EXPANSION, FRAGMENTATION, AND REUNIFICATION 139
in America. But a closer look shows not only patterns
of immigration but also the more fundamental
dynamics that contributed to the Civil War. With
traditional typography, which would have been
familiar to its German readers, the map identifies
cities and towns across the country and the distance
from each to ports along the Atlantic coast. Railroads
marked in red and canals in blue show modes of
transportation, and together they conveyed greater
regional networks. Canals, roads, and railroads
closely integrated the Northeast and the Midwest,
while transportation in the South was largely limited
to rivers and a few railroads. This signaled not just the
absence of industrialization in the South but also the
relative isolation of that region within the nation.
While the Southern economy was also growing,
it was not diversifying. Cotton production boomed
in the 1850s, but the region invested little in
infrastructure, industrialization, or transportation.
Moreover, a system built on slavery left few
opportunities for immigrant labor. In this sense,
the map gives us not only a German perspective
on migration but also a snapshot of the forces
that were differentiating North from South. As the
Northern states rushed headlong into urbanization
and industrialization, Southern states did neither.
Immigrants keenly understood the implications of
these decisions. Germans settled small pockets in
eastern Texas, but for the most part the South held
little appeal or opportunity. And, while Germans may
have gravitated more than the Irish toward rural
areas and the Midwest, both groups decisively
avoided the South.
German and Irish immigrants faced severe
and ugly discrimination in the 1850s. Large
concentrations of the Irish in urban areas sparked
sharp resistance from native-born whites who feared
competition for jobs as well as the influence of
Catholicism in a largely Protestant culture. For a few
years, anti-immigrant sentiment was as powerful a
political force as opposition to slavery. “Nativism”
burned hot in the 1850s, fueled by both ethnic
prejudice and very real economic anxieties. But,
despite virulent anti-foreign sentiment, immigrants
continued to choose Northern and Midwestern
destinations. In doing so, they further advanced the
industrial trends that were separating the North
from the South. In this regard immigration was both
a cause and a consequence of the growing sectional
divide within the United States.