Can anyone point me to some information on the antebellum cotton market (worldwide)?  Specifically, I'd like to know what fraction of the market was held by the American South. Did we provide 10% of the world's raw cotton?  50%?  80%? I probably could find a figure by rummaging in one of my books, but since this is the middle of the week I don't really have time... JFE

Can anyone point me to some information on the antebellum cotton market (worldwide)?  Specifically, I'd like to know what fraction of the market was held by the American South. Did we provide 10% of the world's raw cotton?  50%?  80%? I probably could find a figure by rummaging in one of my books, but since this is the middle of the week I don't really have time... I sympathize. You want to know something; it seems so obvious and you can't find it.  Hope this helps.  Maybe it will lead you to something authoritative. The United States produced about 80 percent of the world's cotton in the decades prior to the Civil War. http://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/8689.html

Can anyone point me to some information on the antebellum cotton market (worldwide)?  Specifically, I'd like to know what fraction of the market was held by the American South.  According to the entry under cotton in The Encyclopedia of the Confederacy, by Richard Current, - By 1860, cotton ruled the South, which annually exported two-thirds of the world supply of 'white gold. ... More than three- fourths of the cotton used in the textile industries of England and France came from the American South.  Between a fifth and a fourth of the English population depended in some way on the textile industry, and half of the export trade of England was in cotton textiles. Regards,  Dave Gorski

My thanks to both Dave and Hugh for their information. JFE

Can anyone point me to some information on the antebellum cotton market (worldwide)?  Specifically, I'd like to know what fraction of the market was held by the American South. Did we provide 10% of the world's raw cotton?  50%?  80%? I probably could find a figure by rummaging in one of my books, but since this is the middle of the week I don't really have time... JFE This topic seems to have been closed out. Nevertheless... Before the Civil War, American-grown cotton accounted for 85% of total United States, Great Britain and Continental European consumption of cotton. As a result of the war, world consumption of raw cotton from all sources shrank from 2.119 billion pounds (1859-61 average) to 974 million pounds (1862-64 average), a 54% drop. - Northern Naval Superiority and the Economics of the American Civil War by David Surdam. (If there are going to be 10 books in anyone's ACW library, this should be one of them.) Here is a statement of demand, in millions of pounds, being the combined consumption of raw cotton by Europe, Britain and the United States for the period 1856-60 (averaged p.a.). Total demand:  1,9352. Demand by source. US cotton: 1,642.6; Brazilian: 26.9; West Indian: 7.7; East Indian: 201.1; Egyptian:: 56.8. See Surdam for more, especially - Ch. 10 An Examination of the Antebellum and Wartime Markets for Raw Cotton and Cotton Textiles Ch. 11 King Cotton During the War Ch. 12 The Blockade's Effect Upon the Internal Movement of Raw Cotton Appendix 2 Estimating Potential Total Revenue from Raw Cotton Appendix 3 A Model of the World Demand for American-Grown Cotton Appendix 4 Estimating the Growth in Demand for British Cotton Textile Exports and Appendix 5 Estimating the Growth in Demand for American-Grown Raw Cotton The Appendices are math intensive. FYI Dimitri http://cwbn.blogspot.com