History of agriculture in the United States
Encyclopedia
The history of agriculture
in the United States covers the period from the first settlers to the present day. In Colonial America
agriculture fund a livelihood for 90 percent of the population; most towns were shipping points for the export of agricultural products. Most farms were geared toward subsistence production for family use. The rapid growth of population and the expansion of the frontier opened up large numbers of new farms, and clearing the land was a major preoccupation of farmers. After 1800, cotton became the chief crop in southern plantations, and the chief American export. After 1840, industrialization and urbanization opened up lucrative domestic markets. The number of farms grew from 1.4 million in 1850, to 4.0 million in 1880, and 6.4 million in 1910; then started to fall, dropping to 5.6 million in 1950 and 2.2 million in 2008.
," that is the region from North Carolina in an arc through Texas where the climate allowed for cotton cultivation.
Most farms were subsistence, producing food for the family and some for trade and taxes.
The first settlers in Plymouth Colony
planted barley
and pea
s from England but their most important crop was Indian corn (maize
) which they were shown how to cultivate by the native Squanto
. To fertilize this crop, they used small fish which they called herrings or shad
s.
farmers generally preferred oxen rather than horses to pull their plows and The Scots Irish
built an economy with some farming but more herding (of hogs and cattle). In the American colonies, Scots-Irish focused on mixed-farming. Using this technique, they grew corn for human consumption and as feed for hogs and other livestock. Many improvement-minded farmers of all different backgrounds began using new agricultural practices to raise their output. During the 1750s, these agricultural innovators replaced the hand sickles and scythes used to harvest hay, wheat, and barley with the cradle scythe, a tool with wooden fingers that arranged the stalks of grain for easy collection. This tool was able to triple the amount of work down by farmers in one day. A few scientific farmers (mostly wealthy planters like George Washington
) began fertilizing their fields with dung and lime and rotating their crops to keep the soil fertile.
Before 1720, most colonists in the mid-Atlantic region worked with small-scale farming and paid for imported manufactures by supplying the West Indies with corn and flour. In New York, a fur-pelt export trade to Europe flourished adding additional wealth to the region. After 1720, mid-Atlantic farming stimulated with the international demand for wheat. A massive population explosion in Europe brought wheat prices up. By 1770, a bushel of wheat cost twice as much as it did in 1720. Farmers also expanded their production of flaxseed and corn since flax was a high demand in the Irish linen industry and a demand for corn existed in the West Indies.
Some immigrants who just arrived purchased farms and shared in this export wealth, but many poor German and Scots-Irish immigrants were forced to work as agricultural wage laborers. Merchants and artisans hired teen-aged indentured servants as workers for a domestic system for the manufacture of cloth and other goods. Merchants often bought wool and flax from farmers and employed newly-arrived immigrants, who had been textile workers in Ireland and Germany, to work in their homes spinning the materials into yarn and cloth. Large farmers and merchants became wealthy, while farmers with smaller farms and artisans only made enough for subsistence.
Pennsylvania was the center of German migration, adapting Old World techniques to a much more abundant land supply.
The federal government issued 160 acres (64.7 ha) tracts virtually free to about 400,000 families who settled new land under the Homestead Act
of 1862. Even larger numbers purchased lands at very low interest from the new railroads, which were trying to create markets. The railroads advertised heavily in Europe and brought over, at low fares, hundreds of thousands of farmers from Germany, Scandinavia and Britain.
The problem of blowing dust came not because farmers grew too much wheat, but because the rainfall was too little to grow enough wheat to keep the topsoil from blowing away. In the 1930s techniques and technologies of soil conservation, most of which had been available but ignored before the Dust Bowl conditions began, were promoted by the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) of the US Department of Agriculture, so that, with cooperation from the weather, soil condition was much improved by 1940.
On the Great Plains very few single men attempted to operate a farm or ranch; farmers clearly understood the need for a hard-working wife, and numerous children, to handle the many chores, including child-rearing, feeding and clothing the family, managing the housework, feeding the hired hands, and, especially after the 1930s, handling the paperwork and financial details. During the early years of settlement in the late 19th century, farm women played an integral role in assuring family survival by working outdoors. After a generation or so, women increasingly left the fields, thus redefining their roles within the family. New conveniences such as sewing and washing machines encouraged women to turn to domestic roles. The scientific housekeeping movement, promoted across the land by the media and government extension agents, as well as county fairs which featured achievements in home cookery and canning, advice columns for women in the farm papers, and home economics courses in the schools.
Although the eastern image of farm life on the prairies emphasizes the isolation of the lonely farmer and farm life, in reality rural folk created a rich social life for themselves. They often sponsored activities that combined work, food, and entertainment such as barn raisings, corn huskings, quilting bees, Grange meeting, church activities, and school functions. The womenfolk organized shared meals and potluck events, as well as extended visits between families.
became open range
, hosting cattle ranching operations on public land without charge. In the spring and fall, ranchers held roundups where their cowboys branded new calves, treated animals and sorted the cattle for sale. Such ranching began in Texas and gradually moved northward. Cowboys drove Texas cattle north to railroad lines in the cities of Dodge City, Kansas
and Ogallala, Nebraska
; from there, cattle were shipped eastward. British investors financed many great ranches of the era. Overstocking of the range and the terrible winter of 1886 resulted in a disaster, with many cattle starved and frozen to death. From then on, ranchers generally raised feed to ensure they could keep their cattle alive over winter.
When there was too little rain for ordinary farming, but enough grass for grazing, cattle ranching became dominant. Before the railroads arrived in Texas the 1870s cattle drives took large herds from Texas to the railheads in Kansas. A few thousand Indians resisted, notably the Sioux
, who were reluctant to settle on reservations, but most Indians themselves became ranch hands and cowboys. New varieties of wheat flourished in the arid parts of the Great Plains
, opening much of the Dakotas, Montana, western Kansas, western Nebraska and eastern Colorado to farming.
Membership soared from 1873 (200,000) to 1875 (858,050) as many of the state and local granges adopted non-partisan political resolutions, especially regarding the regulation of railroad transportation costs. The organization was unusual in that it allowed women and teens as equal members. Rapid growth infused the national organization with money from dues, and many local granges established consumer cooperatives, initially supplied by the Chicago wholesaler Aaron Montgomery Ward
. Poor fiscal management, combined with organizational difficulties resulting from rapid growth, led to a massive decline in membership. By the turn of the century, the Grange rebounded and membership stabilized.
In the mid-1870s, state Granges in the Midwest were successful in passing state laws that regulated the rates they could be charged by railroads and grain warehouses. The birth of the federal government's Cooperative Extension Service
, Rural Free Delivery, and the Farm Credit System
were largely due to Grange lobbying. The peak of their political power was marked by their success in Munn v. Illinois
, which held that the grain warehouses were a "private utility in the public interest
," and therefore could be regulated by public law (see references below, "The Granger Movement"). During the Progressive Era
(1890s-1920s), political parties took up Grange causes. Consequently, local Granges focused more on community service, although the State and National Granges remain a political force.
, was a critical supplier to other Allied nations
, as millions of European farmers were in the army. The rapid expansion of the farms coupled with the diffusion of trucks and Model T cars, and the tractor, allowed the agricultural market to expand to an unprecedented size.
However, with the end of the war the European soldiers returned to their farms and market for American exports shrank. Farmers and economists alike had not foreseen the drop in demand for American goods. The abundant harvest coupled with falling demand left an excess of crops and not enough profit to pay for expenditures. This downturn was only very brief, as was the entire post World War I recession
in North America.
