The Differences Slavery Made: A Close Analysis of Two American Communities
Return to Comparison Statements: Commerce

The Chambersburg newspapers sold a greater range of products than their counterparts in Staunton, and businesses there faced greater competition as well.

The density of business establishments in Franklin contributed to its newspapers' adverstising base, and, when compared with Augusta, Franklin relied more on its local establishments for a diverse range of manufactured products. Tin, iron, appliances, shoes, leather goods, pharmaceuticals, and farming machinery were all sold in the Chambersburg papers regularly, while in Staunton of these only pharmaceuticals were regularly advertised. The character of these advertisements called attention to fashion, style, and culture in cities, including London and European cities. Businesses and individuals took out a large number of advertisements in Chambersburg and Staunton newspapers. There were approximately 200 advertisements in a typical issue of the Southern paper and over 300 in a typical issue of the Northern paper. A typical issue's advertisements in Franklin contained 80 percent ads from Franklin establishments, 10 percent from Philadelphia, 3 percent from New York, and 2 percent from Baltimore. In Augusta, the pattern was somewhat similar: 70 percent from Augusta businesses, 14 percent from Richmond, 6 percent from Baltimore, and one or two ads from New York. Augusta's ads, then, drew more heavily from other regional cities and possibly indicate greater dependence on outside producers. When the ads are broken down by type of business, the difference between Augusta and Franklin becomes more significant. In the ironware business, for example, half (5 out of 10) of an Augusta issue's ads were from businesses in Richmond, while only 1 out of 25 ironware ads in Franklin's issues was from out of the county. For appliances the disparity between Augusta and Franklin is similar to the ironware industry, while in dry goods and professional ads in both places the local businesses predominated.

Chambersburg newspapers advertised significantly more lawyers, a profession attendant to the growing diversity and intensity of commercial activity. Both Chambersburg and Staunton served as the county seat with the courthouse and an attendant "lawyers' row" of townhouses, but in Chambersburg lawyers were engaged in a broader, more commercial, practice than their counterparts in Staunton.

Franklin's Democratic paper regularly and enthusiastically advertised Virginia land for sale, while Staunton papers never advertised lands outside of Virginia. Chambersburg agents, Eyster and Bonebrake, attorneys at law, marketed Virginia land as "a good chance to get a bargain and make money." These ads often offered farms of 250 or more acres, which "can be divided into three farms if desired." Brokers also ran ads for Pennsylvania lands for sale, carefully listing the soil quality and current cultivation of crops. Franklin's Democratic paper aggressively promoted the South as a land of economic opportunity for the white men of the North, featuring stories of local men who had done well in the South.

Supporting Evidence

Newspaper Article Reprints by Region (table)

Newspaper Classified Ads by Business Type (table)

Politics, Augusta County, 1860 Presidential Election Voting by Precinct (table)

Related Historiography

Fred Bateman and Thomas Weiss, A Deplorable Scarcity: The Failure of Industrialization in the Slave Economy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1981).
John D. Majewski, A House Dividing: Economic Development in Pennsylvania and Virginia Before the Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
Kenneth W. Noe, Southwest Virginia's Railroad: Modernization and the Sectional Crisis (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994).
Edward Pessen, "How Different from Each Other Were the Antebellum North and South," American Historical Review 85 (1980): 1119-1149.
Harry L. Watson, Jacksonian Politics and Community Conflict: The Emergence of the Second American Party System in Cumberland County, North Carolina (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981).


Citation: Key = TAF14
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