effects of the 1893 crash

Hudson-Baltimore-Pritchett-Starkes Houses

The effects of the 1893 crash were severe and lingering. The depression was complicated by the tariff of 1894 which lowered the amount of protection. Changes in machinery and in types of product seemed obligatory in the face of new foreign competition. Samuel N. D. North, secretary of the National Association of Wool Manufacturers, argued that:

Many manufacturers will find themselves compelled to change altogether the character of their products... At present it seems as though the hardest struggle was before the mills which have been engaged in making the medium cassimeres and similar goods for the masses. These mills have had the American manufacture to themselves... That great advantage will no longer be theirs.

--Harry Poindexter