Old Dominion, Industrial Commonwealth: Coal, Politics, and Economy in Antebellum America (review)

Abstract

Old Dominion, Industrial Commonwealth: Coal, and Economy in Antebellum America. By Scan Patrick Adams. (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. Pp. xiv, 305. Cloth, $45.00.)Old Dominion, Industrial Commonwealth is a detailed comparative study of impact that state-level policies had upon coal production in two of America's coal-richest regions, Virginia and Pennsylvania, from 179Os through early 187Os. Some early experts thought that Virginia, where colliers had already begun to tap ample Richmond bituminous basin, was best situated to become young nation's leading coalproducing state. But by 1860 Pennsylvanians were raising seventy-eight percent of all U.S. coal, more than thirty times Virginia's production. No observers of early nineteenth century, Adams argues, would have predicted this (3).Adams employs political to explain why Pennsylvania's coal producers so thoroughly outdistanced Virginia's. He holds that no geological, hydrographical, or accidental geographical differences between states mattered nearly as much as divergent policy regimes that two legislatures created. Politics, rather than nature, shaped evolution of America's mineral fuel economy (6). That politics can effectively guide economic development is book's central thesis, and Adams argues that it applies to local as well as governments.Adams compares two states' legislative histories with regard to at least four types of actions that each might plausibly have supported in order to increase their coal trade. These included promoting consumption of coal that in-state collieries produced, developing internal improvements necessary to bring stuff efficiently to market, financing geological surveys and other studies to enhance discovery and exploitation of coal deposits, and easing corporate chartering process to maximize flow of capital toward coal production.Virginia's antebellum legislature, Adams argues, was less responsive than Pennsylvania's to demands of colliers. From 178Os through Civil War, despite constitutional reforms, eastern Virginians maintained a somewhat greater per-white-man say in their legislature than did western Virginians, as state's constitution assigned disproportionate power to slave owners and other real estate holders. Thus legislature favored farmers in general, and slave holders in particular, while other interests took a back seat; bituminous-rich western Virginia suffered.Virginia's east-west divide, pitting slave-based agriculture against mining, manufacturing, and other interests, is a recurrent theme in Adams's book. Virginia's government, like Pennsylvania's, supported internal improvements, but resulting network served agriculture better than coal. Virginia, like Pennsylvania, financed a geological survey that began in mid-183Os-Virginia's head geologist, William Barton Rogers, was brother of Pennsylvania's survey leader, Henry Darwin Rogers-but Virginia's survey responded primarily to the agrarian search for rich deposits of fertilizing minerals, [and so] virtually ignored mining interest of state (140). Virginia's legislature did little to further scientific or technological studies that might have assisted state's colliers. After 1851, it met only biennially for brief ninety-day sessions, which slowed corporate chartering process. Smaller firms could apply to state's circuit courts for general incorporation, but big companies with geographically extensive plans made minimal use of this option. …