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Within the ante-bellum South were two distinct economic regions 1) the Lower South, composed of states fronting on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, an area dominated by the slave-cotton system, and 2) the Upper South, represented by inland states like Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Missouri, where slaveless yeoman farmers were dominant and cotton was scarce. The position of Texas in this southern dichotomy has never been adequately investigated, a deficiency which prompted the present study. It was found that the state of Texas, by 1860, was divided, like the South as a whole, into two clearly defined areas, one of which was typically lower southern in its economy and society, the other of which bore the unmistakable imprint of the Upper South. The recognition of this fundamental division is a major aid to the understanding of the geography of nineteenth-century Texas.

Examines the changes in the economic structure and landscape in the Ozark Highland of Missouri. Conversion of the township into a national forest; Diversity and productivity of the economy with industrial growth; Negative consequences from rural population decline.