The availability of cheap textiles from New England mills and the Tariff Act of 1816, which taxed imported cotton goods, enabled merchants in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore to seize the profitable "Southern Trade" in slave clothing from British manufacturers. By 1860, two thirds of the ready-to-wear garments made in New York went south.

Hauling the Whole Weeks Picking by William Henry Brown, 1842

Courtesy Historic New Orleans Collection, Museum and Research Center