In the 1820's to 1860's there were many technological advances that helped revolutionize America. From Eli Whitney's inventions of the cotton gin and interchangeable parts, to Robert Fulton's sewing machine and Cyrus McCormick's mower-reaper. There was also an expansion in transportation. Such as the Cumberland Road, which stretched from Cumberland, Maryland to Wheeling, Virginia, Which was the first federally funded road. Or The development of railroads so we could reach or Western lands faster. The developments of these new transportation systems brought better ways of opening up the sale of agricultural goods from the South to other areas around the United States.

Newer and better forms of transportation developed in the period of 1820-1860 brought about economic change in the South, opening up the transportation of agricultural goods to other regions in America. One of the key goods, cotton, which was produced in the South, was a big economic booster when transportation to the North and West opened up. Inventions like the mower reaper and the cotton gin also helped greatly in the boom of cotton sales worldwide, but due to the South's unwillingness to allow much manufacturing and industry, the South only made their profits from exporting this cotton to the factories in the North. The large plantations began to rely on slave labor to continue their requests for numerous amounts of cotton, reducing the amounts of immigrants transported to Southern farms. In the North, the economy was thriving compared to the South's because of cities and manufacturing companies being able to ship their finished technological advanced products to the West and South.
The North also flourished greatly because of geography. The first of these advances was Canals. They created a faster way of transporting goods from the Midwest area (Chicago) to places like Buffalo, New York. They also allowed for settlement in the West to be possible and cut down drasticlly on the cost of grain, which became the cash-crop of the area.
Developments in transportation also brought about social change in the South in the period 1820-1860 by putting in stricter slave codes and emphasizing white supremacy. Due to the increase in transportation, white plantation owners increased their need for slave labor on the cotton