A popular Tin Pan Alley
song of 1919 asked, concerning the United States troops returning from World War I, "How Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down On the Farm After They've Seen Paree
?". In fact, many did not remain "down on the farm"; there was a great migration of youth from farms to nearby towns and smaller cities. The average distance moved was only 10 miles (16 km). Few went to the cities over 100,000. However, agriculture became increasingly mechanized with widespread use of the tractor
, other heavy equipment, and superior techniques disseminated through County Agents
, who were employed by state agricultural colleges and funded by the Federal government.
The early 1920s saw a rapid expansion in the American agricultural economy largely due to new technologies and especially mechanization. Competition from Europe and Russia had disappeared due to the war and American agricultural goods were being shipped around the world.
The new technologies, such as the combine harvester
, meant that the most efficient farms were larger in size and, gradually, the small family farm that had long been the model were replaced by larger and more business-oriented firms. Despite this increase in farm size and capital intensity, the great majority of agricultural production continued to be undertaken by family-owned enterprises.
World War I had created an atmosphere of high prices for agricultural products as European nations demand for exports surged. Farmers had enjoyed a period of prosperity as U.S. farm production expanded rapidly to fill the gap left as European belligerents found themselves unable to produce enough food. When the war ended, supply increased rapidly as Europe's agricultural market rebounded. Overproduction led to plummeting prices which led to stagnant market conditions and living standards for farmers in the 1920s. Worse, hundreds of thousands of farmers had taken out mortgages and loans to buy out their neighbors' property, and now are unable to meet the financial burden. The cause was the collapse of land prices after the wartime bubble when farmers used high prices to buy up neighboring farms at high prices, saddling them with heavy debts. Farmers, however, blamed the decline of foreign markets, and the effects of the protective tariff.
Farmers demanded relief as the agricultural depression grew steadily worse in the middle 1920s, while the rest of the economy flourished. Farmers had a powerful voice in Congress, and demanded federal subsidies, most notably the McNary–Haugen Farm Relief Bill. It was passed but vetoed by President Coolidge. Coolidge instead supported the alternative program of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover
and Agriculture Secretary William M. Jardine to modernize farming, by bringing in more electricity, more efficient equipment, better seeds and breeds, more rural education, and better business practices. Hoover advocated the creation of a Federal Farm Board which was dedicated to restriction of crop production to domestic demand, behind a tariff wall, and maintained that the farmer's ailments were due to defective distribution. In 1929, the Hoover plan was adopted.
, a liberal Democrat, was keenly interested in farm issues and believed that true prosperity would not return until farming was prosperous. Many different programs were directed at farmers. Roosevelt's "First Hundred Days" produced the Farm Security Act to raise farm incomes by raising the prices farmers received, which was achieved by reducing total farm output. The Agricultural Adjustment Act
created the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) in May 1933. The act reflected the demands of leaders of major farm organizations, especially the Farm Bureau, and reflected debates among Roosevelt's farm advisers such as Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace
, M.L. Wilson, Rexford Tugwell
, and George Peek
.
The aim of the AAA was to raise prices for commodities through artificial scarcity. The AAA used a system of "domestic allotments", setting total output of corn, cotton, dairy products, hogs, rice, tobacco, and wheat. The farmers themselves had a voice in the process of using government to benefit their incomes. The AAA paid land owners subsidies for leaving some of their land idle with funds provided by a new tax on food processing. The goal was to force up farm prices to the point of "parity", an index based on 1910–1914 prices. To meet 1933 goals, 10 million acres (40,468.6 km²) of growing cotton was plowed up, bountiful crops were left to rot, and six million baby pigs were killed and discarded. The idea was the less produced, the higher the wholesale price and the higher income to the farmer. Farm incomes increased significantly in the first three years of the New Deal, as prices for commodities rose. Food prices remained well below 1929 levels.
The AAA established an important and long-lasting federal role in the planning on the entire agricultural sector of the economy and was the first program on such a scale on behalf of the troubled agricultural economy. The original AAA did not provide for any sharecroppers or tenants or farm laborers who might become unemployed, but there were other New Deal programs especially for them.
In 1936, the Supreme Court declared the AAA to be unconstitutional for technical reasons; it was replaced by a similar program that did win Court approval. Instead of paying farmers for letting fields lie barren, this program instead subsidized them for planting soil enriching crops such as alfalfa
that would not be sold on the market. Federal regulation of agricultural production has been modified many times since then, but together with large subsidies the basic philosophy of subsidizing farmers is still in effect in 2011.
It was not until World War II
that America completely recovered from the Great Depression
and the agricultural economy was completely revived. Young men in farming were exempted from the wartime draft.
Many rural people lived in severe poverty, especially in the South. Major programs addressed to their needs included the Resettlement Administration
(RA), the Rural Electrification Administration (REA), rural welfare projects sponsored by the WPA, NYA, Forest Service and CCC, including school lunches, building new schools, opening roads in remote areas, reforestation, and purchase of marginal lands to enlarge national forests. In 1933, the Administration launched the Tennessee Valley Authority
, a project involving dam construction planning on an unprecedented scale in order to curb flooding, generate electricity, and modernize the very poor farms in the Tennessee Valley
region of the Southern United States
.
For the first time, there was a national program help migrant and marginal farmers, through programs such as the Resettlement Administration
and the Farm Security Administration
. Their plight gained national attention through the 1939 novel and film The Grapes of Wrath
. The New Deal thought there were too many farmers, and resisted demands of the poor for loans to buy farms.
The last major New Deal legislation concerning farming was in 1937, when the Farm Tenancy Act was created which in turn created the Farm Security Administration
(FSA), replacing the Resettlement Administration.
s—sharply reduced labor requirements in harvesting.
Second, electricity powered motors and irrigation pumps that opened up new ways to be efficient. Electricity also played a role making possible major innovations in animal husbandry
, especially modern milking parlors, grain elevators, and CAFOs (confined animal-feeding operations) (Conkin, 2009). Advances in fertilizers and herbicides, (as well as insecticides, fungicides, antibiotics and growth hormones), reduced wastage due to weeds, insects and diseases.
Finally there were great advances in plant and animal breeding, such as crop hybridization, artificial insemination of livestock, and GMOs (genetically modified organisms). Further down the food change came innovations in food processing and distribution (e.g. frozen foods).
In the colonial era, wheat as sown by broadcasting; reaped by sickles, and threshed by flails. The kernels were then taken to a grist mill for grinding into flour. In 1830, it took four different people and two oxen, working 10 hours a day, to produce 200 bushels. New technology greatly increased productivity in the 19th century, as sowing with drills replaced broadcasting, cradles took the place of sickles, and the cradles in turn were replaced by reapers and binders. Steam-powered threshing machines superseded flails. By 1895, in Bonanza farms in the Dakotas,, it took six different people and 36 horses pulling huge harvesters, working 10 hours a day, to produce 20,000 bushels. In the 1930s the gasoline powered "combine"
combined reaping and threshing into one operation the took one person to operate. Production grew from 85 million bushels in 1839, 500 million in 1880, 600 million in 1900, and peaked at 1.0 billion bushels in 1915. Prices fluctuated erratically, with a downward trend in the 1890s that caused great distress in the Plains states.
