Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/785

 I Maimfactiires in the Miami Country 775 every community had its resident artisans who were, in a measure, supplying the local demand for manufactured goods. This effort to establish manufactures in the West in order to avoid the expense and delay of long-distance commerce under primi- tive means of transportation, and to furnish a home market for farm products, vas in a great measure successful. But it accom- plished more than this. Its influence, politically, was to put south- western Ohio firmly in line with Clay's American System, and that section did not long continue to show the apathy on the tariff ques- tion that seemed to exist in 1816. It also laid the foundation for the rapid industrial growth of Cincinnati that characterized the steamboat era, and thus did much to make her the chief city of the Ohio valley. By shaping this industrial growth to meet the demand of the southern planters, Cincinnati materially promoted that inter-dependence of North and South, which was the chief characteristic of Mississippi valley commerce during the steam- boat era. Fr.xk p. Goodwin.