VISUAL ACTIVITY Steamboats and Cotton in New Orleans, ca. 1858 Steamboats line up to load bales of cotton. A few years earlier, a visitor had expressed awe: “It must be seen to be believed; and even then, it will require an active mind to comprehend acres of cotton bales standing upon the levee.” ©CORBIS. READING THE IMAGE: Who is absent from this photograph? Whose job would it have been to load the cotton bales on the steamboats? CONNECTIONS: Why were the South’s most significant cities ports?