If you look at the actual data, and Thomas Sowell has spoken about this, slavery in the South stunted growth and innovation because Southern plantation owners relied too much on manpower and did not put much effort into mechanization or improvements.

The North was actually more wealthy and prosperous because they innovated without relying on slave labor.

Slavery was predominantly in the south and used for agriculture. It absolutely had nothing to do with the invention of newer building materials and the construction of cities across the continent. Also, slavery had nothing to do with the multitudes of inventions that set America apart from the world and allowed it to become the absolute powerhouse that it became. This is the reason the European elites hate America and want to kill it. They simply cannot compete with the American system when it is at its best. This is why all the regulation and the offshoring happens, anything to prevent America from being America.

I don't deny that early on slavery gave the south and some northern states an advantage in agriculture but to think that it is a primary reason or even a large contribution is just not true. The industrial revolution might have been beginning at the end of slavery and maybe there was a little crossover but slavery was already over by the time things really got underway.