ABSTRACT
The withdrawal of Federal troops in 1877 left the South in a precarious position between the old and the new. With the cornerstone of the Confederacy and the Old South now forever abolished, some Southerners envisioned industry as leading to the rise of a powerful and modern New South. Southerners retain regional pride but fully enter the industrial age; they must preserve their agricultural past but turn it into an industrial advantage. Industry came to the South in ways that it had never done before, but the region remained dependent on northeastern finances and deeply rooted in its agricultural past. In 1890, Duke monopolized the industry by uniting his four biggest competitors under the American Tobacco Company. By 1900, he produced nearly all of the nation's cigarettes, and his American Tobacco Company amounted to a five-hundred-million-dollar trust.
