The cotton factor was usually located in an urban center of commerce, such as
Charleston,
Mobile,
New Orleans, or
Savannah (
harbor cities; there was not yet a network of
railroads), where they could most efficiently tend to business matters for their rural clients. Prior to the
American Civil War, the states of
Alabama,
Georgia,
Louisiana, and
Mississippi were producing more than half of the world's cotton, but
Arkansas,
Tennessee, and
Texas produced large amounts also. At the same time, the
port of New Orleans exported the most cotton, followed by the port of Mobile. Cotton factors also frequently purchased goods for their clients, and even handled shipment of those goods to the clients, among other services. As one source notes, The factor was a versatile man of business in an agrarian society who performed many different services for the planter in addition to selling his crops. He purchased or sold
slaves for his client, arranged for the hiring of slaves or the placing of the planter's children in distant schools, gave advice concerning the condition of the market or the advisability of selling or withholding his crop, and bought for his client a large proportion of the
plantation supplies. Not all factors in the antebellum and Reconstruction era South were cotton factors; some were factors of other
commodities. In 1858, for example, New Orleans boasted 63
sugar and
molasses factors.
Louisiana produced large amounts of
sugar cane, but it probably had an even greater number of cotton factors. ==References==