Cotton City: Urban Development in Antebellum Mobile. By Harriet E. Amos. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1985, paperback edition, 2001. Pp. xviii, 311. $24.95.

Extract

The release of the first paperback edition of Cotton City 16 years after its initial publication provides an opportunity to reflect on Harriet Amos's approach to explaining antebellum Mobile's growth. At least eight reviews, including those in major historical journals, appeared following publication; thus, this review will not repeat their general coverage. In brief, Amos argued Mobile's dependence on the cotton trade tied it to external centers of capital in New York, London, and Liverpool; and northern, and to a lesser extent English, business people who moved to Mobile to participate directly or indirectly in the cotton trade became city leaders. This link to the cotton trade pervaded much of urban life Amos details in discussing immigration, labor, city government, social services, railroad development, and the secession crisis.