Next Comes The Problems Of Financial And Farming Dimensions

Other than overproduction, another economic issue that drastically effected farmers was the Panic of 1893 that left millions of Americans unemployed, hungry, and homeless. In Susan Orcutt’s leter to Lorenzo D. Lewelling, she states, “I had the prettiest garden that you ever seen and the hail ruined it and I have nothing to look at my husband went a way to find work and came home last night and told me that would have to Starve he has bin in ten countys and did not get no work.” (Document H). Economic conditions such as overproduction, the Panic of 1893, and sharecropping systems that developed from it only led to the downfall of farmers.

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.

During the decades of the 1920s and 1930s, the United States underwent a series of changes that had a drastic effect on people across the nation. As the economy began to slow to a halt, millions of people were left broke and without jobs. As the country’s farmers were paralyzed with debt, food prices increased radically (McElvaine). During the mid-1930s, a series of droughts coupled with poor agricultural methods led to years of soil erosion and dust storms known as the Dust Bowl, a catastrophe that destroyed farms throughout the Southern Great Plains (Shafer, Low). As a result, many farmers were forced to abandon their land to seek employment elsewhere. These migrant workers, attracted by the fertility and familiarity of the area, traveled to California towns such as Salinas, where they labored tirelessly for wealthy planters (Cayton, Gorn, Williams). The events of the Great Depression Era, following years of difficulty and poverty, paved the way to an entirely new way of life for Americans.

After the end of the Civil War, the farmers who were in the South and plains states had suffered economic and social conditions. The main source of problems were from a decrease in the prices caused from overproduction and growing competition for world markets. Farmers believed the system was becoming

By the 1800 the factory system was introduced which caused the economy to turn from agricultural. Our text states that all the regions of the U.S. remained agricultural years following the Civil War, moreover New England, Middle Atlantic states, and the Midwest were poised for major industrial expansion the would last until the Great Depression (3).The Southern economy however remain agricultural well into the 20th century. Southern farms were large and by 1860 four- fifths

During the time period of 1865-1900 American agriculture changed greatly. Several components such as technology, government policy, and economic conditions caused agriculture to transform in the way it did. The main advancements in technology were new farming machinery and the growth in the railroad, both benefited the farmers grow and move crops. The government policies seemed to never favor the farmers, they passed laws making it harder for farmers to make a living. The economic conditions for farmers became rough due to the price of crops dropping from overproduction.

Farmers in America were upset due to the prices of their products going down, increasing

“By 1861, the start of the Civil War, Southern slave plantations supplied more than 80 percent of surging world demand for cotton. Britain alone bought one billion pounds, as did the rest of Europe and the United States.” 3 “The south, able to grow cotton very profitably at much lower price than ever before (or anywhere else), became the natural empire of King Cotton as the demand of the British and New England mills became insatiable.”4 The demand for cotton from England and New England prompted the expansion of cotton farms and plantations that eventually began pushing out the food-crops. Smaller food-crop farmers sold out to larger plantation owners creating a shortage of food growth. The South’s economy began to depend on the cotton crop.

“Many California farms were corporate-owned. They were larger and more modernized that those of the southern plains, and the crops were unfamiliar”(American Experience). When families left their homes, most went to California to look for jobs. However, there was already a high unemployment rate because of The Great Depression. Also, when farmers got to California, the farming ways were different than what they were use to. Finding a job within their range of skill was very challenging. “With the onset of World War 1, the demand for wheat had been astonishing. Farmers were paid record prices. Thus, to the farmer, it made sense to turn every inch of the Southern Plains into profit. During the war, the land produced millions and millions of bushels of wheat and corn, which helped to feed America as well as numerous nations overseas”(United States History). War had affected farmer’s choices a great deal. Farmers had put so much effort into their plantations. When the drought came, all their hard work had been destroyed. The farmers did not have their beautiful plantations anymore and were not able to make the money to pay for their homes. Many farmers were kicked out of their homes. This was the beginning of an unstoppable

