Growing Southern Confidence A great sea of cotton is washing over the South. The cotton gin, paired with the powered weaving loom, now make it easy to produce clothing from comfortable cotton. Previously, almost all clothing had been made of wool, which is great in winter but can be irritating in summer. Textile mills, which first appeared up north, have begun creeping down into the Carolinas.

	Cotton by Rail By 1850, the South means only one thing. Cotton. Production has tripled in just 20 years, with plantations stretching all the way from North Carolina to Texas. As a consequence, the expanding cities and transportation networks of the North are not being matched in the South. Railroads are only needed to provide connections to the big shipping ports, where cotton now accounts for fully half of all American exports. This is creating a very lopsided economy, based almost solely on plantation slavery.
	St Louis and Chicago In the North, rail hubs are sprouting into cities all over the Midwest.  Where the rails go, cities are sure to follow. Chicago is the new rail link to America's farming heartland, in Illinois and Iowa, while St Louis is gaining importance as the gateway to the far West. There will soon be two bridges across the Mississippi, allowing railroads to spread ever further west. The longer of the two, at St Louis, will be the first made from steel, a newly-available material that will soon fuel an even greater surge in industrial output.