The marketing of wheat was modernized as well, as the cost of transportation steadily fell and more and more distant markets opened up. Before 1850, the crop was sacked, shipped by wagon or canal boat, and stored in warehouses. With the rapid growth of the nation's railroad network in the 1850s-1870s, farmers took their harvest by wagon for sale to the nearest country elevators. The wheat moved to terminal elevators, where it was sold through grain exchanges to flour millers and exporters. Since the elevators and railroads generally had a local monopoly, farmers soon had targets besides the weather for their complaints. They sometimes accused the elevator men of undergrading, shortweighting, and excessive dockage. Scandinavian immigrants in the Midwest took control over marketing through the organization of cooperatives.
Wheat production witnessed major changes in varieties and cultural practices since 1870. Thanks to these innovations, vast expanses of the wheat belt now support commercial production, and yields have resisted the negative impact of insects, diseases, and weeds. Biological innovations contributed roughly half of labor-productivity growth between 1839 and 1909.
In the late 19th century, hardy new wheat varieties from the Russian steppes were introduced on the Great Plains by the Volga Germans who settled in North Dakota, Kansas, Montana and neighboring states. Legend credits the miller Bernhard Warkentin (1847–1908), a German Mennonite from Russia for introducing the "Turkey red" variety from Russia. More exactly, in the 1880s numerous millers and government agricultural agents worked to create "Turkey red" and make Kansas the "Wheat State". The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, and the state experiment stations, have developed many new varieties, and taught farmers how to plant them. Similar varieties now dominate in the arid regions of the Great Plains
.
through the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 and its many versions.
World War II brought an enormous expansion of production, topping off at a billion bushels in 1944. During the war and after large-scale wheat and flour exports were part of Lend Lease and the foreign assistance programs. In 1966 exports reached 860 million bushels of which 570 million were given away as food aid. A major drought in the Soviet Union in 1972 led to the sale of 390 million bushels and an agreement was assigned in 1975 under the détente policy to supply the Soviets with grain over a five-year period.
In the colonial era, small amounts high quality long-staple cotton
was produced in the Sea Islands
off the coast of South Carolina. Inland, only short-staple cotton could be grown but it was full of seeds and very hard to process into fiber. The invention of the cotton gin in the late 1790s for the first time made short-staple cotton usable. It was generally produced on plantations ranging from South Carolina westward, with the work done by black slaves. Simultaneously, the rapid growth of the industrial revolution
in Britain, focused on textiles, created a major demand for the fiber. Cotton quickly exhausts the soil, so planters used their large profits to buy fresh land to the west, and purchase more slaves from the border states to operate their new plantations. After 1810, the emerging textile mills in New England also produced a heavy demand. By 1820, over 250,000 bales (of 500 pounds each) were exported to Europe, with a value of $22 million. By 1840, exports reached 1.5 million bales valued at $64 million, two thirds of all American exports. Cotton prices kept going up as the South remained the main supplier in the world. In 1860, the US shipped 3.5 million bales worth $192 million.
After the Civil War, cotton production expanded to small farms, operated by white and black tenant farmers and sharecroppers
. The quantity exported held steady, at 3,000,000 bales, but prices on the world market fell. Although there was some work involved in planting the seeds, and cultivating or holding out the weeds, the critical labor input for cotton was in the picking. How much a cot in a bit operation could produce depended on how many hands (men women and children) were available. Finally in the 1950s, new mechanical harvesters allowed a handful of workers to pick as much as 100 had done before. The result was a large-scale exodus of the white and black cotton farmers from the south. By the 1970s, most cotton was grown in large automated farms in the Southwest.
History of agriculture
Agriculture was developed at least 10,000 years ago, and it has undergone significant developments since the time of the earliest cultivation. The Fertile Crescent of Western Asia, Egypt, and India were sites of the earliest planned sowing and harvesting of plants that had previously been gathered...
in the United States covers the period from the first settlers to the present day. In Colonial America
Colonial America
The colonial history of the United States covers the history from the start of European settlement and especially the history of the thirteen colonies of Britain until they declared independence in 1776. In the late 16th century, England, France, Spain and the Netherlands launched major...
agriculture fund a livelihood for 90 percent of the population; most towns were shipping points for the export of agricultural products. Most farms were geared toward subsistence production for family use. The rapid growth of population and the expansion of the frontier opened up large numbers of new farms, and clearing the land was a major preoccupation of farmers. After 1800, cotton became the chief crop in southern plantations, and the chief American export. After 1840, industrialization and urbanization opened up lucrative domestic markets. The number of farms grew from 1.4 million in 1850, to 4.0 million in 1880, and 6.4 million in 1910; then started to fall, dropping to 5.6 million in 1950 and 2.2 million in 2008.
Colonial farming: 1610 - 1775
Plantation agriculture, using lavery|e a major plantation crop after 1800 in the "Black BeltBlack Belt (U.S. region)
The Black Belt is a region of the Southern United States. Although the term originally described the prairies and dark soil of central Alabama and northeast Mississippi, it has long been used to describe a broad agricultural region in the American South characterized by a history of plantation...
," that is the region from North Carolina in an arc through Texas where the climate allowed for cotton cultivation.
Most farms were subsistence, producing food for the family and some for trade and taxes.
The first settlers in Plymouth Colony
Plymouth Colony
Plymouth Colony was an English colonial venture in North America from 1620 to 1691. The first settlement of the Plymouth Colony was at New Plymouth, a location previously surveyed and named by Captain John Smith. The settlement, which served as the capital of the colony, is today the modern town...
planted barley
Barley
Barley is a major cereal grain, a member of the grass family. It serves as a major animal fodder, as a base malt for beer and certain distilled beverages, and as a component of various health foods...
and pea
Pea
A pea is most commonly the small spherical seed or the seed-pod of the pod fruit Pisum sativum. Each pod contains several peas. Peapods are botanically a fruit, since they contain seeds developed from the ovary of a flower. However, peas are considered to be a vegetable in cooking...
s from England but their most important crop was Indian corn (maize
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
) which they were shown how to cultivate by the native Squanto
Squanto
Tisquantum was a Patuxet. He was the Native American who assisted the Pilgrims after their first winter in the New World and was integral to their survival. The Patuxet tribe was a tributary of the Wampanoag Confederacy.-Biography:Squanto's exact date of birth is unknown but many historians...
. To fertilize this crop, they used small fish which they called herrings or shad
Shad
The shads or river herrings comprise the genus Alosa, fish related to herring in the family Clupeidae. They are distinct from others in that family by having a deeper body and spawning in rivers. The several species frequent different areas on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea....
s.
Ethnic farming styles
Ethnicity made a difference in agricultural practice. As an example, German AmericanGerman American
German Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 51 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group...
farmers generally preferred oxen rather than horses to pull their plows and The Scots Irish
Scots-Irish American
Scotch-Irish Americans are an estimated 250,000 Presbyterian and other Protestant dissenters from the Irish province of Ulster who immigrated to North America primarily during the colonial era and their descendants. Some scholars also include the 150,000 Ulster Protestants who immigrated to...
built an economy with some farming but more herding (of hogs and cattle). In the American colonies, Scots-Irish focused on mixed-farming. Using this technique, they grew corn for human consumption and as feed for hogs and other livestock. Many improvement-minded farmers of all different backgrounds began using new agricultural practices to raise their output. During the 1750s, these agricultural innovators replaced the hand sickles and scythes used to harvest hay, wheat, and barley with the cradle scythe, a tool with wooden fingers that arranged the stalks of grain for easy collection. This tool was able to triple the amount of work down by farmers in one day. A few scientific farmers (mostly wealthy planters like George Washington
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
) began fertilizing their fields with dung and lime and rotating their crops to keep the soil fertile.
