Gilded Age Agriculture Flashcards
8 problems facing farmers and agriculture
Overproduction
Tenant farming, share cropping and lien system
Different freight plans
Loss of status and power
Tax and bank policies
Tariff policies and rates
Monetary policy
Laissez fairs
How was overproduction a problem for farmers
Opening of Great Plains to the Plough, the use of machinery, new farming techniques, and the spreading of railroads (reducing transport costs) leg to overproduction
1873-74 cotton production doubled but price fell 15 cents to less than 6 cents a pound
Not making enough due to crop values, farms grew more, snaking situation worse
Inadequate income drove farmers into more debt and so more issues
How was tenant farming, sharecropping and the lien system a problem for farmers
Farmers lost farms- went down to tenant farming, sharecropping/lien system
Tenant farmers rented the right to farm someone else’s land for cash payment
Landless farmers would farm someone else’s land and then would give up a predetermined share of whatever they grew as rented payment (at end of growing season)- 1/3 any cotton and 1/4 of grain
Crop lien system emerged- sharecropper could obtain food, clothes etc on credit from land order/credit merchant. In return they gave up whatever shade of crop in field was suffieicieny to meet credit and interest
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How was different freight plans a problem for farmers
Urban industrial north-east recipient of low railroad rates as overbuild area of country
Roads- losing money due to competition
Owners tried to make it UO in less competitive areas in south farming areas
Higher transport cost
How was loss of status and power a problem for farmers
Farmers had no political power- no slaves and burnt soil
They favoured industries
Refused to take stance on currency policy, tariff policy and hard money
Political competition was close- can’t anger
How was tax and bank policies a problem for farmers
Gov gave tax breaks to industries not farmers
Banks reluctant to give farmers loans and when they did- high rates
Most banks in urban areas
How was tariff policies and interest rates a problem for farmers
Tariff policy-
farmers forced to buy all manufactured goods on a market protected by tariff legislation at high prices -
While selling what they produced on largely unprotected and competitive market at depressed prices
Farmers said tariffs=rip off
Small farmers had insects and floods and needed expensive fertiliser (large farms could afford mechanisation and low prices and deflated currency and interest rates 10% a year)
Monopoly prices changed for farm machinery and fertiliser
Industrial North- transportation improvement-farmers had competition- Egypt and Australia
How was the monetary policy a problem for farmers
Monetary policy- contracted the amount of money in circulation, making money scarcer -
Thus driving Ik it’s purchasing power and worth over time
This was done by limiting currency to gold rather than gold and silver or gold, silver and paperbacks or greenbacks
This was hard on farmers- had to repay principal interest on debt + w $ that were harder to come by and that had greater purchasing power than those originally borrowed- debt
Farmers feels it was insane to limit currency to gold while western mines- turning out tons of equally acceptable money for currency
Hard money=deflation
Agriculture during WW1
Golden age was enhanced by 1914 European war- removed competition - farmers could buy more land as they knew they’d get good prices for their crops
THIS WAS SHORT LIVED
At the beginning of the crisis, there was a high mark of supply, high prices and available credit for both producers
Farm land prices rose 40% from 1915-20
farm crisis began in the 1920s commonly to be a result of the high production for military needs- ww1
Crop of lazo cost more to produce then any other year
Price break 1920- squeezed farmers between both decreasing agricultural prices and steady industrial prices
Agricultural economy
Volatile
Wild swings
How was the south affected by agriculture
Inc AA and whites
Big agriculture (tobacco sugar and cotton) was the basis of the US economy
The promises to empower black farmers in a new age of land and freedom were not fulfilled - sharecropping
Small white farmers only a little better off
Vulnerability of small farmers- risk of farm settlements in states such as Nebraska, Oklahoma- as people changed their views of the ‘Great Plains as the Great American desert’
Loss of status
How was the West affected by agriculture
Trans-Mississippi West - western farmers in debt -
Banks over estimates their ability to pay back- couldn’t
Trans Mississippi west- late 1880s and 90s there was a huge expansion of farm settlements in states such as Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Colorado, as people changed their views of the treat plains as The Great American Desert
Thousands of new farms and homestead covered these territories, many of them established on marginal land
Alaska Yukon Gold Rush - stimulated rapid development in Alaska itself and in the Pacific coast ports of Seattle and SAN Fransisco
The Gold Rush was important economically for almost doubling the size of US gold reserves at a time when the debate of gold standard was at its peak and the money supply depended upon the size of gold reserves (1900 when McKinley brought in the Gold Standard Act
Explain Gold bugs and silver rights
Goldbugs- tight/hard money as money (w silver gold and greenbacks)= inflation so industrial goods were more expensive - less demand internationally and nationally -
Industrialists lose money
—Gov commits to gold standard act 1900
Silver rights- soft money wants gov to purchase gold and mostly silver to produce greenbacks and coinage-will inflate- crop prices go up- people need to eat- money will be made
What 3 things showed the response of farmers
The Grange
The farmers alliance
Populists
Explain what the grange is
Formed in 1870 to help farmers help themselves
The buying and seeking coops founded by Grange attempted to put more money into farmers pockets my eliminating middlemen from these transactions (economic)
