363. The Cities
The tremen - dous increase in manufacturing , in farming , and in trading brought about a great increase in foreign commerce . This in turn led to the building up of great cities in the North and the West . These were New York and Chicago ; and they grew rapidly because they formed the two ends of the line of communication between the East and the West by the Mohawk Valley ( p .
239). New York now contained over eight hundred thousand inhabitants . It had more people within its limits than lived in the whole state of South Carolina . The most rapid growth was seen in the case of Chicago . In 1840 there were only five thousand people in that city ; it now contained one hun - dred and nine thousand inhabitants . Cincinnati and St . Louis , each with one hundred and sixty thousand , were stil the largest cities of the West , and St . Louis was the largest city in any slave state . New Orleans , with nearly as many people as St . Louis , was the only large city in the South .
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