A House Dividing: Economic Development in Pennsylvania and Virginia before the Civil War

Professor Majewski compares Virginia and Pennsylvania to explain how slavery undermined the development of the southern economy. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, residents in each state financed transportation improvements to raise land values and spur commercial growth. However, by the 1830s, Philadelphia capitalists began financing Pennsylvania’s railroad network, building integrated systems that reached the Midwest. Virginia’s railroads remained a collection of lines without western connections. The lack of a major city that could provide capital and traffic for large-scale railroads was the weakness of Virginia’s slave economy.