Before 1720, most colonists in the mid-Atlantic region worked with small-scale farming and paid for imported manufactures by supplying the West Indies with corn and flour. In New York, a fur-pelt export trade to Europe flourished adding additional wealth to the region. After 1720, mid-Atlantic farming stimulated with the international demand for wheat. A massive population explosion in Europe brought wheat prices up. By 1770, a bushel of wheat cost twice as much as it did in 1720. Farmers also expanded their production of flaxseed and corn since flax was a high demand in the Irish linen industry and a demand for corn existed in the West Indies.
Some immigrants who just arrived purchased farms and shared in this export wealth, but many poor German and Scots-Irish immigrants were forced to work as agricultural wage laborers. Merchants and artisans hired teen-aged indentured servants as workers for a domestic system for the manufacture of cloth and other goods. Merchants often bought wool and flax from farmers and employed newly-arrived immigrants, who had been textile workers in Ireland and Germany, to work in their homes spinning the materials into yarn and cloth. Large farmers and merchants became wealthy, while farmers with smaller farms and artisans only made enough for subsistence.
Pennsylvania was the center of German migration, adapting Old World techniques to a much more abundant land supply.
Railroad Age: 1860-1910
A dramatic expansion in farming took place. The number of farms tripled from 2.0 million in 1860 to 6.0 million in 1905. The number of people living on farms grew from about 10 million in 1860 to 22 million in 1880 to 31 million in 1905. The value of farms soared from $8.0 billion in 1860 to $30 billion in 1906.The federal government issued 160 acres (64.7 ha) tracts virtually free to about 400,000 families who settled new land under the Homestead Act
Homestead Act
A homestead act is one of three United States federal laws that gave an applicant freehold title to an area called a "homestead" – typically 160 acres of undeveloped federal land west of the Mississippi River....
of 1862. Even larger numbers purchased lands at very low interest from the new railroads, which were trying to create markets. The railroads advertised heavily in Europe and brought over, at low fares, hundreds of thousands of farmers from Germany, Scandinavia and Britain.
Rural life
Early settlers discovered that the Great Plains was not the "Great American Desert," but they also found that the very harsh climate—with tornadoes, blizzards, drought, hail, floods and grasshoppers—made for a high risk of a ruined crop. Many early settlers were financially ruined, especially in the early 1890s, and either protested through the Populist movement, or went back east. In the 20th century, crop insurance, new conservation techniques, and large-scale federal aid all lowered the risk. Immigrants, especially Germans, and their children comprised the largest element of settlers after 1860; they were attracted by the good soil, low priced lands from the railroad companies, and the chance to homestead 160 acre (0.6474976 km²) and receive title to the land at no cost from the federal government.The problem of blowing dust came not because farmers grew too much wheat, but because the rainfall was too little to grow enough wheat to keep the topsoil from blowing away. In the 1930s techniques and technologies of soil conservation, most of which had been available but ignored before the Dust Bowl conditions began, were promoted by the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) of the US Department of Agriculture, so that, with cooperation from the weather, soil condition was much improved by 1940.
On the Great Plains very few single men attempted to operate a farm or ranch; farmers clearly understood the need for a hard-working wife, and numerous children, to handle the many chores, including child-rearing, feeding and clothing the family, managing the housework, feeding the hired hands, and, especially after the 1930s, handling the paperwork and financial details. During the early years of settlement in the late 19th century, farm women played an integral role in assuring family survival by working outdoors. After a generation or so, women increasingly left the fields, thus redefining their roles within the family. New conveniences such as sewing and washing machines encouraged women to turn to domestic roles. The scientific housekeeping movement, promoted across the land by the media and government extension agents, as well as county fairs which featured achievements in home cookery and canning, advice columns for women in the farm papers, and home economics courses in the schools.
Although the eastern image of farm life on the prairies emphasizes the isolation of the lonely farmer and farm life, in reality rural folk created a rich social life for themselves. They often sponsored activities that combined work, food, and entertainment such as barn raisings, corn huskings, quilting bees, Grange meeting, church activities, and school functions. The womenfolk organized shared meals and potluck events, as well as extended visits between families.
Ranching
Much of the Great PlainsGreat Plains
The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...
became open range
Rangeland
Rangelands are vast natural landscapes in the form of grasslands, shrublands, woodlands, wetlands, and deserts. Types of rangelands include tallgrass and shortgrass prairies, desert grasslands and shrublands, woodlands, savannas, chaparrals, steppes, and tundras...
, hosting cattle ranching operations on public land without charge. In the spring and fall, ranchers held roundups where their cowboys branded new calves, treated animals and sorted the cattle for sale. Such ranching began in Texas and gradually moved northward. Cowboys drove Texas cattle north to railroad lines in the cities of Dodge City, Kansas
Dodge City, Kansas
Dodge City is a city in, and the county seat of, Ford County, Kansas, United States. Named after nearby Fort Dodge, the city is famous in American culture for its history as a wild frontier town of the Old West. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 27,340.-History:The first settlement of...
and Ogallala, Nebraska
Ogallala, Nebraska
Ogallala is a city in Keith County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 4,737 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Keith County. In the days of the Nebraska Territory, the city was a stop on the Pony Express and later along the transcontinental railroad...
; from there, cattle were shipped eastward. British investors financed many great ranches of the era. Overstocking of the range and the terrible winter of 1886 resulted in a disaster, with many cattle starved and frozen to death. From then on, ranchers generally raised feed to ensure they could keep their cattle alive over winter.
When there was too little rain for ordinary farming, but enough grass for grazing, cattle ranching became dominant. Before the railroads arrived in Texas the 1870s cattle drives took large herds from Texas to the railheads in Kansas. A few thousand Indians resisted, notably the Sioux
Sioux
The Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...
, who were reluctant to settle on reservations, but most Indians themselves became ranch hands and cowboys. New varieties of wheat flourished in the arid parts of the Great Plains
Great Plains
The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...
, opening much of the Dakotas, Montana, western Kansas, western Nebraska and eastern Colorado to farming.
South, 1860-1940
Sawers (2004) shows how southern farmers made the mule their preferred draft animal in the South during the 1860s-1920s, primarily because it fit better with the region's geography. Mules better withstood the heat of summer, and their smaller size and hooves were well suited for such crops as cotton, tobacco, and sugar. The character of soils and climate in the lower South hindered the creation of pastures, so mule breeding tended to reside in the border states of Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Transportation costs combined with topography to influence the prices of mules and horses, which in turn affected patterns of mule use. The economic and production advantages associated with mules made their use a progressive step for Southern agriculture that endured until the mechanization brought by tractors.Grange
The Grange was an organization founded in 1867 for farmers and their wives that was strongest in the Northeast, and which promoted the modernization not only of farming practices but also of family and community life. It is still in operation.Aaron Montgomery Ward
Aaron Montgomery Ward was an American businessman notable for the invention of mail order.The mail-order industry was started by Aaron Montgomery Ward in 1872 in Chicago...
. Poor fiscal management, combined with organizational difficulties resulting from rapid growth, led to a massive decline in membership. By the turn of the century, the Grange rebounded and membership stabilized.
In the mid-1870s, state Granges in the Midwest were successful in passing state laws that regulated the rates they could be charged by railroads and grain warehouses. The birth of the federal government's Cooperative Extension Service
Cooperative extension service
The Cooperative Extension Service, also known as the Extension Service of the USDA, is a non-formal educational program implemented in the United States designed to help people use research-based knowledge to improve their lives. The service is provided by the state's designated land-grant...