     Many different things attributed to the plight in the late nineteenth century of the farmers. The American farmer faced many problems from the protective tariffs which caused great overproduction of foods such as corn, wheat, and cotton (docs 3,5), speculation in farm products, over-greedy middlemen, and exorbitant transportation rates. The farmers in the west were also losing money to banks in the east. The banks were giving the farmers a high interest rate which they could not easily pay. (doc 2) The transportation rates put the farmers in debt greatly. To find new markets to sell their goods, farmers needed to ship their food else where and find new customers. To do this, farmers needed to transport their food, usually by train. When they would do this the railroad companies would charge much more for the farmer than the big businessman because the businessmen would give donations to the railroad companies while the small farmers would not. To make up

The early 1900’s was a time of turmoil for farmers in the U.S especially farmers in the Great Plains region. When World War I ended, farmers began to over produce crops so they could sell them at a low price. With low prices at an all time low all the citizens wanted crops which helped farmers make a large profit. Of the ninety-seven acres, almost thirty-two million acres were being cultivated. As the farmers ran out of space to farm, caring only about profit, they started plowing grasslands that were not made for planting. As time went on, year after year farmers kept plowing and due to the lack of rainfall soil began to lose its fertility. With infertile soil and dry land, the wheat crops began to die and eventually started to blow away with the winds. During the 1930's, the Great Plains was plagued with a drought, a long period of dryness, which brought demise to many of the farmers in the region. The drought started in the

The early 1900's were a time of turmoil for farmers in the United States, especially in the Great Plains region. After the end of World War I, overproduction by farmers resulted in low prices for crops. When farmers first came to the Midwest, they farmed as much wheat as they could because of the high prices and demand. Of the ninety-seven acres, almost thirty-two million acres were being cultivated. The farmers were careless in their planting of the crop, caring only about profit, and they started plowing grasslands that were not made for planting.

The prices of staple goods dropped dramatically from the1860s to the 1890s. The farmers were losing large amounts of money that they desperately needed. The tariff on manufactured goods vexed the farmers because even though their own profits were decreasing, the prices of important manufactured goods were not due to absence of foreign competition. The farmers were further bothered by the domestic marketing system which allowed numerous middlemen to take large shares of the profit of agriculture. There was a shortage of credit, which made it difficult to finance the construction of necessary improvements. The farmers were plagued by numerous natural disasters including tornadoes, floods, and droughts. These conditions, which could destroy property and crops, also provided a difficult environment to grow crops. If the crops could not be grown, the farmer had no means of supporting him and his family. After a boom in the mid-1880s, the population of western farm states increased enormously. This large influx of people contributed to the destruction of open-range cattle raising. A prolonged drought following these boom years devastated the farmers and many soon returned East with no money and low morale. Thus, farmers were dissatisfied with government policy and politicians began to discuss resolutions to their problems. Many farmers began to

American farmers found themselves facing hard times after the Civil War. In the West, the railroad had opened up enormous opportunities. Farmers were now able to cultivate land that had previously been to far from the Eastern markets to make a profit. However, that opportunity came at a price. The farmers increasing dependence on the railroads and other commercial

Finally, global economic issues have an immense influence on the world of coffee. Throughout history there has been a pattern that coffee producing countries are economically worse off than those that are consuming the coffee. Pendergrast mentions that “in 1950 the average income in consuming countries was three times that of coffee-growing nations. By the late 1960s it was five times great” (270). With that said, many producing coffee countries were facing endemics and malnourished peoples because workers were receiving absurdly low wages thus placing them into poverty and human suffering (271). Specifically, although 90 percent of El Salvador’s exports consisted of coffee in the 1930s, they agonized from “‘low wages, incredible filth…[under] conditions in fact not far removed from slavery’” (168). Global economic issues of these producing countries lead to dictators easily gaining power such as those in Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Honduras (170). Not only was politics a matter that resulted from global economic issues, “the high interest rates from financial institutions and price [squeezes]” lead to the economic struggle of farmers like those from Colombia due to