Comparing the economic and social development of Virginia and Pennsylvania, John Majewski shows how these two states exemplified the remarkable regional divergence between North and South on the eve of the Civil War. New archival research reveals that a broad spectrum of residents in both states embraced canals, railroads, and other commercial projects to hold their communities together in America's mobile society. Virginia's commitment to slavery, however, undercut the state's aggressive efforts to keep pace with its northern neighborhs. While Philadelphia capitalists financed trunk railroads that opened new markets for Pennsylvania manufacturers, Virginia's railroad remained a collection of local lines serving market towns and slave plantations. The chains of slavery, Virginians learned to their dismay, also shackled the invisible hand of the market.

John Majewski is Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His articles have appeared in a number of scholarly journals, including Journal of Economic History, Journals of Interdisciplinary History, and Law and Society Review. His dissertation -- which provides the basis for A House Dividing -- won the Allen Nevins Prize from the Economic History Association.