Clashing Over Commerce: A History of US Trade Policy (Markets and Governments in Economic History)

by Douglas A. Irwin

Several factors helped Midwestern farmers achieve greater access to foreign markets and thereby increase their export orientation. The dramatic decline in transportation costs due to internal improvements, particularly the rapid expansion of railroad networks in the 1850s, helped fuel exports from the Midwest. The repeal of the Corn Laws by Britain in 1846 and the Crimean War in the early 1850s also boosted foreign demand for American grains. As a result, the Midwest’s hopes of selling more to foreign markets were fulfilled as wheat and flour exports surged, increasing from 6 percent of total exports in the late 1830s to 11 percent in the late 1850s. Thus, the Midwest’s latent economic interest in exporting became operative during this period.34