In the late 1800s, with the large investments financed by northern bankers and southern investors, as well as the technological expertise provided by northern and mid-western engineers, the iron and steel industry began to flourish in Birmingham, Alabama. In addition, the growth of Alabamas iron and steel industry was further facilitated by the influx of a large labour force at that time. During the last decades of the nineteenth century, Alabamas agricultural sector was mainly dominated by the economic models of sharecropping and tenant farming. This tenancy system encompassed over 60 percent of the farming population in Alabama; however, under its influence, landless farmers had to suffer from a legacy of illiteracy and poverty. Driven by poverty, many labourers, including unemployed and impoverished freedmen and white people, began to search for jobs in the iron-and-steel manufacturing industry, which was considered to be a more attractive alternative to sharecropping and tenant farming. Moreover, the introduction of convict-lease system also provided Alabamas iron and steel manufacturers with abundant cheap labour. The convict-lease system functioned in the state and counties of Alabama between 1875 and 1928, through which iron manufacturers paid to the local governments in exchange for prison labour. As regulated by the system, prisoners had to work for the companies that leased them from the governments. Until its abolition in 1928, the convict-lease system had provided iron manufacturers, owners of coal mines, and other enterprises in Alabama with a substantial number of prisoners as cheap labourers. At the end of the nineteenth century, due to the regions abundant geographical resources coupled with its low raw-material assembly costs, Alabama experienced a period of rocket development.