied. It was one of
the first classes Ive taken in college, that I actually read the course book. This area of study is
very new to me, so it was challenging to keep up with the pace at times. I wish I had done a little
better on the final, but other than that this class was very rewarding. I have never thought about
history in from an economic standpoint. It was a good experience to be able to show myself that
if I put in the work, not only will I get a good grade, but I will retain the new information
learned.
When I really started to enjoy what we were covering was chapter 8. It was quite
interesting to read about the canals, steamboats and railroads being built and what was the
driving force behind theyre production. Then to see the great outcomes, and downfalls that came
of each. Chapter 12 stood out to me as far as educating me on the banking developments in this

country. I never knew that congress didnt have the authority to levy taxes during the revolution,
and had no systematic way to receive financial support from the states. I also thought that in
chapter 13 there was a lot of great information pertaining to the measures taken for the wars cost
and how war has been among the largest economic enterprises of the modern state as well as the
financing of the Civil War. It was in this chapter that I started looking at our nations history
through a moral and ethical lens, as well as an economic one. Reading about the civil war and
how so many men and resources were wasted during it, on such a large scale, was an eye-opener.
This war can be viewed as the reason slavery was abolished, so the bloodiest war was fought to
stop a very dark and viscous act that we as a nation were participating in. Lastly, chapter 24
explained the great depression and how much research was focused on causes of the initial
downturn following the stock market crash of 1929 and the banking crisis if 1930, which was
followed by the huge two year crash dive which ended with major bank failures, as well as the
closing of all banks in early 1933.

While watching the History Channel video about cotton I learned a lot including; Modern
day machines like The John Deere 9996 Cotton Picker uses 480 spindles attached to rotating
drums to spool off ripe cotton bolls and harvests 6 rows of cotton at once and does about 80 acres
a day. With 3 of these machines they complete 220-240 acres in a day. However, this machine
goes back to the origination of the very first one-row spindle picker which was designed in the
1930s. Up until the 1930s or the beginning of 1940s most cotton was manually picked0 by

hand. The design of the one-row spindle picker alone replaced about 50 hand picking harvesters
which was the beginning towards growth of economic cotton history.
The moment I really noticed how this class has impacted my economic intellect, is when
I read "Why Cotton Was king". I read the opening paragraph and paused. I thought about the title
of the reading what the American economy was like before the civil war. The first thing I thought
about was slaves, and how they were a commodity just like cotton. This was because of how
important cotton was to the American economy. Cotton was the largest American export before
the 20th century, so I thought of how it affected not only the United States, but the world. I know
from our book, it was a huge reason for the southern and western expansion, and with
technological inventions like the Cotton Gin, it made it so the demand for labor would keep
increasing.
I noticed a cycle, the planters would get more slaves to produce more cotton, because
innovations would make the revenues increase greatly, but the factors of production (Total Cost)
were not increasing near as high. This means the Profits were exponentially rising. When the
Planters looked for more labor, it fueled the market of obtaining slaves. It caused something very
similar to the "Middle Passage". This cycle was bringing a lot of economic revenue to the United
States, but it was so morally and ethically disgusting that its hard to look back at that time and
be proud. I also know from our book, that Great Britain, which was a world power house, relied
heavily on Slave-Produced cotton for its materials. This means a powerful economic country
greatly needed an American produced material. All of these facts about cotton show me that
without the production of cotton, the United States would be very different right now.

After I read the rest of the reading, I quickly noticed I was very accurate in my
predictions of why cotton was "King". It was a great feeling to see how my knowledge made it
so I could critically think about a question, and come up with logical responses. The main point
he made that I didnt think of was how much slaves were worth. To see how much they were
worth comparative to the worth of the amount of currency circulating at the time, and the worth
of the amount of livestock was a real shock. But it made complete sense to me, and 6 months ago
it wouldnt have.
Now when I sit here and think about all that Cotton did for our country, I wonder if it was
truly worth it. Was the economic growth it caused for our country, worth the amount of pain it
caused the millions of slaves, or millions of Native Americans that were killed in the process of
expanding our country? When he said it was a miracle that slavery was even abolished at all, I
couldnt have agreed more. America, as a whole, tends to look past negative parts of history and
concentrate on the positive parts, and this cognitive bias could have more negative impacts on
our countries future because; If we never, as a total population, truly know about and grasp all
parts of our history, we can expect similar outcomes in the future due to the fact we dont know
how address them.
All in all the way I perceive Economic growth is that it is fundamental to environment
protection as well as social unity. I believe that its imperative to have Sustainable development
which is a state of junction that consists of three components of equal weight and those 3
components are; social, economic, and ecological sustainability. When these 3 components are
all fulfilled at once there is conflict between ecology and economy. Economic growth is deemed

as not only necessary for settling social and environmental issues, but also the objectives are also
contemplated to be essentially compatible.
I am glad I signed up for this course and gained all the knowledge on the world around
us. The world is current and is always changing. This subject allowed me to gain knowledge on
the modern world and the behavior of businesses and government. Economics taught me about
making well informed decisions and taught me how to go about making these choices which is
vital in everyones lives. I strongly believe that it is very important that everyone knows what is
going on in the world. The study of economics has also helped me develop financial awareness
that will be extremely beneficial throughout my life.