De Bow's Review

De Bow's Review was established by John D. B. De Bow in 1846 as a journal of "agricultural, commercial, and industrial progress and resources", especially in the Southern United States. It survived until 1880 with only a brief suspension from 1846 to 1866, and it was either renamed to or absorbed by the Agricultural Review and Industrial Monthly in 1884.

A resident of New Orleans, De Bow advocated the expansion of southern agriculture and commerce so that the southern economy could become indepedent of the North. He warned constantly of the South's "colonial" relationship with the North, one in which the South got the worse end. Many consider this relationship to be one of the origins of the American Civil War.

The irony of De Bow's Review is that it itself evidenced the South's dependence upon the North. It was printed in New York, because New Orleans did not have the facilities; it was filled with Northern manfacturing advertisements; and it failed to challenge the circulation of Northern publications. Harper's Magazine of New York, for example, outsold it in the South by many times.

External Links

• Archived issues 1846-1869