I know that my readers are very interested in ifascinating data. Unlike the Left that has ideas and occasionally searches through data for support, I and my colleagues and readers enjoy studying reliable data. We use it to help us form our ideas of how the world works.
We do not start out with an ideological image of how the world could be made more perfect. We do not assume that human societies are easily malleable into some ideal model. Or at least we do not believe human societies can be molded without serious negative consequences as we blatantly see in the 20th Century worlds of Russia, Germany, China, Cuba and many other countries. Invariably, where society was radically changed the consequences were horrible. Such ideal visions of society are not for us.
Therefore with that rather untoward introduction I want to make sure my readers know about this website. It is an historical atlas of the U.S. from its beginning. There are nearly 700 maps covering a wide range of subjects from voting to transportation to geography to trade and commerce.
Here it is online. A magnificent collection worthy of everybody's efforts. I hope many more people take this data and these maps and animate them as has been done in an introduction you can see on the first page.
I only looked at the import-export maps from the 19th century but the material is clear. First it shows that the South may have been rich at the beginning of the Civil War but that it was the North that gained economic strength during the war and became the major exporter of the United States after the war. Much of it was in manufacturing. You can also see that Europe was the primary market for export and import. Asia was surprisingly important too.
Enjoy yourself. I did.