In the decades following the Civil War, the textile industry thrust the South into rapid industrialization. In North Carolina, railroads pushed through the Piedmont backcountry, cities grew along their routes, and farmers gained greater access to the outside world. The abolition of slavery transformed the plantation system, freed people struggled to make a living in the New South, and merchants who profited from these changes began investing in industry. Charlotte engineer D.A. Tompkins and others promoted textile manufacturing through the Cotton Mill Campaign, and industrialists built mills along railroads and rivers, along with villages, schools, and churches to attract workers. As higher taxes, cash-crop farming, falling prices, and debt strained small farm families, mill work offered a more stable alternative, especially for large families. Many transplanted farmers carried their traditions of cooperation, family, and hard work into densely populated mill towns, creating communities that blended rural and urban life as generations of North Carolinians moved from the Old South to the New.