Which region’s economy remained primarily agricultural at the end of the Civil War?

• A. North
• B. South
• C. West
• D. Northeast

Answer: (B)

This question looks at how regional economies differed after the Civil War. The South stayed focused on farming, while the North and Northeast moved toward industry and cities, and the West expanded both farming and resource extraction. The South’s economy had been built on plantation agriculture and slavery, with cotton as a key crop. After emancipation, the labor system shifted to sharecropping and tenant farming, and the region faced the destruction of infrastructure and capital from the war. Those conditions meant industrial growth was slow, so farming remained the dominant economic activity. Therefore, the region whose economy remained primarily agricultural at the end of the Civil War is the South.