, Rural Free Delivery, and the Farm Credit System
Farm Credit System
The Farm Credit System is a federally chartered network of cooperatives and related service organizations that lends to agricultural producers, rural homeowners, farm-related businesses, and agricultural, aquatic, and public utility cooperatives in the United States...
were largely due to Grange lobbying. The peak of their political power was marked by their success in Munn v. Illinois
Munn v. Illinois
Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 113 , was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with corporate rates and agriculture. The Munn case allowed states to regulate certain businesses within their borders, including railroads, and is commonly regarded as a milestone in the growth of federal government...
, which held that the grain warehouses were a "private utility in the public interest
Public interest
The public interest refers to the "common well-being" or "general welfare." The public interest is central to policy debates, politics, democracy and the nature of government itself...
," and therefore could be regulated by public law (see references below, "The Granger Movement"). During the Progressive Era
Progressive Era
The Progressive Era in the United States was a period of social activism and political reform that flourished from the 1890s to the 1920s. One main goal of the Progressive movement was purification of government, as Progressives tried to eliminate corruption by exposing and undercutting political...
(1890s-1920s), political parties took up Grange causes. Consequently, local Granges focused more on community service, although the State and National Granges remain a political force.
Golden Era, 1900-1914
The first years of the 20th century were prosperous for all American farmers. The years 1910-1914 became a statistical benchmark, call "parity", that organized farm groups wanted the government to use as a benchmark for the level of prices and profits they felt they deserved.World War I
The U.S. in World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, was a critical supplier to other Allied nations
Allies
In everyday English usage, allies are people, groups, or nations that have joined together in an association for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out between them...
, as millions of European farmers were in the army. The rapid expansion of the farms coupled with the diffusion of trucks and Model T cars, and the tractor, allowed the agricultural market to expand to an unprecedented size.
However, with the end of the war the European soldiers returned to their farms and market for American exports shrank. Farmers and economists alike had not foreseen the drop in demand for American goods. The abundant harvest coupled with falling demand left an excess of crops and not enough profit to pay for expenditures. This downturn was only very brief, as was the entire post World War I recession
Post-WWI recession
The post–World War I recession was an economic recession that hit much of the world in the aftermath of World War I.In many nations, especially in North America, this growth continued during the war as nations mobilized their economies to fight the war in Europe. After the war ended, however, the...
in North America.
1920s
Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley is the name given to the collection of New York City music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century...
song of 1919 asked, concerning the United States troops returning from World War I, "How Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down On the Farm After They've Seen Paree
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
?". In fact, many did not remain "down on the farm"; there was a great migration of youth from farms to nearby towns and smaller cities. The average distance moved was only 10 miles (16 km). Few went to the cities over 100,000. However, agriculture became increasingly mechanized with widespread use of the tractor
Tractor
A tractor is a vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery used in agriculture or construction...
, other heavy equipment, and superior techniques disseminated through County Agents
Agricultural extension
Agricultural extension was once known as the application of scientific research and new knowledge to agricultural practices through farmer education...
, who were employed by state agricultural colleges and funded by the Federal government.
The early 1920s saw a rapid expansion in the American agricultural economy largely due to new technologies and especially mechanization. Competition from Europe and Russia had disappeared due to the war and American agricultural goods were being shipped around the world.
The new technologies, such as the combine harvester
Combine harvester
The combine harvester, or simply combine, is a machine that harvests grain crops. The name derives from the fact that it combines three separate operations, reaping, threshing, and winnowing, into a single process. Among the crops harvested with a combine are wheat, oats, rye, barley, corn ,...
, meant that the most efficient farms were larger in size and, gradually, the small family farm that had long been the model were replaced by larger and more business-oriented firms. Despite this increase in farm size and capital intensity, the great majority of agricultural production continued to be undertaken by family-owned enterprises.
World War I had created an atmosphere of high prices for agricultural products as European nations demand for exports surged. Farmers had enjoyed a period of prosperity as U.S. farm production expanded rapidly to fill the gap left as European belligerents found themselves unable to produce enough food. When the war ended, supply increased rapidly as Europe's agricultural market rebounded. Overproduction led to plummeting prices which led to stagnant market conditions and living standards for farmers in the 1920s. Worse, hundreds of thousands of farmers had taken out mortgages and loans to buy out their neighbors' property, and now are unable to meet the financial burden. The cause was the collapse of land prices after the wartime bubble when farmers used high prices to buy up neighboring farms at high prices, saddling them with heavy debts. Farmers, however, blamed the decline of foreign markets, and the effects of the protective tariff.
Farmers demanded relief as the agricultural depression grew steadily worse in the middle 1920s, while the rest of the economy flourished. Farmers had a powerful voice in Congress, and demanded federal subsidies, most notably the McNary–Haugen Farm Relief Bill. It was passed but vetoed by President Coolidge. Coolidge instead supported the alternative program of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...
and Agriculture Secretary William M. Jardine to modernize farming, by bringing in more electricity, more efficient equipment, better seeds and breeds, more rural education, and better business practices. Hoover advocated the creation of a Federal Farm Board which was dedicated to restriction of crop production to domestic demand, behind a tariff wall, and maintained that the farmer's ailments were due to defective distribution. In 1929, the Hoover plan was adopted.
New Deal farm and rural programs
President Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
, a liberal Democrat, was keenly interested in farm issues and believed that true prosperity would not return until farming was prosperous. Many different programs were directed at farmers. Roosevelt's "First Hundred Days" produced the Farm Security Act to raise farm incomes by raising the prices farmers received, which was achieved by reducing total farm output. The Agricultural Adjustment Act
Agricultural Adjustment Act
The Agricultural Adjustment Act was a United States federal law of the New Deal era which restricted agricultural production by paying farmers subsidies not to plant part of their land and to kill off excess livestock...
created the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) in May 1933. The act reflected the demands of leaders of major farm organizations, especially the Farm Bureau, and reflected debates among Roosevelt's farm advisers such as Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace
Henry A. Wallace
Henry Agard Wallace was the 33rd Vice President of the United States , the Secretary of Agriculture , and the Secretary of Commerce . In the 1948 presidential election, Wallace was the nominee of the Progressive Party.-Early life:Henry A...
, M.L. Wilson, Rexford Tugwell
Rexford Tugwell
Rexford Guy Tugwell was an agricultural economist who became part of Franklin D. Roosevelt's first "Brain Trust," a group of Columbia academics who helped develop policy recommendations leading up to Roosevelt's 1932 election as President...
, and George Peek
George Peek
George Nelson Peek was an American agricultural economist, business executive, and civil servant. He was the first Administrator of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration and the first President of the two banks that would become the Export-Import Bank of the United States.-Early life and...
.
The aim of the AAA was to raise prices for commodities through artificial scarcity. The AAA used a system of "domestic allotments", setting total output of corn, cotton, dairy products, hogs, rice, tobacco, and wheat. The farmers themselves had a voice in the process of using government to benefit their incomes. The AAA paid land owners subsidies for leaving some of their land idle with funds provided by a new tax on food processing. The goal was to force up farm prices to the point of "parity", an index based on 1910–1914 prices. To meet 1933 goals, 10 million acres (40,468.6 km²) of growing cotton was plowed up, bountiful crops were left to rot, and six million baby pigs were killed and discarded. The idea was the less produced, the higher the wholesale price and the higher income to the farmer. Farm incomes increased significantly in the first three years of the New Deal, as prices for commodities rose. Food prices remained well below 1929 levels.
