Data Literacy for Social Studies, Average Number of Acres to Each Farm per State, 1850 vs. 1860

Studying the economies of the North and South is central to investigating causes of the Civil War, and agriculture to the economies of both regions. However, there were also clear differences between farming in the North and South. We created these multi-set bar graphs using tabulated data from the 1860 U.S. Census, all contained in these spreadsheets, to show the average number of acres to each farm per state in 1850 and 1860. We divided the data according to states that would become Union, Border, and Confederate States during the Civil War. The graphs clearly illustrate that the Confederate States, on the whole, had larger farms, with the average size consistently exceeding 250 acres. California and Oregon were the only Union States that had similar averages. Confederate States had more acreage per farm, but fewer farms due to their economic reliance on large plantations growing tobacco, cotton or sugar with enslaved labor. The Union States had more farms, but they were smaller, more diversified, and did not rely on enslaved labor.