80 www.geographical.co.uk JULY 2007
GEOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE

TRADE ROOTS

Since before the late 15th century, when the age of discovery began in earnest, exploration and commerce have been closely connected. For while the motivation behind each individual journey may have ranged from philanthropic curiosity to the pursuit of adventure, the desire to seek out and control new trade routes was always a priority. It was a fi xation that brought about the discovery of America, triggered Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe and was the primary reason for Marco Polo’s travels in Asia. The following selection of images, drawn from the archives of the Royal Geographical Society, off er a glimpse of the people and places that fed world trade in everything from diamonds to rubber during the mid-1900s

All im ages: © Royal Geographical Society

Bales of cotton, stacked on the deck of a cotton barge, Alabama, USA, 1937. During the early 1900s, the Alabama River was the main route for transporting cotton to Mobile Bay for export. Mobile is still the state’s only major seaport and lies in the Gulf portion of the Intracoastal Waterway, which extends along the coast from western Florida to the Mexican border. Cotton was the major cash crop in Alabama throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, and by the mid-1900s, cotton farming was so prevalent that other staple crops, such as corn, had to be imported from outside the state. The lack of rotation had also depleted much of Alabama’s fertile soil – a wide band of rich, black soil often referred to as the Black Belt, that passes through the region. Alabama is still often referred to as the Cotton State, although it’s currently ranked 11th in terms of national cotton production, growing 3.2 per cent of the USA’s total cotton crop

JULY 2007 www.geographical.co.uk 81