The AAA established an important and long-lasting federal role in the planning on the entire agricultural sector of the economy and was the first program on such a scale on behalf of the troubled agricultural economy. The original AAA did not provide for any sharecroppers or tenants or farm laborers who might become unemployed, but there were other New Deal programs especially for them.
In 1936, the Supreme Court declared the AAA to be unconstitutional for technical reasons; it was replaced by a similar program that did win Court approval. Instead of paying farmers for letting fields lie barren, this program instead subsidized them for planting soil enriching crops such as alfalfa
Alfalfa
Alfalfa is a flowering plant in the pea family Fabaceae cultivated as an important forage crop in the US, Canada, Argentina, France, Australia, the Middle East, South Africa, and many other countries. It is known as lucerne in the UK, France, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, and known as...
that would not be sold on the market. Federal regulation of agricultural production has been modified many times since then, but together with large subsidies the basic philosophy of subsidizing farmers is still in effect in 2011.
It was not until World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
that America completely recovered from the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
and the agricultural economy was completely revived. Young men in farming were exempted from the wartime draft.
Rural relief
Resettlement Administration
The Resettlement Administration was a U.S. federal agency that, between April 1935 and December 1936, relocated struggling urban and rural families to communities planned by the federal government....
(RA), the Rural Electrification Administration (REA), rural welfare projects sponsored by the WPA, NYA, Forest Service and CCC, including school lunches, building new schools, opening roads in remote areas, reforestation, and purchase of marginal lands to enlarge national forests. In 1933, the Administration launched the Tennessee Valley Authority
Tennessee Valley Authority
The Tennessee Valley Authority is a federally owned corporation in the United States created by congressional charter in May 1933 to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development in the Tennessee Valley, a region particularly affected...
, a project involving dam construction planning on an unprecedented scale in order to curb flooding, generate electricity, and modernize the very poor farms in the Tennessee Valley
Tennessee Valley
The Tennessee Valley is the drainage basin of the Tennessee River and is largely within the U.S. state of Tennessee. It stretches from southwest Kentucky to northwest Georgia and from northeast Mississippi to the mountains of Virginia and North Carolina...
region of the Southern United States
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
.
For the first time, there was a national program help migrant and marginal farmers, through programs such as the Resettlement Administration
Resettlement Administration
The Resettlement Administration was a U.S. federal agency that, between April 1935 and December 1936, relocated struggling urban and rural families to communities planned by the federal government....
and the Farm Security Administration
Farm Security Administration
Initially created as the Resettlement Administration in 1935 as part of the New Deal in the United States, the Farm Security Administration was an effort during the Depression to combat American rural poverty...
. Their plight gained national attention through the 1939 novel and film The Grapes of Wrath
The Grapes of Wrath
The Grapes of Wrath is a novel published in 1939 and written by John Steinbeck, who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1940 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962....
. The New Deal thought there were too many farmers, and resisted demands of the poor for loans to buy farms.
The last major New Deal legislation concerning farming was in 1937, when the Farm Tenancy Act was created which in turn created the Farm Security Administration
Farm Security Administration
Initially created as the Resettlement Administration in 1935 as part of the New Deal in the United States, the Farm Security Administration was an effort during the Depression to combat American rural poverty...
(FSA), replacing the Resettlement Administration.
Postwar
After 1945, a continued increase in productivity that led to further increases in farm size, and corresponding reductions in the number of farms. Many farmers sold out and moved to nearby towns and cities. Others moved to a part-time operation, supported by off-farm employment. Conkin (2009) emphasized how new machinery—especially large self-propelled combines and mechanical cotton pickerCotton picker
The mechanical cotton picker is a machine that automates cotton harvesting in a way that reduces harvest time and maximizes efficiency.-History:...
s—sharply reduced labor requirements in harvesting.
Second, electricity powered motors and irrigation pumps that opened up new ways to be efficient. Electricity also played a role making possible major innovations in animal husbandry
Animal husbandry
Animal husbandry is the agricultural practice of breeding and raising livestock.- History :Animal husbandry has been practiced for thousands of years, since the first domestication of animals....
, especially modern milking parlors, grain elevators, and CAFOs (confined animal-feeding operations) (Conkin, 2009). Advances in fertilizers and herbicides, (as well as insecticides, fungicides, antibiotics and growth hormones), reduced wastage due to weeds, insects and diseases.
Finally there were great advances in plant and animal breeding, such as crop hybridization, artificial insemination of livestock, and GMOs (genetically modified organisms). Further down the food change came innovations in food processing and distribution (e.g. frozen foods).
Wheat
Wheat, used for white bread, pastries, pasta and pizza, has been the principal cereal crop since the 18th century. It was introduced by the first English colonists and quickly became the major cash crop of farmers on the frontier. In colonial times its culture became concentrated in the middle colonies, which became known as the "bread colonies." In the mid-18th century, wheat culture spread to the tidewater of Maryland and Virginia, where George Washington was a prominent grower as he diversified away from tobacco. The crop moved west, with Ohio as the center in 1840 and Illinois in 1860. Illinois, replaced its wheat with corn (which was fed to the hogs) and was overtaken by Minnesota in 1889. The invention of mechanical harvesters, drawn first by horses then tractors, made larger farms much more efficient than small ones. The farmers had to borrow to buy land and equipment, and had to specialize in wheat, which made them highly vulnerable to price fluctuations, and gave them an incentive to ask for government help to stabilize or raise prices. Wheat farming depended on a significant labor input only during planting, and especially at harvest time. Therefore successful farmers, especially on the Great Plains, bought up as much land as possible, purchased very expensive mechanical equipment, and depended on migrating hired laborers at harvesting time. The migrant families tended to be social outcasts without local roots, and mostly lived near the poverty line except in harvesting season. From 1909 to today North Dakota and Kansas have vied for first place in wheat production, followed by Oklahoma and Montana.In the colonial era, wheat as sown by broadcasting; reaped by sickles, and threshed by flails. The kernels were then taken to a grist mill for grinding into flour. In 1830, it took four different people and two oxen, working 10 hours a day, to produce 200 bushels. New technology greatly increased productivity in the 19th century, as sowing with drills replaced broadcasting, cradles took the place of sickles, and the cradles in turn were replaced by reapers and binders. Steam-powered threshing machines superseded flails. By 1895, in Bonanza farms in the Dakotas,, it took six different people and 36 horses pulling huge harvesters, working 10 hours a day, to produce 20,000 bushels. In the 1930s the gasoline powered "combine"
Combine harvester
The combine harvester, or simply combine, is a machine that harvests grain crops. The name derives from the fact that it combines three separate operations, reaping, threshing, and winnowing, into a single process. Among the crops harvested with a combine are wheat, oats, rye, barley, corn ,...
combined reaping and threshing into one operation the took one person to operate. Production grew from 85 million bushels in 1839, 500 million in 1880, 600 million in 1900, and peaked at 1.0 billion bushels in 1915. Prices fluctuated erratically, with a downward trend in the 1890s that caused great distress in the Plains states.
The marketing of wheat was modernized as well, as the cost of transportation steadily fell and more and more distant markets opened up. Before 1850, the crop was sacked, shipped by wagon or canal boat, and stored in warehouses. With the rapid growth of the nation's railroad network in the 1850s-1870s, farmers took their harvest by wagon for sale to the nearest country elevators. The wheat moved to terminal elevators, where it was sold through grain exchanges to flour millers and exporters. Since the elevators and railroads generally had a local monopoly, farmers soon had targets besides the weather for their complaints. They sometimes accused the elevator men of undergrading, shortweighting, and excessive dockage. Scandinavian immigrants in the Midwest took control over marketing through the organization of cooperatives.
