Even before the Revolutionary War explorers and settlers had crossed the Alleghany Mountains. In Washington's time pioneers, leaving Pittsburg, floated down the Ohio River in flatboats. Some of these settled Cincinnati. Others went farther down the river to Louisville, in Kentucky, and still others founded Wheeling and Marietta. In 1811 the first steamboat appeared on the Western rivers. The whole problem of living in the West rapidly changed. For the steamboat could go up stream as well as down stream. Communication between the new settlements, and New Orleans and Pittsburg, was now much safer and very much easier.

Cotton had been grown in the South for many years. It had been made on the plantations into a rough cloth. Very little had been sent away. The reason for this was that it took a very long time to separate the cotton fiber from the seed. One slave working for a whole day could hardly clean more than a pound of cotton. Still as time went on more cotton was grown. In 1784 a few bags of cotton were sent to England. The Englishmen promptly seized it because they did not believe that so much cotton could be grown in America. In 1791 nearly two hundred thousand pounds of cotton were exported from the South. Then came Whitney's great invention, which entirely changed the whole history of the country.