The southern way, that of slave - worked cotton platations and a romantic yesterday.

Hello, Silencio- and welcome to English Forums.

Please put the text being questioned inside the message box together with your question.

A century ago there were two ways of life in the United States of America. The northern way was that of growing cities and an industrial tomorrow; the southern way, that of slave - worked cotton plantations and a romantic yesterday.

I don't understand the way we use punctuation, such as here the comma and "-".

Also I don't understand the usage of "work" here.

Thank you

Yes, like that, thank you.

A century ago there were two ways of life in the United States of America. The northern way was that of growing cities and an industrial tomorrow; the southern way, that of slave - worked cotton plantations and a romantic yesterday.

I don't understand the way we use punctuation, such as here the comma and "-".-- The comma sets off a nonr

in this text, the 2 halves are separated by the end of the line of text?

Yes, at least in the way it is formatted in your post.

I'm sorry, I don't understand.
What do you mean by "2 halves are seperated by the end of the line of text"?

Never mind. In the original formatting (viewed from my computer), 'slave-' and 'worked' were on different lines of text. Now the formatting has changed, for some software reason, and they are on the same line now.