Varieties
Following the invention of the steel roller mill in 1878, hard varieties of wheat such as Turkey Red became more popular than soft, which had been previously preferred because they were easier for grist mills to grind.In the late 19th century, hardy new wheat varieties from the Russian steppes were introduced on the Great Plains by the Volga Germans who settled in North Dakota, Kansas, Montana and neighboring states. Legend credits the miller Bernhard Warkentin (1847–1908), a German Mennonite from Russia for introducing the "Turkey red" variety from Russia. More exactly, in the 1880s numerous millers and government agricultural agents worked to create "Turkey red" and make Kansas the "Wheat State". The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, and the state experiment stations, have developed many new varieties, and taught farmers how to plant them. Similar varieties now dominate in the arid regions of the Great Plains
Great Plains
The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...
.
Exports
Wheat farmers have always produced a surplus for export. The exports run a small scale until the 1860s, when bad crops in Europe, and lower prices due to cheap railroads and ocean transport, open the European markets. The British in particular depended on American wheat during the 1860s for a fourth of their food supply. By 1880, hundred and 50,000,000 bushels were exported to the value of $190,000,000. World War One saw large numbers of young European farmers conscripted into the army, so some Allied countries, particularly France and Italy depended on American shipments, which ranged from 100,000,000 to 260,000,000 bushels a year. American farmers reacted to the heavy demand and high prices by expanding their production, many taking out mortgages to buy out their neighbors farms. This led to a large surplus in the 1920s. The resulting low prices prompted growers to seek government support of prices, first through the McNary-Haugen bills, which failed in Congress, and in the New DealNew Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
through the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 and its many versions.
World War II brought an enormous expansion of production, topping off at a billion bushels in 1944. During the war and after large-scale wheat and flour exports were part of Lend Lease and the foreign assistance programs. In 1966 exports reached 860 million bushels of which 570 million were given away as food aid. A major drought in the Soviet Union in 1972 led to the sale of 390 million bushels and an agreement was assigned in 1975 under the détente policy to supply the Soviets with grain over a five-year period.
Marketing
By 1900 private grain exchanges settled the daily prices for North American wheat. Santon (2010) explains how the AAA programs set wheat prices in the U.S. after 1933, and the Canadians established a wheat board to do the same there. The Canadian government required prairie farmers to deliver all their grain to the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB), a single-selling-desk agency that supplanted private wheat marketing in western Canada. Meanwhile, the United States government subsidized farm incomes with domestic-use taxes and import tariffs, but otherwise preserved private wheat marketing.Cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....
was produced in the Sea Islands
Sea Islands
The Sea Islands are a chain of tidal and barrier islands on the Atlantic Ocean coast of the United States. They number over 100, and are located between the mouths of the Santee and St. Johns Rivers along the coast of the U.S...
off the coast of South Carolina. Inland, only short-staple cotton could be grown but it was full of seeds and very hard to process into fiber. The invention of the cotton gin in the late 1790s for the first time made short-staple cotton usable. It was generally produced on plantations ranging from South Carolina westward, with the work done by black slaves. Simultaneously, the rapid growth of the industrial revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
in Britain, focused on textiles, created a major demand for the fiber. Cotton quickly exhausts the soil, so planters used their large profits to buy fresh land to the west, and purchase more slaves from the border states to operate their new plantations. After 1810, the emerging textile mills in New England also produced a heavy demand. By 1820, over 250,000 bales (of 500 pounds each) were exported to Europe, with a value of $22 million. By 1840, exports reached 1.5 million bales valued at $64 million, two thirds of all American exports. Cotton prices kept going up as the South remained the main supplier in the world. In 1860, the US shipped 3.5 million bales worth $192 million.
After the Civil War, cotton production expanded to small farms, operated by white and black tenant farmers and sharecroppers
Sharecropping
Sharecropping is a system of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crop produced on the land . This should not be confused with a crop fixed rent contract, in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a fixed amount of...
. The quantity exported held steady, at 3,000,000 bales, but prices on the world market fell. Although there was some work involved in planting the seeds, and cultivating or holding out the weeds, the critical labor input for cotton was in the picking. How much a cot in a bit operation could produce depended on how many hands (men women and children) were available. Finally in the 1950s, new mechanical harvesters allowed a handful of workers to pick as much as 100 had done before. The result was a large-scale exodus of the white and black cotton farmers from the south. By the 1970s, most cotton was grown in large automated farms in the Southwest.
Surveys
- Cochrane, Willard W. The Development of American Agriculture: A Historical Analysis (1993)
- Fite, Gilbert C. American Farmers: The New Minority (Indiana U. Press, 1981)
- Gras, Norman. A history of agriculture in Europe and America, (1925). online edition
- Hart, John Fraser. The Changing Scale of American Agriculture. U. of Virginia Press, 2004. 320 pp.
- Hurt, R. Douglas. American Agriculture: A Brief History (2002)
- McCusker, John J. ed. Economy of British America, 1607-1789 (1991), 540pp
- Mundlak, Yair. "Economic Growth: Lessons from Two Centuries of American Agriculture." Journal of Economic Literature 2005 43(4): 989-1024. Issn: 0022-0515 Fulltext: in Ebsco
- Robert, Joseph C. The story of tobacco in America (1949) online edition
- Russell, Howard. A Long Deep Furrow: Three Centuries of Farming In New England (1981)
- Schafer, Joseph. The social history of American agriculture (1936) online edition
- Schlebecker John T. Whereby we thrive: A history of American farming, 1607-1972 (1972)
- Taylor, Carl C. The farmers' movement, 1620-1920 (1953) online edition
- Walker, Melissa, and James C. Cobb, eds. The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, vol. 11: Agriculture and Industry. (University of North Carolina Press, 2008) 354 pp. isbn 978-0-8078-5909-4
Before 1775
- Anderson, Virginia DeJohn, “Thomas Minor’s World: Agrarian Life in Seventeenth-Century New England,” Agricultural History, 82 (Fall 2008), 496–518.
- Bidwell, Percy and Falconer, John I. History of Agriculture in the Northern United States 1620-1860 (1941)
- Galenson, David. “The Settlement and Growth of the Colonies,” in Stanley L. Engerman and Robert E. Gallman (eds.), The Cambridge Economic History of the United States: Volume I, The Colonial Era (1996).
- Kulikoff, Allan. From British Peasants to Colonial American Farmers (1992)
- Russell, Howard. A Long Deep Furrow: Three Centuries of Farming In New England (1981)
- Weeden, William Babcock. Economic and Social History of New England, 1620-1789 (1891) 964 pages; online edition
1775-1860: North
- Bidwell, Percy and Falconer, John I. History of Agriculture in the Northern United States 1620-1860 (1941)
- Gates, Paul W. The Farmers Age: Agriculture, 1815-1860 (1960)
1775-1860: South
- Craven, Avery Odelle. Soil exhaustion as a factor in the agricultural history of Virginia and Maryland, 1606-1860 (1926) online edition
- Gray, Lewis Cecil. History of Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1860. 2 vol (1933), classic in-depth history online edition
- Genovese, Eugene. Roll, Jordan Roll (1967), the history of plantation slavery
- Olmstead, Alan L., and Paul W. Rhode, “Biological Innovation and Productivity Growth in the Antebellum Cotton Economy,” Journal of Economic History, 68 (Dec. 2008), 1123–71.
