Editing Mobile, Alabama (section)

===19th century===
[[File:Southern Hotel Water Street.jpg|thumb|A [[Historic American Buildings Survey|HABS]] photo of the Southern Hotel on Water Street in 1934. It was completed in 1837 and demolished soon after this photograph was taken.]]
By the time Mobile was included in the [[Mississippi Territory]] in 1813, the population had dwindled to roughly 300 people.<ref name="antebellum1">{{cite book |last=Thomason |first=Michael |title=Mobile: the new history of Alabama's first city |page=65 |publisher=Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press |year=2001 |isbn=0-8173-1065-7}}</ref> The city was included in the [[Alabama Territory]] in 1817, after [[Mississippi]] gained statehood. Alabama was granted statehood in 1819; Mobile's population had increased to 809 by that time.<ref name="antebellum1"/>

Mobile was well situated for trade, as its location tied it to a river system that served as the principal navigational access for most of Alabama and a large part of Mississippi. River transportation was aided by the introduction of [[steamboat]]s in the early decades of the 19th century.<ref>
{{cite book|title=The Transportation Revolution, 1815–1860 |last=Taylor|first= George Rogers|year=1969 |isbn= 978-0873321013}}</ref> By 1822, the city's population had risen to 2,800.<ref name="antebellum1"/>

The [[Industrial Revolution]] in Great Britain created shortages of cotton, driving up prices on world markets.<ref>{{cite book|title= Empire of Cotton: A Global History|last=Beckert |first= Sven|year= 2014|publisher =Vintage Books Division Penguin Random House |location=US|isbn= 978-0-375-71396-5}}</ref>  Much land well suited to growing cotton lies in the vicinity of the [[Mobile River]], and its main tributaries the [[Tombigbee River|Tombigbee]] and [[Alabama River]]s. A [[plantation economy]] using slave labor developed in the region and as a consequence Mobile's population quickly grew. It came to be settled by attorneys, [[cotton factor]]s, doctors, merchants and other professionals seeking to capitalize on trade with the upriver areas.<ref name="antebellum1"/>

[[File:Convent Visitation 01.jpg|thumb|upright=0.75|[[Convent and Academy of the Visitation]], completed in 1855]]
From the 1830s onward, Mobile expanded into a city of commerce with a primary focus on the cotton and slave trades. Many slaves were transported by ship in the [[coastwise slave trade]] from the Upper South. There were many businesses in the city related to the slave trade – people to make clothes, food, and supplies for the slave traders and their wards. The city's booming businesses attracted merchants from the North; by 1850 10% of its population was from [[New York City]], which was deeply involved in the cotton industry.<ref>[http://mshistorynow.mdah.state.ms.us/articles/161/cotton-in-a-global-economy-mississippi-1800-1860 Eugene R. Dattel, "Cotton in a Global Economy: Mississippi (1800–1860)"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190615105736/http://mshistorynow.mdah.state.ms.us/articles/161/cotton-in-a-global-economy-mississippi-1800-1860 |date=June 15, 2019}}, October 2006, Mississippi History Now, online publication of the Mississippi Historical Society</ref> Mobile was the slave-trading center of the state until the 1850s, when it was surpassed by [[Montgomery, Alabama|Montgomery]].<ref name="antebellum3">{{cite book |last=Thomason |first=Michael |title=Mobile: The New History of Alabama's first city |pages=79–80 |location=Tuscaloosa, Alabama |publisher=University of Alabama Press |year=2001 |isbn=0-8173-1065-7}}</ref>

The prosperity stimulated a building boom that was underway by the mid-1830s, with the building of some of the most elaborate structures the city had seen up to that point. This was cut short in part by the [[Panic of 1837]] and [[yellow fever]] epidemics.<ref name="antebellum2">{{cite book |last=Thomason |first=Michael |title=Mobile: the new history of Alabama's first city |pages=69–71 |location=Tuscaloosa, Alabama |publisher=University of Alabama Press |year=2001 |isbn=0-8173-1065-7}}</ref> The waterfront was developed with wharves, terminal facilities, and fireproof brick warehouses.<ref name="antebellum1"/> The exports of cotton grew in proportion to the amounts being produced in the [[Black Belt (region of Alabama)|Black Belt]]; by 1840 Mobile was second only to [[New Orleans]] in cotton exports in the nation.<ref name="antebellum1"/>

With the economy so focused on one crop, Mobile's fortunes were always tied to those of cotton, and the city weathered many financial crises.<ref name="antebellum1"/> Mobile slaveholders owned relatively few slaves compared to planters in the upland [[Plantations in the American South|plantation]] areas, but many households had domestic slaves, and many other slaves worked on the waterfront and on riverboats. The last slaves to enter the United States from the African trade were brought to Mobile on the slave ship [[Clotilda (slave ship)|''Clotilda'']]. Among them was [[Cudjoe Lewis]], who in the 1920s became the last survivor of the slave trade.<ref>"[https://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2714041?uid=3738232&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21103223509871 Cudjo's Own Story of the Last African Slaver]", ''Journal of Negro History'' 12 (1927), 648 [[Jstor]]</ref>

