Essay On Marginal Farmers

By the late 1800s, America was transitioning from an economy based on agriculture to one based on industry. Although this transformation made the United Stated richer and more powerful than it had ever been before, it caused farmers to face numerous problems to which they found themselves unable to successfully overcome. Even though many farmers moved into the industrial workforce, the ones who wished to continue agricultural work faced problems such as overproduction and tariff policies. Also, the farmers lost their political power due to the decreased focus on agriculture.

In the late nineteenth century, small farmers faced increasing economic insecurities. Millions of tenant farmers were stuck in poverty due to the sharecropping system in the South.Farmers in the south weren't the only ones facing difficult times; farmers in the west had to mortgage their property to purchase seeds, fertilizer, and equipment. Farmers who mortgaged their property faced the chances of losing their farms when they were unable to repay their bank loans. Farmers then sought out to find a solution for their condition by going through the Farmers’ Alliance and the

As a person that has grown most of my own food, without chemicals or engine powered equipment, for the last 15 years and lesser so for many more years I can relate to some degree what it may have been like for a farmer in the 1800’s (I even live in a house built in 1850).

America — a land known for its ideals of freedom and new opportunities, a nation built under the idea that every man and women is created equal. However, the definition of what makes a person an American is entirely different from what it is that makes up America, itself. J.Hector St. John Crevecoeur, author of Letters from an American Farmer (1782), exposes what he believes makes an American. However, when compared to the standards of what makes an American in today’s world, it seems that becoming an American then was much simpler then, than it is today. The definition of an American is always evolving due to the influences of our changing nation. During a simpler time, Crevecoeur defined an American as someone of European

In the late 1800’s, America’s farmers faced deep financial insecurity with the fall of agricultural prices that kept them in poverty. Many farmers borrowed money from merchants and banks, and when it came time to repay their loans, they found themselves in the face of losing their land. Their financial troubles mainly attributed to the high freight rates that railroads charged the farmers in order to transport their crops, as well as high interest rates charged by loaners. This financial turmoil lead to the development of the Farmers’ Alliance, which advocated for lower interest rate loans by the Federal Government itself, so that way the farmers didn’t have to depend on independent banks and merchants for financial assistance. The Farmers’ Alliance eventually gained traction in politics and eventually formed itself into the People’s Party, or otherwise known as the Populist Party.

As crop prices fell, farmers were forced to mortgage their lands and take out loans in order to grow more and more crop just to break even. When these tactics were ultimately unsuccessful, the banks closed in and quickly foreclosed on the farmers estates. These mass foreclosures led to a belief among farmers that they were all slaves to their “eastern masters” and that only the freedom of unlimited silver would release them from their shackles.

From 1880-1906, western farmers were affected by multiple issues that they saw as threats to their way of life. The main threats to the farmers were railroads, trusts, and the government, because these institutions all had the power to drastically affect the ability of the farmers to make profits. Therefore, the farmers were not wrong to feel frustration toward those institutions when the institutions caused the farmers to live lives of increasingly extreme poverty.

This is unfair to the victim because it is not their fault that the person who borrowed their money had their crops ruined. their generosity should be repaid, whether or not the borrower was successful. Like the fairness to the accused, the punishments are hard but they are effective in establishing

1. Railroads- Railroads in each area were often controlled by one company, enabling those railroads to charge what they wanted. Railroads were the only way for many western farmers to get their produce to market and high prices were always charged. Railroads controlled storage, elevators, and warehouses so the prices the farmers paid were very high.

Arguing that the majority of farmers during the Great Depression benefitted from the government policies produced through President Roosevelt’s New Deal is an inaccurate claim. While history textbooks highlight the improvement of finances for people in rural areas in the United States of America, the personal experiences of family farmers contradict those textbooks. Writers of textbooks about American history should consider looking further into the delicate topic of how the Great Depression effected common farm families. In the West, farmers endured the Dust Bowl. In the North, people in rural areas competed to make a profit. Although statistics show the most economic damage of the Great Depression beginning at the end of 1929, small farm families refer to the effects of the Depression dating back as early as 1925 since government policies mostly benefitted large farm industries as small farms were forced to foreclose.

With tension on the rise, American farmers continue to demand reforms to lift their burden of debt as well as greater representation in government. Recently, with the tremendous growth in industrialization of oil and steel, migrants have felt the difficulties associated with farming and continue to fall into arrears.

Is that if a farmer or planter borrows money from another farmer and a storm comes in or a flood and it destroys the crops then the people who borrowed the money don't have to pay the people that they got the money from for a year. I think that these rules are not just because if one of the farmers who gave some of the money to one of the planters or farmers then what if the

From the early beginnings of America to well into the nineteenth century, America has been dominantly an agricultural country. Farming and the country life have always been a great part of the American culture. Thomas Jefferson even expressed his gratitude for the farming class by saying

Often times the tenant farmers, who are mainly whites, are only allowed to grow profitable crops such as tobacco or cotton. A popular form of tenant farming is sharecropping. After the United States abolished slavery, many former slaves worked as sharecroppers with little to no opportunity for social and economic advancement. Sharecroppers, more than often are African-American, rented lands and equipment from middle-class landowners and started the year off in debt. The sharecroppers, in this case, can keep the year’s end yield if and only if they meet the requirements from the landowners. Sometimes, the crop yields for that particular year were low against the original projections. This puts the landless farmers further in debt and in an extremely vulnerable place in which their only option is to continue working for the landowners by the system of debt peonage. The reason it is so difficult for these workers to escape their unfortunate situation is due to that they own no property. Their loans were usually declined because banks often gave out loans on “real estate security” (Money Money 13). This means that to receive any loans, the borrowers must have

The government's move to acquire fertile agriculture lands for industry has agitated the farmers who are dependent on the lands for livelihood. Ever since the notification regarding the acquisition was published by the state revenue department on December 4 2008, the farmers to be affected have been holding meetings in Haripura, Charal, Bol and Siyawada villages and have decided to launch an agitation against the acquisition of their lands. However Government declared that it was not taking for free and the price of the land at Rs 1,200 per square