Data Literacy for Social Studies, Tons of Iron Ore Mined per State, 1860

Iron ore is the raw material for iron and steel, which is crucial for manufacturing pistols, rifles, bayonets, cannons, warships, locomotives, and countless other items. This graph uses tabulated data from the 1860 U.S. Census to depict the tons of iron ore mined per state in 1860, just before the Civil War. The graph highlights Pennsylvania as being the leading producer of iron ore with New Jersey the next highest. Of the nine states recorded as mining iron ore in the 1860 Census report, none of them were Confederate states. During the war, the Confederacy depended on relatively small iron ore deposits in Southern states like Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina, which are later listed as producers of iron ore in the 1870 Census (see pg. 768).