Comparing and Contrasting
After each statement of fact, write the letter of the fact from the Fact Bank provided that makes a
comparison or a contrast.
6 Points
1. Fact: In 1790 the South seemed to be an underdeveloped agricultural region with little prospect
for future growth.
Comparison or Contrast: ____________________
2. Fact: In the colonial period, tobacco was the most profitable crop in Virginia; Georgia and
South Carolina produced rice and indigo.
Comparison or Contrast: _____________________
3. Fact: In the late 1700s, a worker painstakingly separated the plant’s sticky seeds from the cotton
fibers by hand, processing about one pound of cotton a day.
Comparison or Contrast: _______________________
4. Fact: By 1860 the Upper South still produced tobacco, hemp, wheat, and vegetables.
Comparison or Contrast: _______________________
5. Fact: In the industrial North, large numbers of people moved to the cities to be near factories
and work.
Comparison or Contrast: __________________________
6. Fact: In the 1840s and 1850s, the North experienced a railroad boom that connected cities
from the Northeast to the Midwest.
Comparison or Contrast: __________________________
Fact Bank
A. In the 1800s, with the use of a cotton gin, a worker could clean 50 pounds of cotton a day.
B. The South remained overwhelmingly rural with only a small percentage of the
nation’s industry.
C. In the mid-1800s, cotton became the South’s leading cash crop.
D. Southern rail lines were short, local, and did not connect all parts of the region in a network.
E. At the same time, the Deep South was committed to cotton, and in some areas, rice and
sugarcane.
F. By 1850 the stagnant economy of the South had been transformed into a prosperous, Add fact bank to the blank line to.