[[File:Steamer loading cotton in Mobile.jpg|thumb|[[Steamboat]]s bound for inland Alabama and Mississippi being loaded at Mobile's dockyards]]
By 1853, fifty Jewish families lived in Mobile, including [[Philip Phillips (lawyer)|Philip Phillips]], an attorney from [[Charleston, South Carolina]], who was elected to the Alabama State Legislature and then to the United States Congress. Many early Jewish families were descendants of Sephardic Jews who had been among the earliest colonial settlers in Charleston and Savannah.<ref>Zietz, Robert (1994). ''The Gates of Heaven: Congregation Sha'arai Shomayim, The First 150 Years'', Mobile, Alabama, 1844–1994. Mobile, Alabama: Congregation Sha'arai Shomayim. pp. 7–39</ref>

By 1860 Mobile's population within the city limits had reached 29,258 people; it was the 27th-largest city in the United States and 4th-largest in what would soon be the [[Confederate States of America]].<ref name="1860cen">{{cite web|title=Population of the 100 Largest Urban Places: 1860 |work=United States Bureau of the Census |url=https://www.census.gov/population/documentation/twps0027/tab09.txt |access-date=November 2, 2007 |archive-url=http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20011126145022/http://www.census.gov/population/documentation/twps0027/tab09.txt |archive-date=November 26, 2001 |url-status=dead}}</ref> The free population in the whole of Mobile County, including the city, consisted of 29,754 citizens, of which 1,195 were [[Person of color|free people of color]].<ref name="pop1860">{{cite web|title=Census Data for the Year 1860 |work=Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research |url=http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/censusbin/census/cen.pl?year=860 |access-date=November 13, 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070506121628/http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/censusbin/census/cen.pl?year=860 |archive-date=May 6, 2007}}</ref> Additionally, 1,785 slave owners in the county held 11,376 people in bondage, about one-quarter of the total county population of 41,130 people.<ref name="pop1860"/>

During the [[American Civil War]], Mobile was a Confederate city. The ''[[H. L. Hunley (submarine)|H. L. Hunley]]'', the first [[submarine]] to sink an enemy ship, was built in Mobile.<ref name="Hunley">{{cite web|title=H. L. Hunley |work=Naval Historical Center |url=http://www.history.navy.mil/branches/org12-3.htm |access-date=October 20, 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071014220553/http://www.history.navy.mil/branches/org12-3.htm |archive-date=October 14, 2007}}</ref> One of the most famous [[naval engagement]]s of the [[American Civil War|war]] was the [[Battle of Mobile Bay]], resulting in the [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]] taking control of [[Mobile Bay]] on August 5, 1864.<ref name="newhist1">Thomason, Michael. ''Mobile: the new history of Alabama's first city'', page 113. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2001. {{ISBN|0-8173-1065-7}}</ref> On April 12, 1865, three days after [[Robert E. Lee]]'s surrender at [[Battle of Appomattox Courthouse|Appomattox Courthouse]], the city surrendered to the [[Union army]] to avoid destruction after Union victories at nearby [[Battle of Spanish Fort|Spanish Fort]] and [[Battle of Fort Blakeley|Fort Blakeley]].<ref name="newhist1"/>

[[File:Mobile Cotton Exchange.jpg|thumb|[[Mobile Cotton Exchange]] and Chamber of Commerce building, completed in 1886]]
On May 25, 1865, the city suffered great loss when some three hundred people died as a result of an [[Mobile magazine explosion|explosion]] at a [[Federal government of the United States|federal]] [[ammunition depot]] on Beauregard Street. The explosion left a {{convert|30|ft|m|0|adj=on}} deep hole at the depot's location, and sank ships docked on the Mobile River; the resulting fires destroyed the northern portion of the city.<ref>Delaney, Caldwell. ''The Story of Mobile'', pp. 144–146. Mobile, Alabama: Gill Press, 1953. {{ISBN|0-940882-14-0}}</ref>

Federal [[Reconstruction era of the United States|Reconstruction]] in Mobile began after the Civil War and effectively ended in 1874 when the local [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrats]] gained control of the city government.<ref name="reconstruction1">Thomason, Michael. ''Mobile: the new history of Alabama's first city'', page 153. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2001. {{ISBN|0-8173-1065-7}}</ref> The last quarter of the 19th century was a time of economic depression and municipal insolvency for Mobile. One example can be provided by the value of Mobile's exports during this period of depression. The value of exports leaving the city fell from $9 million in 1878 to $3&nbsp;million in 1882.<ref name="exports1878">Thomason, Michael. ''Mobile: the new history of Alabama's first city'', p. 145. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2001. {{ISBN|0-8173-1065-7}}</ref>