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
—
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)
Why did the grange fail
The middlemen fought back
•refusing to let farmers share crop land they owned
•denying the farmers credit ah meriantile stores they ran
•refused to buy/process farmers crops
The cooperative stores (set up by grange) also failed as UNDERFINANCED-
couldn’t afford Goods for sale on credit bases- forced farmers in hands or credit merchants - who charged higher prices but made credit available under Crop lien system
The selling cooperatives also failed- farmers were unable due to poverty to wait for everyone’s crop to be collected, processed and transported and sped at higher prices—
So they were forced to sell to a local buyer at whatever price they could get
Explain the granger movement
(Industrial workers farmers and miners)
1st-
Rural protest-
Patrons of husbandry- founded 1867 and had 1.5 mill members 1875
These farmers formed buying and selling cooperatives and demanded state regulations of railroad rates and grain elevator fees
Another wave of protest grew out of NATIONAL FARMERS ALLIANCE + INDUSTRIAL UNION (the southern farmer alliance) formed in Texas 1875 and the North western Farmers alliance- founded in Chicago 1880
By the late 1880s, the cooperative business enterprises set up by the Farmers alliance had begun to fail - due to inadequate capitalisation and mismanagement
Explain the farmers alliance
Formed due to failure of grange
Political org/ gained support in 1880s and demanded gov response to plight or farmer
Explain farmers alliance- subtreasury program
Famers alliance called federal gov to institute ‘subtreasury program’
to help farmers avoid being forced to sell their own non perishable crops on a glutted market when they could command the least for their labours
Farmers wanted to wait till glut (end of growing season and temporary depressed prices to lowest point) disappeared and gave way to when prices would rise
But this would req financial subsidisation from the federal gov
- when farmers placed their crop on deposit in
Federal storage facilities- The Treasury Department would loam the farmer up to 80% of crop current value and hold on to the crop as collateral
When scarcity drove prices up farmers would sell and repay gov w nominal rate of intrest - this was rejected by congress and the political parties
Farmers alliance wanted programs and laws to give justice to farmers
What were these and what was the result
Abolition of national banks
Free coinage or silver for inflation
Enactment of a progressive income tax to shift the tax burden to rich industrialists
Lowering of tariffs on manufactured goods
Direct election of US senators
Gov regulations of railroads and
Telegraph industries
• mid and late 1880s - farmers alliance pressured republican and Democrat and congress to do this
THEY DID OPP - farmers viewed the laws they passed as shams eg Sherman Silver purchase act
SO MADE OWN POLITICAL PARTY
Explain populists
1890- farmers alliance entered politics
1892- formed populists/people’s party
Populists financed commodity credit system that would have allowed farmers to store their
crop in a federal warehouse to await favourable market prices and meanwhile borrow up to 80% of current market price
Also sought a graduated income tax, public ownership of utilities, the voter initiative and referendum, the Silver work day, immigration restrictions, and gov control of currency
Presidential election - 1892- pop candidate Weaver 8.5% of pop votes and 22 electoral votes
Populists also elected 10 representatives, 5 senators and 4 governors and 345 legislators
When was the agriculture golden ages
1880s - high rainfall
1900-1917
When was the agricultural crisis
1890
Explain the agricultural crisis 1890
The years of depression following the 1893 panic intensified problems in agriculture
Smaller farmers in the south and west faced difficult economic conditions, with falling prices for what they produced and a shortage of credit
Agricultural economy- volatile
Farmers became part of w wider commercial network, more and more dependent upon railroad companies and banks in order to invest in seed, livestock, equip and fertilisers
This made them vulnerable to market forces beyond their control
What acts helped farmers
Reclamation Act 1902/ helping irrigation acts- rural areas
Meat inspection act 1906- to regulate food quality
Federal farm loan act 1916
Vocational education act 1917- trained to be farmers
What was the ‘parity’
From 1905ish there was a ‘parity’
the relationship between agricultural prices and incomes, putting farmers at the same levels of ‘buying power’ as the general economy
This enabled large increases in the land under cultivation
There was a boom output of wheat and 🌽
What 2 factors shower the early success of farmers to have problems?
Banking and credit
- Optimism of early land rush was fuelled by readily available ‘easy credit’ loaned from bank and land companies that were based on unrealistic expectations of farmers’ ability to repay them
- when the credit boom subsidies, many small farmers mixed deep into debt and unable to access to loans needed
- key reason for the protests from western and southern farmers that led to the rise of populism
- this was intensified by 1893 panic - led to economic depression
Climate
Rush of settlement began in 1880s- rainfall made even marginal land fertile and productive
-but this eventually left after 1887- drought and wind erosion
BANKRUPTCY and farmers were forced to move east and
What is progressivism
Term applied to a variety of responses to the economic and social problems rapid industrialisation introduced to America
What did progressives believe
Rejected social Darwinism (poverty, violence, greed, racism etc)
Who were progressives
Eg Jane Addams
Mainly lived in cities and were well educated
Concentrated on exposing the evils of corporate greed, combating feet of immigrants, urging people to vote
When did progressivism gain a huge voice in the White House
Theodore Roosevelt 1901
He beliveeed corporations were good for US but it must be watched so that corporate greed didn’t get out of hand
When did progressivism end
WW1- horror of war
People assosicated Woodrow wilsons use of progressive Lang w war
When were the last acts of progressives
Women giving the vote and prohibition
6 reasons why progressivism occurred
Industrial workers were unhappy
Financial stability after panic
Stabilise farming and agricultural workers
Exhaust populism
Combat corruption— spoils- pendallon Act
Development of welfare in Europe- up to 1900- Bri= best then US became best and wanted to stay that way
When was there a blip in agriculture
1896
