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I have a question about sentence " Eventually, cheap labor in the southern states lured manufacturing away from Hartford, leaving large empty factories as the only remnants of Hartford's industrial past."

what is the function of "leaving large empty factories as the only remnants of Hartford's industrial past"? Which noun in the previous sentence is modified by this phrase?

A very good question, to which the answer is "none"!

The participial phrase in question is known as a summative modifier, and its antecedent is the entirety of the previous clause (here the fact that cheap labor in the southern states lured manufacturing away...).