- Phillips, Ulrich B. "The Economic Cost of Slaveholding in the Cotton Belt," Political Science Quarterly 20#2 (Jun., 1905), pp. 257–275 in JSTOR
- Phillips, Ulrich B. "The Origin and Growth of the Southern Black Belts." American Historical Review, 11 (July, 1906): 798-816. in JSTOR
- Phillips, Ulrich B. "The Decadence of the Plantation System." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 35 (January, 1910): 37-41. in JSTOR
- Phillips, Ulrich B. "Plantations with Slave Labor and Free." American Historical Review, 30 (July, 1925): 738-53. in JSTOR
1860-present, national
- Cyclopedia of American agriculture; a popular survey of agricultural conditions, ed by L. H. Bailey, 4 vol 1907-1909. online edition highly useful compendium
- Brunner, Edmund de Schweinitz. Rural social trends (1933) online edition
- Conkin, Paul K. A Revolution Down on the Farm: The Transformation of American Agriculture since 1929 (2009) excerpt and text search
- Dean, Virgil W. An Opportunity Lost: The Truman Administration and the Farm Policy Debate. U. of Missouri Press, 2006. 275 pp.
- Gee, Wilson. The place of agriculture in American life (1930) online edition
- Lord, Russell. The Wallaces of Iowa (1947) online edition
- Mayer, Oscar Gottfried. America's meat packing industry; a brief survey of its development and economics. (1939) online edition
- McCormick, Cyrus. The century of the reaper; an account of Cyrus Hall McCormick, the inventor (1931) online edition
- Mullendore, William Clinton. History of the United States Food Administration, 1917-1919 (1941) online edition
- Nourse, Edwin Griswold. Three years of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (1937) online edition
- Perren, Richard, “Farmers and Consumers under Strain: Allied Meat Supplies in the First World War,” Agricultural History Review (Oxford), 53 (part II, 2005), 212–28.
- Sanderson, Ezra Dwight. Research memorandum on rural life in the depression (1937) online edition
- Schultz, Theodore W. Agriculture in an Unstable Economy. (1945) by Nobel-prize winning conservative online edition
- Shannon, Fred Albert. Farmer's Last Frontier: Agriculture, 1860-1897 (1945) online edition comprehensive survey
- Wilcox, Walter W. The farmer in the second world war (1947) online edition
1860-present, regional studies
- Cyclopedia of American agriculture; a popular survey of agricultural conditions, ed by L. H. Bailey, 4 vol 1907-1909. online edition highly useful compendium
- Black, John D. The Rural Economy of New England: A regional study (1950) online edition
- Clawson, Marion. The Western range livestock industry, (1950) online edition
- Dale, Edward Everett. The range cattle industry (1930) online edition
- Fite, Gilbert C. The Farmers' Frontier: 1865-1900 (1966), the west
- Friedberger, Mark. "The Transformation of the Rural Midwest, 1945-1985," Old Northwest, 1992, Vol. 16 Issue 1, pp 13-36
- Gisolfi, Monica Richmond, “From Crop Lien to Contract Farming: The Roots of Agribusiness in the American South, 1929–1939,” Agricultural History, 80 (Spring 2006), 167–89.
- Hahn, Barbara, “Paradox of Precision: Bright Tobacco as Technology Transfer, 1880–1937,” Agricultural History, 82 (Spring 2008), 220–35.
- Hurt, R. Douglas. "The Agricultural and Rural History of Kansas." Kansas History 2004 27(3): 194-217. Issn: 0149-9114 Fulltext: in Ebsco
- Larson, Henrietta M. The wheat market and the farmer in Minnesota, 1858-1900 (1926). online edition
- MacCurdy, Rahno Mabel. The history of the California Fruit Growers Exchange (1925). online edition
- Miner, Horace Mitchell. Culture and agriculture; an anthropological study of a corn belt county (1949) online edition
- Nordin, Dennis S. and Scott, Roy V. From Prairie Farmer to Entrepreneur: The Transformation of Midwestern Agriculture. Indiana U. Press, 2005. 356 pp.
- Sackman, Douglas Cazaux. Orange Empire: California and the Fruits of Eden (2005)
- Saloutos, Theodore. "Southern Agriculture and the Problems of Readjustment: 1865-1877," Agricultural history (April, 1956) Vol 30#2 58-76 online edition
- Sawers, Larry. "The Mule, the South, and Economic Progress." Social Science History 2004 28(4): 667-690. Issn: 0145-5532 Fulltext: in Project Muse and Ebsco
Environmental issues
- Craven, Avery Odelle. Soil Exhaustion as a Factor in the Agricultural History of Virginia and Maryland, 1606–1860 (1925)
- Cronon, William. Changes in the Land, Revised Edition: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England (2nd ed. 2003), excerpt and text search
- Cunfer, Geoff. On the Great Plains: Agriculture and Environment. (2005). 240 pp.
- McLeman, Robert, “Migration Out of 1930s Rural Eastern Oklahoma: Insights for Climate Change Research,” Great Plains Quarterly, 26 (Winter 2006), 27–40.
- Majewski, John, and Viken Tchakerian, “The Environmental Origins of Shifting Cultivation: Climate, Soils, and Disease in the Nineteenth-Century U.S. South,” Agricultural History, 81 (Fall 2007), 522–49.
- Melosi, Martin V.Martin V. MelosiMartin Victor Melosi is Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen University Professor and the director of the Center for Public History at the University of Houston in Houston, Texas. His research specialty is environmental and urban history...
, and Charles Reagan Wilson, eds. The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Volume 8: Environment (v. 8) (2007) - Miner, Craig. Next Year Country: Dust to Dust in Western Kansas, 1890–1940 (2006) 371 pp. isbn 0-7006-1476-1
- Silver, Timothy. A New Face on the Countryside: Indians, Colonists, and Slaves in South Atlantic Forests, 1500-1800 (1990) excerpt and text search
- Urban, Michael A., “An Uninhabited Waste: Transforming the Grand Prairie in Nineteenth Century Illinois, U.S.A.,” Journal of Historical Geography, 31 (Oct. 2005), 647–65.
Historiography
- Atack, Jeremy. "A Nineteenth-century Resource for Agricultural History Research in the Twenty-first Century." Agricultural History 2004 78(4): 389-412. Issn: 0002-1482 Fulltext: in University of California Journals and Ebsco. Large database of individual farmers from manuscript census.
- Bogue, Allan G. "Tilling Agricultural History with Paul Wallace Gates and James C. Malin." Agricultural History 2006 80(4): 436-460. Issn: 0002-1482 Fulltext: in Ebsco
Primary sources
- Bruchey, Stuart, ed. Cotton in the Growth of the American Economy: 1790-1860 (1967)
- Carter, Susan, at al. eds. The Historical Statistics of the United States (Cambridge U.P. 2006), 6 vol.; online in many academic libraries; 105 tables on agriculture
- Phillips, Ulrich B. ed. Plantation and Frontier Documents, 1649-1863; Illustrative of Industrial History in the Colonial and Antebellum South: Collected from MSS. and Other Rare Sources. 2 Volumes. (1909). online vol 1 and online vol 2
- Rasmussen, Wayne, ed. Agriculture in the United States: A Documentary History (3 vol 1975) 2800 pages of primary sources
- Schmidt, Louis Bernard. ed. Readings in the economic history of American agriculture (1925) online edition
- Sorokin, Pitirim et al, eds. A Systematic Sourcebook in Rural Sociology (3 vol. 1930), 2000 pages of primary sources and commentary; worldwide coverage